on our second day we woke up very tired, although we went to bed early. Since our Hotel was a little noisy (the walls seem to be made out of paper...) and we were fighting our jet-lag we hadn't slept very well.
Nonetheless, we headed out around 11 am to get something small to eat.
In Taipei you will find small local restaurants everywhere.
Since I wanted a bao (Chinese filled bun) we headed into the first small restaurant were I saw bao's displayed. The older women working there did not speak English, but she had an English menu were the translation was written beside the Chinese names so we could point at what we wanted and she just read the Chinese. She also wanted to know if we wanted our milk tea and soy milk in bigger or smaller size (we knew what she wanted when she pointed to the different sized cups) and something else, but it didn't seem to matter much that we didn't understand what she meant.
The drinks were a bit too sweet, but delicious, and the bao was very good. Soy milk somehow tastes a bit different from the soy milk you get in Europe. It's a bit richer in flavor.
As we were walking towards the 228 peace memorial park I thought about how we were treated by the women of the restaurant. The only way I can describe it would be rude, but in a kind way. The Taiwanese are not as shy as the Japanese. They tend to be louder, more direct and don't fear interaction with non-Chinese speaking tourists like us. They sometimes seem rude, however always seem to want to help us the best they can. I really like that. I somehow feel more included by them than I did by the Japanese (although the Japanese always were super sweet and friendly).
Our first stop was the 228 peace memorial park. The 28th of February 1947 was the beginning of an anti-government uprising in Taiwan that was violently suppressed by the government, where thousand of civilians were killed.
Afterwards we walked to one of the most famous tourist spots in Taipei, the Chiang Kai-shek memorial hall (maybe a little ironic after visiting the 228 peace park...).
We accidentally just arrived in time for the changing of guards.
Next stop was Daan park, full of weird looking birds and quite trustful squirrels.
I fell in love with the food and the bubble tea they sell rigth on the other side of the street in 2015 and looked for the place online (searching for about an hour or so on the internet). It is that good! :)
If you are in Taipei and want to try it: in google maps you can find it as "Lan Jia Traditional Taiwanese Snack" near Gongguan station. The bubble tea they sell right in front is also the best bubble tea I've tried so far.
You can either sit inside of the restaurant of just get the gua bao (what we ate). The queue at either places might be long, but don't be fooled, it doesn't take long until you get your food/bubble tea. Language is also not a problem if you order the gua bao at the small stand in front of the restaurant, because you can just indicate how many you want. :) The same goes for the bubble tea, where they then only want to know (in English) if you want ice or not.
The gua bao costs 60 (a little less than 2 Euros) Taiwanese dollar, the bubble tea 40 (around 1 Euro and a bit).
Later we went to Longshan Temple before heading inside the Hotel again.
P
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