Betel Nut stand!
by Don_Wright
The betel nut stand is popular in Taiwan, and is easily recognized by the neon lights that radiatiate out like spikes from a central point.
The betel nut is grown in Taiwan and sold at these stands where scantily dressed girls help attract men who buy the betel nut!
Chewing the betel nut is like chewing tobacco.
Wulai
by keeweechic
Wulai is about an hours drive from Taipei. There are the falls and an aboriginal village where you can watch and participate in a concert performed by the Aborigines of their traditional dances and ceremonies of Taiwan's Tai Ya (Atayal) tribe.
are also known for their custom of tattoing their faces.
There are something like 160,000 aboriginals just in the east and north of Taiwan. Those tribes are the A Mei, Tai Ya (Atayal), Pu Nung, Pei Nan, Lu Kai and Ya Mei Tribes. It is thought that the Tai Ya tribe arrived in northern Taiwan around 1000 BC to find refuge from their original home in northern Japan. Their original home in Taiwan was Hsinchu.
Location : Taipei County, South of Taipei.
Getting There : By Car from Taipei drive southward down Roosevelt Road through Jingmei and connect with Beixin Road in Hsintien, then take the Taipei-Yilan Highway to Qingtan, take a left on Provincial Highway No. 9A (Xinwu Road), and on to the Wulai Scenic Area.
Heart of the city
by ngcsc
Taipei Railway station is in hte heart of the city. Every traveller should know this place as it is the central station where almost every kind transport stop or transit here. You'll get Airport buses to CKS airport, Metro, Train and of course taxis and buses.
Out of this world Dumplings
by cheekychic about Ting Tai Fung
Ting Tai Fung was listed as Top 10 Restaurants by The New York Times. This busy restaurant specializes in dumplings and simple food (or what the Chinese call "small eats"). In front of the restaurant, in a tiny work area with large billowing steamers, the cooks can be seen rolling out the dough to stuff the dumplings.
As the restaurant is very popular among Japanese tourists, we have to go early to get number for our table, and given a menu to order our food first (all done in front of the restaurant). We (& many patrons) waited about 30mins for our number to be called.
Seating about 30 epople on each of four floors, the place is sparkling clean. The whole restaurant was computerised with very efficient & polite waitresses. After we were seated, our food arrived in 5mins (talk about good service). According to my Taiwanese friend Maggie, each table takes about 30-45mins to finish the meal, in order to cater for the huge crowd. Never have I seen such a systematic restaurant. Specialty of the restaurant is dumplings. Other recommendations: Steamed chicken soup, soup in dumpling, & baozi.
Danshui Tie dan (metal egg)
by MizBlack
Loosely translated as "metal egg" this is a speciality in danshui. The tie dan(metal egg) is basically an egg which was stewed extensively and reduced to the size of a quail egg. The egg feels rubbery and i personally do not find the egg tasty but do try at least one egg to get a taste of it since it is a speciality of danshui.