BUS 72 Itinerary Summer 2019 – 6 Days Of Adventure in Taiwan

** This trip includes walking around some hilly country side areas that all students are required to walk above 6 miles each day plus

hiking or cycling, tour bus and assistant will not be provided**

Taipei was a whirlwind of delicious food, night markets unforgettable day trips and outdoor adventures. Taipei was incredible to stay 6 days in as on the itinerary so you can see what this super charged Asian capital.

The most surprising travel destination I’ve been to in over a year, Taiwan, and Taipei in particular, made we realize that the lesser visited destinations really are the one’s we should all be going to.

This bustling capital offers visitors a chance to escape to nature and get away from it all or to immerse themselves in some of the most modern experiences available. Plus, it’s home to arguably the best night markets in Asia so you will never go hungry after your daily adventures.

We will spend a week exploring the best this city has to offer and would highly recommend you check out as many of these places as you can on a trip to Taipei.

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6 Days in Taipei Itinerary

Day 1: Arrival and Shilin Night Market

As we didn’t arrive in Taipei until quite late at night, our first day simply involved making my way from the airport to my hostel and eating my way around the Shilin Night Market. While in many countries going for food is simply something that needs to be done to give you energy for other more exciting endeavours, eating in Taipei will quickly become one of your favourite activities! We intentionally booked hotel located just around the Taipei’s largest and most popular night market, which meant we were in food heaven that first night.

The choice of food at the night markets can be overwhelming, and our favourite way to tackle this problem was to walk through the entire market once to see what was on offer and then slowly make our way back to the stands that I liked the most.

I started off with some traditional dumplings (you can’t go to Taipei and NOT eat dumplings!) and then tried some (not so traditional but equally popular) Taiwanese Fried chicken. I also munched my way through some extra long potato sticks and joined a very long queue to buy some friend mushrooms – simply because joining the queue seemed like the right thing to do! I also bought one last small snack to try, probably my favourite of the night at located at the far side of the market, a mouth-watering pulled pork wrap covered in all sorts of delicious secret salts and flavours!

How to get here: Take the metro to Jiantan MRT Station and walk across the road.

Day 2: Cafes, Cartoons and Creative Parks

On my second day in Taipei, we visit cartoon cafes and to check out the creative parks that Taiwan is apparently quite famous for. We purchased a metro card (definitely do this…makes life so easy) and the we jumped on the metro to Dongmen MRT station which is the nearest metro to the super funky Yongkang Street – known for its small boutiques and souvenir shops, cute cafes and umbrella shops (people here LOVE umbrellas!).

We will do some shopping in Zhongxiao, which is home to many large department stories and shops like popular high street brands like Zara and H&M, so we headed to that area to do some shopping and explore the district. While the main streets are where you will find the big department stores, the back streets are home to cute cafes, a great selection of restaurants and bars and some beautiful boutique stores.

How to get here: Take Taipei MRT-Banan Line to Zhongxiao Xinsheng Station.

Where to stay: A good option is to stay in Ximending shopping district so if you want to do late night shopping you won’t have to worry about missing the last metro home.

We spent the afternoon in the Ximending Shopping district, shopping paradise if you’ve come to Taipei for some retail therapy. There’s also an insane amount of street food on offer here, and the area really comes alive at night. If you’re here in the evening be sure to

queue up and buy some Hot-Star Fried Chicken, one of the most popular and famous Taipei street food and only available in this area.

Finally, we finished off our day of eating, shopping and cafe visits at the hilarious Modern

Toilet Restaurant.

Day 3: Hiking Yangmingshan National Park

We are looking to get back to nature during your visit, a hiking trip to Yangmingshan National Park should definitely be on your Taipei Itinerary. This was one of my favourite excursions of our entire trip and I couldn’t believe how easy it was to get out of the city, especially considering what a huge metropolitan city Taipei is! We hopped on a bus (the R5 or R15 bus) just a 5 minute walk from our hostel and 30 minutes later we were inside one of Taiwan’s seven National Parks!

There are so many beautiful things to see and do here, but hiking to the top of Yangmingshan peak and admiring the view of Taipei is obviously the most popular. We can take a bus right to the visitor centre and start the hike from there. Takes about 2 hours to go up and down, depending on how fit you are how fast we hike uphill!! We also visited the Lengshuikeng Hot Springs, and it was cool to deep our feet in the thermally heated water. The entire area is still active, which makes sense considering how many volcanos there are in Taiwan!

LUNCH: We are some beef soup in the cafe close to the hot springs – it was pretty much your basic quick meal but wasn’t bad and kept us going until we got back into the city. It was freezing cold so warmed us right up which was a bonus. Bring snacks if you can!

We also hiked around near the Milk Pond and the Sulphur Lake (it stinks), crossed the beautiful Fenglin Suspension Bridge and enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine with the spectacular backdrop of the mountains in the distance.

How to get here: Take Taipei metro to Jiantan Station and then catch the bus outside on the main road. Buses R5 or R15 both go to the park, leaving about every 15 or 20 minutes.

Day 4: Day trip to Shifen Waterfall and Jiufen

The day trip we did to Shifen Waterfall and Jiufen Old Street was probably the best thing we did while in Taipei. It’s famous for having a quaint old street with lanterns hanging off all the shops, and lots of old style tea houses, but no one tells you about the amazing views from the town, how close it is from the ocean and about the incredible hikes nearby.

As our first stop of the day was Shifen Old Street and Shifen Waterfall – two must visit places in Taipei and Taiwan. Taking the train here was all part of the adventure and reminded me how much I love travelling my train. Shifen Old Street is most famous because of this train…which runs right down the main street of Shifen. When the train arrives in town, all the tourists on the streets have to quickly get off the tracks and start waving at all the new tourists. Once off the train, there are lots of delicious street food options and you can pay a few dollars to paint your own sky lantern and let it off into the sky.

You don’t need more than an hour in Shifen town itself, we can easily walk in about 20 minutes, but the scooter was fun and worth the money. Shifen Waterfall is spectacular. I was blown away by how beautiful it was – one of the nicest waterfalls I’ve ever visited!

How to get here: Take the Keelung-bound train to Ruifang

Day 5: Hot springs

We then hopped on the metro to an area famous for the Beitou Hot Springs, with the water in the stream running through town boiling hot and heated from the local volcanic mountains.

After Beitou, we decided to see as much of the top attractions in Taipei as possible head to Taipei 101, a building that was once the tallest in the world and is now the 5th tallest in Asia, and head right on up to the Starbucks on the 35th floor, said to be the tallest Starbucks in the world. You can also do what I did the first time I visited and buy an observatory ticket like most tourists do – that will set you back almost US $20.

Next be sure to visit one of the most famous buildings in Taipei, the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. Taiwan has actually been tied with the legacy of Chiang Kai-Shek since the beginning of the revolution and this memorial hall seeks to immortalize his memory while also promoting the teaching of true history in the country. In 2017, the government announced plans to focus the information presented within the memorial hall on history, suffering, and human rights. Themes that tie together the like of President Kai-Shek and these ideals are already being explored through various exhibits and presentations within the hall.

The beautiful Lungshan Temple, which dates back almost 300 years, is the most well-known one in all of Taiwan and is an interesting place to visit in daytime or the evening. The

temple showcases traditional Chinese architecture and was built to honor both Buddist and Taoist beliefs. The temple has long been a meeting place for those new to the city.

Day 7: Enjoy the last day breakfast then shopping nearby the hotel and free time before departure in airport.

We will enjoy the Taiwanese breakfast and shop around before we depart to the Airport.