Taipei Snack Attack

– By Passionfruit

Jetting north for a dose of a larger and more international city

It’s like going to San Francisco or NYC for us, just a lot easier here. We just hop on the the HSR (high speed rail) and within an hour, going 186 MPH, we arrive in Taiwan’s capital, Taipei. Round trip is $1400 NT ($44 USD). A quick shout out to public transit in this country. It’s efficient, modern and clean. The HSR reaches almost 90% of the population and runs along the entire west coast. Nangang (north) to Zuoying (south) in as little as 105 minutes.


Mini Mandarin Lesson
Taipei is often pronounced Taibei by locals. Why? The second half of the word means North, in Mandarin it’s pronounced Běi 


Missing you at Midnight
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A fav that serves drinks with names like, Missing you at Midnight (black tea, milk, red beans bobii), Don’t want to Grow Up (strawberry, mango, milk, yogurt) and Uji Snow (matcha, milk, original bobii)
Bad news for my Skinny Jeans
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After 7 months, we found bread nirvana in Taiwan, finally. THIS IS THE REAL DEAL. Dare we say it matches if not beats our favorite bread in PDX (Little T and Grand Central)?
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We lost track of place and time chatting with Stanfani, who was working the counter this day, as she used to live in Cali and Beaverton and also loves food. Small world.
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Bread porn and yes, our freezer is filled with it.
Fine Dining at the mod Mume

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I like tequila. I like passionfruit so this was a no brainer: “Slash” – Don Julio Reposado, Ardbeg 10y, Cointreau and Passionfruit. Smokey, sweet-tart deliciousness.

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Hipster artisanal cocktail maker. Check.

Taipei does cocktails. Taichung, not so much so we like to enjoy a few of these while we’re in the big city. This is Diary. A hip little restaurant and bar that’s become a fav.

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Coffee Shops. Check.
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Named Stand Up Coffee for a reason.

WE LIKE BIG BUNS AND WE CAN NOT LIE
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HOT DOGS IN BASKETS
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Pretty stone garden wall
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Museum of Fine Arts

The Daniel Lee exhibit was amazing (4 photos below).

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108 Windows. (video installation). The 6 realms of buddhism: heaven, human, Asura, beast, hungry ghosts, and hell. Hybrid character portraits are projected onto 108 small circular plates, like different windows that connect our past and future; accompanied by the sound of echoing bells. It was a lovely space to sit in.
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This was a massive full wall animation featuring a few of these creatures swimming. Captivating.
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Because the feels like temp is 100+ I decided I’m allowed to wear a muumuu. FYI: The spelling is derived from the Hawaiian mu’umu’u, which in Hawaiian is properly pronounced moo-oomoo-oo. When the word entered English in the early 20th century, the apostrophes were dropped and the pronunciation simplified to moo-moo. 
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MODERN DANCE SHOW

Cloud Gate, is in my opinion, the best modern dance in Taiwan. We’ve seen them in Taichung and they blew me away. We got lucky, because this night they were performing free, outside at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall! We met up with Shuchen and Eric to check it out.

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I’m obsessed with Shuchen’s turtles. They’re almost as cute as corgis!
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Jianguo Weekend Flower Market completes the weekend
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One thought on “Taipei Snack Attack

  1. I want to live in Taiwan….part to the year…..How come things are so harsh and sad and dreary here in the U S A–and also in mainline China—how did this place somehow escape all that fear and loathing?
    I like best: that stone wall, the Buddhist image meditation space and THE BREAD!

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