饒河街觀光夜市 (Raohe St. Night Market) Raohe Street near Songshan Railway Station
——————– For my aunt’s last minute shopping, we went to 饒河街觀光夜市 (Raohe St. Night Market).
饒河街觀光夜市 (Raohe St. Night Market) was the very 1st night market in Taiwan. It was established 1987 when the street was reconstructed.
The street is 600 meters long so you can imagine how many hours we stayed at the place. After a few hours, we even stopped over a massage place! hahaha that’s how tiring it was 😛
The Owl is the night market’s mascot because street vendors only work at night. That’s basically when owls are active right? If you look closely, you could see the logo on the entrance of the place.
As expected, like with all the night markets in Taiwan, you would see lots of people (lots! lots!), food (snaks galore!) & shops (shop the night away) It will take you hours just to be able browse through all of them!
饒河街觀光夜市 (Raohe St. Night Market) was where I bought a luggage 🙂
——————– Whenever I travel, I always look for a famous zoo of the place. This is why we made sure that Taipei Zoo is part of our itinerary.
I find it so cool that we can even use our Taipei Metro ticket to enter the place. Entrance fee is at 60NT while children between 6-12 years of age, students, military & police officers & low-income families can get in at 30NT.
We just rode the Taipei Metro and while we walked towards the entrance, I noticed that the floor has marks of footprints from animals (similar to what hollywood has on their streets wherein hollywood stars have their names printed on the streets).
Since we have limited time due to a plan to go to some other places that day (& my aunt only wanted to see the panda), we were only able to visit some parts of the zoo. Still, I enjoyed my stay at Taipei Zoo! I wish we had more time though..
Here are the display areas we visited:
Panda House
me wearing the panda hat at the souvenir store.
This is the best area that the zoo has since ofcourse Panda is the most popular animal in China. We lined up just to be able to see 2 cute pandas and have limited time to look and take pictures of them coz obviously there are lots of people waiting for their turn.
The 1st panda is sleeping!!! And he really didn’t care that hundreds of people lined up to see him! hahaha I took a video of him sleeping until the end of my turn, he was still sleeping. Cuteness!
The 2nd panda is eating!!! Total cuteness, he was munching on the grass like he was enjoying it soooo much! You better see this 🙂
Koala House
Another popular area in the zoo. Located near the Panda House, the Koalas are brought in from Australia. We were able to see “Patrick” the Koala. He was just curled up on the tree though so wasn’t able to see his face clearly but nevertheless, still a nice sight to see 🙂
Amphibian & Reptile House
One of the bigger indoor display areas in the zoo. It houses over 90 species of amphibians & reptiles. So many different species of each animal (snakes, turtles, iguanas, frogs, etc).
I saw several species & took pictures of them: Green Tree Python
Double-crested Basilisk
Iguana – seems like the animals really enjoy eating hehehe! I find this uber-cute!
Turtles – several kinds of turtles in the area. It’s just funny to see them doing different things. I took a video of turtles walking around, turtles eating even (EVEN!) turtles making love! ahahahaha
African Animal Area
6-hectared area, we were able just to glance as my family wanted to leave the zoo already. They stayed a lil while coz they know I wanted to check out the other areas. I wasn’t able to see the monkeys & the giraffe but I was able to see the elephant for quite a while.
Here is the elephant we saw walking around his area hehehe 😛
If ever I get the chance to visit the place again, I’ll visit the other areas like Formosan Animal Area, Fern Garden, Insect Valley, Children’s Zoo, Asian Tropical Rainforest Animal Area, Water Garden, Australian Animal Area, Desert Animal Area, Bird World, Temperate Zone Animal Area, Wetland Park, Insectarium, Education Center, Conservation Corridor, Children’s Theater, Xinguang Special Exhibit House, Nocturnal Animal House, Cool Energy Conservation House & Penguin House.
This is a must-go if you’re in Taipei. The rest of our pictures can be found here.
One thing that I love about Taiwan is their Taipei Rapid Transit System. It’s just super impressive!
If I live there, I probably won’t even think of buying a car since it’s so accessible (unless you want to go out after midnight).
Taipei Rapid Transit System otherwise called as å°åŒ—æ·é‹ (Taipei Metro) is a rapid transport system that serves a large part of Taipei. It’s very efficient and technology is advanced and environment-friendly too. The usual 3-hour ride can just be somewhere you can reach for only an hour with Taipei Metro.
I also saw how disciplined the people there are when I rode the Taipei Metro. Here are just some observations why I said so:
they patiently line up while waiting for the train.
they wait for people to go down the train before going in.
when the train comes, they don’t push people around in order to get in, they follow the line patiently.
they voluntarily give up their seats for pregnant women, parents w/ kids, old people. I even saw a person giving up seat for a young foreigner who brought lots of things. I’m pretty sure that foreigner have this mindset that ‘geez Taiwan is such a great place!’.
since people are not allowed to eat, drink, spit, smoke in the train, the train is pretty neat.
