Taipei Day 2

Day 2 started off with the search for soup dumpling, a Taiwanese speciality that's supposed to be amazing. Our search lead us to Taipei 101, which we were told constantly that it was the second tallest building in the world, which was a lie, it is currently the 4th, and will drop to 5th later this year. Regardless it is really tall with 101 floors or 509 meters in hight. 

Din Tai Fung is a Michelin star restaurant that specializes in xiaolongbao, or soup dumpling for us english speakers. We got there just after 10 and there was already a line. Luckily we were number 9 and they sat us early at 10:30 to try and deal with the crowd. The place smelt amazing. The kitchen was  separated by only a window so you could see you the chefs/dumpling artists hard at work.  

I ordered the Truffle Pork Mushroom Dumpling they were a little pricier at the staggering cost of $15 Canadian (I know it's a little crazy when that's an expensive meal), and they were worth every bit of it. They were by far one of the best things I've had in my life. 

Soup dumpling are similar to regular dumpling in that they have some meat filling with steamed dough around them, what makes them special is that the juice of the meat and veggies are trapped in there creating a soup or broth. The key is to eat them with out burning your mouth or squirting boiling soup onto the person sitting across from you. This is extreme eating. Avoiding injury to yourself and your table guest can be achieved by following these steps carefully. 

Step 1

Pick up the dumpling using chopsticks and dip it into the vinegar-soy sauce mixture (you can also add hot peppers, I choose to forgo that), place your dumpling in your over sized spoon.

Step 2

Gently poke your dumpling so that the soup leaks out into the spoon. If you are too aggressive with this step you run the risk of having hot soup squirt into your eye

Step 3

Slurp the soup out of the spoon and eat the dumpling. 

So good!

Next stop the observation deck at Taipei 101. To get to the top of the tower actually cost me more than my Michelin star meal, which was a little ridiculous. But the top of the tower was impressive. As we went up the elevator our ears popped twice. We were on the 91st floor, and there was still 10 more to the top. You can see how much the rest of the city is dwarfed by it, and how far Taipei sprawls out. 

After leaving Taipei 101 we briefly saw some dragon dancers at the entrance of the tower, we only caught the end of the show before they concluded. 

Our next stop of the day was the mountains that surround the city and the tea houses and plantations on them. From here we got beautiful views of the country side and the city. We tried some of the tea which was supposed to be world famous. It didn't taste that different from other tea's I've had, but then again I'm not a tea connoisseur. 

In the distance you can see Taipei 101, where we were earlier.

The view from our tea house

We took a bus down the mountain, which was awful and windy. But the time we got back it was dark. We headed out for dinner and ended up at a sushi restaurant, not exactly Taiwanese, but it hit the spot. After we sought out a bookstore which has several floors, apparently its 24 hours (although it closed down several floors while we were there, Chinese New Year?) and has a huge variety of books in english. As teacher we were excited. I bought several art books to add to my collection all on asian art, an area in my collection of 70-odd books is lacking. 

We finally got back to the hostel and went to bed, excited to see what the city would be like the next day when everything would be open after the new year.