Bringing my parents around Taipei

I was in-charge of bringing my parents around Taipei for the day as my eldest sis had to head out to buy some leather goods. In the morning, we went to the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall but we did not managed to watch the guards changing ceremony as we were late by a few minutes. We also went to the Taipei 101 but there wasn't anything interesting there. I decided to bring them to Longshan Temple and Huaxi Street as my parents would probably be more interested in temples and walking in local markets rather than big shopping malls. Also, we read online that there's some slithing of the snake's throat at Huaxi Street which my dad wanted to see. However, when we reached there, there were restaurants selling snake dishes but we did not manage to see the slithing of the throats. We had our lunch there (normal food, not snakes) and it was still terribly early with no plans for the day!

Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall

Taipei 101

Longshan Temple

Huaxi Street

As such, I decided that maybe we could do a half-day trip to Yang Ming Shan. I have been there before 2 years ago but it was raining at that time which made it too wet and cold to explore the place properly. We reached Yang Ming Shan at about 1pm, which is considered rather late as the last bus out is at 530pm. The weather was really bad (same as 2 years ago) - rainy and cold. However, we braced ourselves for the cold and chose a few scenic spots to explore.

We managed to cover 3 scenic spots in the end - Xiao You Keng 小油坑, Leng Shui Keng 冷水坑 and Qing Tian Gang 擎天崗.

When we arrived at Xiao You Keng, the smell of sulphur filled the air. The rocks here have volcanic activity with steam emitting from them as well.

Next up, we went to Leng Shui Keng, which had a public bath area. It was my first time seeing a public bath so it was quite a shocking (and gross) sight for me to see old naked women. Haha, there was also an outdoor section where you could soak your feet in hot water.

We were ambitious and decided to cover one last spot before leaving. We went to Qing Tian Gang, which is a flat area with grasslands and animals! This place reminded me of New Zealand :)

For dinner, we went to the Shilin Night Market. My parents were 100% tired by that time and we headed back right after eating.

#Taiwan #Taipei #Travel #Family #Yangmingshan #Shilin