Oodles of Noodles

Noodles are up there with my pizza on my favourite foods list and they're definitely going to be some of the best possible fuel for your Taiwanese adventures. Walking up elephant mountain to catch a glimpse of Taipei 101 is high up on my list of must do's for travellers visiting the city. When I was walking around the business district Taipei 101 didn't look that big but from up above you get a whole different sense of scale as well as an amazing view of Taipei's urban sprawl. On a clear day you can even see planes taking off from Songshan airport. Pretty cool!

Taipei has a huge wealth of noodle options, enough that it would be almost impossible to write about them all although I am of course going to try.

Heaven Is a Place in Taipei

Wherever I am in the world you can guarantee that I'll be searching for the best desserts and holy wow, I really hit the jackpot in Taipei. Vegan Heaven started out in Jiaoxi, a small town about an hour away from Taipei, but recently expanded to include a location in the capital. This has been a great move for two reasons, firstly it means that more locals and travellers can sample their delicious world class baked goods and secondly more people get to meet Li, the baker and business owner behind Vegan Heaven. Li's infectiously cheerful personality really made my day every time I visited the store and her passion for baking means that she's really invested in getting her product line spot on. 

Now I've eaten at a lot of bakeries during my travels so the first thing that struck me when I walked into Vegan Heaven was that there was almost nothing there that I'd seen in a vegan bakery case before.

Vegan in Taipei

I've been in Taipei for two weeks now and I love it now just as much as I did upon first impressions. It's a real foodie city so of course I've been delving into that side of things and it seems that Tiramisu is the hot trend right now. You can get a rice and soy based version at Vegan Heaven, a raw version at The Green ROOM, and a super authentic coffee-full version with the perfect ratio of cake to cream at Soul R Vegan.

You can also grab a piece at Yummy Vegan House in the Beitou district and at the Xindian branch of Loving Hut. I'm sure there are more delicious variations of this Italian dessert to be found in the city and I'm looking forward to stumbling upon them!

Tiramisu aside Soul R Vegan has become one of my favourite spots to visit in the city. They're at the pricier end of the spectrum because of their location in the Da'an area but the combo of delicious desserts, fun flavoured tea lattes and hot frothy soy milk drinks has me well and truly won over.

Adventures in Taipei!

Oh hi! It's been just over a week since I left Bangkok and arrived in Taipei and I'm loving it here. It's amazing how a change in both pace and climate have reenergised me and reignited my passion for exploring. Whilst I loved the time I spent in SE Asia this past year, 8 fun-packed months in total, I've definitely learnt that hot weather is just not for me in the long term. Good to know! Relentless heat seems to sap my energy in a way that even the darkest winter days don't manage to do and there's only so much exploring I can get done in the heat before I just want to curl up and hide in an air conditioned room or, when I reach breaking point, in another country with much milder weather. This weekend's cold snap aside January in Taipei is very similar to March or April in the south of England, drizzly and around 17°. I find it so much easier to explore a new city wrapped in a few layers and with an umbrella to hand than I do when the mercury is hitting 30° plus every day. 

I'm going to be spending a month in Taipei and this marks the start of a slightly different style of travel for me. Over the next 6 months I'll be spending longer in each place I visit, a month here, a month in Tokyo, a couple of months volunteering at a cat sanctuary, some travel in-between and an open month in South Korea at the end... maybe by then I'll want to be moving constantly again? For now though I've definitely been missing some of the great things that come with being settled somewhere more long term - making friends, cooking breakfast at home, having the occasional chilled day, getting to know somewhere properly, actually unpacking my backpack. And on top of all of that Air B&B style accommodation is cheaper if you stop somewhere for a month or more.

This is my new street, I love it! I'm definitely still in that stage of being somewhere new where literally every single sign and doorway and shop front is fascinating. I love that feeling! 

It's sometimes hard to know where to base yourself when you've never been somewhere before so a good bet is to pick something within walking distance of a couple of different MRT / metro / tube stations, that way you can get almost anywhere in your new city easily.