Shilin District

Longshan Temple & Shilin Night Market (Taiwan Day 2)

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• published: 10 Aug 2015
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For more information about visit Taipei, check out my Taipei Travel Guide for Food Lovers now: Check out my Taipei guide now! Day 2 of traveling in Taiwan was a big sightseeing day. We went to Longshan Temple, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial, at dumplings, and finished with the famous Shilin Night Market. The first place we went was Longshan Temple, one of the most famous and most popular temples in the heart of Taipei, and it’s typically included as one of the main things to do in Taipei. Since we were staying in Ximending, an area not too far from Longshan Temple, we decided to walk there, but it’s also easily accessible by Taipei Metro. The temple was extremely busy and packed full of people. The busyness created a real buzz and interesting feeling at the temple. After spending about 30 minutes at Longshan Temple we moved on our next Taipei attraction. Our next stop on this sightseeing day in Taipei was Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, one of the most famous landmarks in the entire city. Again, we easily got there by metro, and then we could just walk around on foot once we got there. On the same compound you’ll also find the National Theater and a number of beautiful buildings, but the main building, colored white and blue and that looks like a castle is Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. We happened to arrive right on the hour so we caught a bit of the changing of the guards ceremony, but it also takes places every hour if you go. For lunch we walked over to a restaurant called Jin Ji Yuan (好公道金雞園), which is a local restaurant serving a variety of Taiwanese food, but especially known for their version of xiao long bao, which are Taiwanese soup dumplings. It only took about 10 minutes to walk to the restaurant from Chiang Kai-shek, and it was well worth the walk as we were all hungry. They were cooking all the food downstairs, and they led us upstairs to eat - where there was a full dining room. The menu was in both Chinese and English, but the menu checksheet to choose the dishes we wanted to order was all in Chinese, so we just did our best to choose the same ones. We order a couple steamed baskets of xiao long bao and a few side dishes including some of their famous fried chicken. Everything was delicious, and this was one of our first full meals of Taiwanese food. After lunch we took a short rest back at our hotel for a few hours, and then made our way over to Shlin Night Market, often considered the biggest and the most legendary night market in Taiwan’s long list of amazing night markets. We arrived in the late afternoon, and already, there was a massive crowd there ready to go shopping and to eat snacks out of control. I was amazing at the amount of people and the amount of food available at the Shilin Night Market - and even though some people say it’s touristy, and that locals have given up on Shilin Night Market, I think it’s still quite popular with locals. While at Shilin Night Market I was able to eat some delicious Taiwanese street food, and I had a piece of stinky tofu (which I didn’t know was stinky tofu at the time of eating it). Shilin Night Market is a thrill to visit, one of the amazing things to do when you’re in Taipei. That was it for Day 2 of this Taiwan travel and food guide vlog series. Thank you for watching! Music in this video is from Audio Network This video was produced by Mark Wiens and Ying Wiens, for more information about us, check out our blogs: http://migrationology.com/blog & http://www.eatingthaifood.com/ & http://www.travelbyying.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/migrationology Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/migrationology Instagram: https://instagram.com/migrationology SNAPCHAT: migrationology Make a donation: http://migrationology.com/donate/ Taipei Travel Guide for Food Lovers: Check out my Taipei guide now!