People waiting in the train. See the lines on the floor? It’s a guide to where we should line up to wait. It’s not directly on the door so people going down will not have a hard time leaving the train. On the ceiling, you’ll see a sign, it shows how much time before the train arrives.
You’ll see from inside the train the current destination, next destination & also the previous destination. It keeps you informed so you won’t get lost. Maps are also on some parts of the trains 🙂
The dark blue seats are made for elders, pregnant women, parents w/ small kids/babies. Even if there are no more seats available and people are already standing up. You won’t see people seating down there unless they are elders, pregnant women, parents w/ kids. Impressive!
Far end section of the train where handicapped people can ride & also people with bikes. Hey, you can bring your bikes on the train! Cool isn’t it?
Escalators in the station. Do you notice that the people just stayed on the right side? It’s courtesy for people who are rushing. You go to the left if you wanna go ahead and climb up the escalator as fast as you can.
Taipei Metro operates everyday from 6AM to 12 Midnight. Peak hours are 7-9AM & 5-7:30PM.
There are 3 types of tickets for Taipei Metro (Take note: you can even use the card for buses!):
IC Single-Journey Ticket – for passengers taking one-way trips
EasyCard – for passengers taking multiple trips. Ticket price is 500NT (100NT deposit & 400NT usable balance). You can recharge your card through the information centers in the station and also through the automatic recharging machines.
One-day Pass – unlimited travel of one-day use. Ticket price is 200NT (50NT deposit & 150NT usable balance). We can refund the deposit within 3 days of the activation date.
Ofcourse, there are some things that are prohibited w/c I think are valid. Better follow them or else you will need to pay 7,500NT as penalty 😛 Here they are:
Smoking
Spitting
Littering
eating & drinking (even chewing gum)
There are also lots of signs for etiquette, environmental awareness, reminders, etc. all over the place.
I really hope we could follow the same transit system for the other countries especially the Philippines. For Metro Manila, I know it’s close to impossible. This is my challenge for the next president, hope he/she could plan for this so we can have something similar in the future. This can definitely help the terrible traffic problem that we have in the country.
——————– For 250NT, we’ll be able to see this 15-hectare place built to show the works of 朱銘 (Juming), an international sculptor.
朱銘 (Juming) was trained as a woodcarver but later developed his skill and ventured into bronze, styrofoam, ceramics & stainless steel. All we can see in 朱銘美術館 (Juming Museum).
The museum opened July 2004 together with the Taiwan Astronomical museum wherein people stayed at the Taichi square to gaze at the stars. Apparently, Juming’s Taichi series is the most popular from all his works. Let me show you what we saw in the museum. I’ll divide it via collection/series:
åå¹´æ›²è— (10 Years Collection) – Various Artists
There is one piece that I find interesting. They have to put electric fan in front of it for us to see the full effect. Here’s a video:
Taichi Series – 朱銘 (Juming) is well-known for this. It was his mentor Mr. Yang who influenced him to start learning Taichi. His learnings can be seen through his works as shown below. I enjoyed looking at the different pieces, they even have Tai Chi shirts & other stuff at the museum souvenir shop.
Living World Series – While 朱銘 (Juming) studied in New York, he developed Living World Series which was put to display in New York. He was able to sold 2 pieces w/c is uncommon for new artists. He also was able to experiment more while working on this series like using sponges & ropes into his pieces.
Among all the areas, my favorite is the science area. You’ll see familiar names like the ff.:
Michael Faraday – philosopher contributed to electromagnetism & electrochemistry.
Thomas Edison & æŽé 哲 (Dr. Yuan Tseh Lee) – Thomas Edison is inventor of the light bulb & motion picture camera while Dr. æŽé 哲 (Dr. Yuan Tseh Lee) is a chemist who won the noble prize for chemistry last 1986.
Benjamin Franklin – 1 of the founding fathers of the United States of America.
蔡倫 (Cai Lun) – inventor of paper and paper making process.
Sir Isaac Newton – one of the most influential men in history.
金包ç†è€è¡— (Jin Bao Lane Street) is one of the famous spot in 金山 (Jinshan).
It’s the oldest street in Town.
My impression of the place is that there are just tooo many people, it’s a busy, busy, busy street. You’d see a lot of goose there as it is Taiwan’s specialty and you’d see people piling up/lining up just to be able to eat it. It’s like full of people who hasn’t eaten in their lifetime (ofcourse that’s not the case, it’s the appeal of the place).
It felt like a circus, too many people lining up for food (Street food!). If you’re used to fine dining, you’ll not dare eat here. Since my aunt and her friend are both from the states, they asked if we could just eat at a restaurant or place with better ambiance and not on the street. So we ended up eating at a dining place (also at Jin Bao Lane Street, I’ll blog about it on my next post) coz they didn’t want to go through the chaos.
As for me, I’m quite adventurous, I wouldn’t mind trying that out. Maybe next time? 🙂
