If you’re looking for a country to visit over the long weekend, I suggest you guys visit Taiwan! I travelled to Taiwan two years ago with my family and it was the most BORING country, or so I thought! We rented a private car to take us to the tourist-y spots in Taiwan like Jiufen, Taipei 101, The rock formations, temples, and *yaawn* I don’t even remember most of it.
Anyway, my best friend and I wanted an adventure and there was a seat sale for Taipei so I thought of giving it another shot, and it was one of the best decisions I’ve made this year!
We booked a cozy airbnb room in Xiemending – a place that is ALIVE past 2PM! They also house the best milk tea place in the world — chachago (located beside Etude house, near Hotstars) so you guys should really really REALLY try their milk tea with taro balls!
One of the things you should do when in Taipei is to check out their take out sushi stands! They’re so affordable and perfect to carry around for when you get hungry roaming the streets of Taipei! Their subway transport system is also SUPER easy to understand so getting around wouldn’t be a problem as long as you have your pocket wifi to guide you through the way!
On our first day, we just roamed around Xiemending, had Din Tai Fung in Taipei 101, went up the Elephant Trail to get a nice view of Taipei 101, and just explored the city as well as the food.
On our second day, we went to the Taipei zoo!! We were surprised at how big the zoo was and how it housed so many animals from different parts of the world! My personal favourite was the meerkats! They had penguins, hippos, elephants, giraffes, rhinos, pandas, penguins, and MORE! 
What I loved about this zoo is that it also serves as a conservatory for these animals. Animal protection groups actually send some of the endangered animals to the zoo, so they can be taken care of!
We were supposed to ride the Maokong gondola but we didn’t know that they close every Mondays so we decided to just to go back the following day! Night markets are also a must visit when in Taipei but I personally wasn’t impressed with the food they had to offer.
On our third and final day, we left for Maokong Gondola after checking out. If you guys plan to ride the gondola, make sure to ride the ones with the glass floor, the price is the same but the line for the glass floor gondola is a bit longer than the normal one.
After riding the gondola down, we got back to the city, went to the air fair where artisans sell hand crafted novelties, and then went to Chiang kai Shek Memorial Hall before leaving for the airport. It wasn’t really part of the plan since we weren’t really big fans of history and of … memorial halls (?) haha but the place was sooooo nice!!!!!!!
We only brought 300 dollars to spend for three days and it was more than enough to cover for transportation, food, souvenirs, and even SHOPPING!
sunshinekim.net 