[Taiwan hiking diaries] Bihu trail 碧湖步道, Liyu Mountain trail 鯉魚山步道, Japanese food at 金泰日本料理, dessert at Patisserie Iching 一晴甜點

If you’ve been following the news, you’d have read that there’s a spike of local cases in Taiwan.  We did this hike weeks back when there weren’t a ton of local cases yet and we were still free to go out hiking.  The last time that we went hiking with T’s colleagues was in February...

[Taiwan hiking diaries] Qinglong Ridge 青龍嶺 and Mt. Dadong trail 大棟山步道

We added another mountain to our hike list - Qinglong Ridge 青龍嶺 and Mt. Dadong trail 大棟山步道 in Shulin! Granted, we didn’t walk the entire route because we didn't know that we had already drove past the starting point. Oops! That's something we can do next time. Before we went to Shulin for our hike,...

Taiwan Roadtrip (台灣環島), Part 2 – Kaohsiung cafes & Moon World Landscape Park (月世界地景公園)

We reached our final destination (Kaohsiung) late evening, and our first order of business was dinner. Good thing T's family had roast duck for dinner and left some for us to eat. We also bought midnight snacks because we got hungry. The next day, we went to Around Cafe (流浪咖啡) for brunch. It's a 2-story...

Taiwan Roadtrip (台灣環島), Part 1 – Taichung 台中, Changhua 彰化, Chiayi 嘉義

We finally pushed through with our roadtrip. We took a multi-day trip that started in Taipei, passed through Taichung, Changhua and Chiayi, and ended in Kaohsiung (total of 399km!) for the Lunar New Year holiday. After the holiday, we left Kaohsiung and went to Tainan and then Taichung before arriving back in Taipei. I'm going...

First hike of 2021 – Mt. Sanjiaolun 三角崙山, aka Matcha Mountain 抹茶山 (Jiaoxi, Yilan 宜蘭礁溪)

Last year, we were able to reach my goal of doing at least 3 hikes. We did Qixingshan, Jinmianshan, and Guanyinshan. In January, the weather on weekends wasn't as cooperative as it always rained so we weren't able to do any hikes. Luckily, on the first weekend of February, we finally had good weather! We...

Ending 2020 and celebrating my 31st in Kaohsiung (Harbour City, Now&Then Cafe, Rich Tiger, Ruh Cafe, Izakaya)

I meant to post this in early January but it took me a bit longer to work on my 2020 highlights and decade highlights posts so I wasn’t able to work on this. Whoops. We had a long weekend from the 31st of December til the 2nd of January so T and I decided to...

Hsinchu day 4: 楊家意麵, Ink Coffee, back to Taipei

Since it was our last day and we were a bit tired from the previous days (we're getting old, man…) we decided to sleep in. I also asked the Front Desk for a late check out. Took this one last snap of our view before leaving. After checking out, we tried this 50-ish year old...

Hsinchu day 3: Beipu Bald Cypress 落羽松, Beipu Old Street 北埔老街, Beipu Cold Springs 北埔冷泉, Nanliao Fishing Harbor’s 南寮漁港魚鱗天梯

On this day, we explored the Beipu area and ended the day in Nanliao. Our first agenda was Beipu Liutang Bald Cypress because I was hoping to see the orange-red fall cypress trees, but unfortunately they haven’t changed colors (maybe cos the weather's not as cold?) and are still as green as can be. That...

Hsinchu day 2: Food tripping around 新竹市城隍廟, Neiwan 內灣

Some of T's colleagues came to Hsinchu for a day trip so all of us met up and did a bit of exploring. We hit up different places around 新竹市城隍廟 for a mini-food trip: 鴨肉許(許二姊) for duck meat, duck’s blood (which I only took a bite of because I'm not a fan of blood), and...

Hsinchu day 1: Hill Top Café, Hukou Old Street 湖口老街, Hsinchu beach 新月沙灘, Hotel Royal Hsinchu 新竹老爺飯店, The Burgers 豐盛堂

We took a weekend trip to Hsinchu, which marked our first long trip using XMAX. The main reason we went there was to use T's domestic travel credits from his company. We chose Hsinchu because we hadn't been there and it's not too far away from Taipei. Day 1: Depart Taipei -> Hill Top Coffee...