1 May 2023
The capital of the new Taipei donut
Korean food in a mall in Banqiao
Time for another geography lesson. Taipei is not just Taipei, but it is Taipei and New Taipei. New Taipei completely surrounds Tapei, in the shape of a donut, making Taipei the donut hole. Excluding the donut hole for a minute, this leaves the New Taipei donut and Banqiao where I went tonight is the largest city and seat of government for the provincial city of New Taipei in the Province of New Taipei. Capiche?
I guess the important part is that it is modern and has footpaths (sidewalks), a rarity in Taiwan where you normally have to walk on the road, or over tiled areas belong to shops with steps between each store front. Refer to my previous Taiwan trips for rants about that, especially when I went to Hualien.
Banqiao also has lots of shopping malls and a big train station with the high speed, normal speed and two subway lines (one above ground) all meeting. I think I had been there once before to change trains when going to or from the airport.
The station area itself where the government offices are is a bit quiet, there is a big mall to the west and not much else, but head east and there are lots of shops and restaurants. I have pics of it all, of course.
Here is the underground mall I take from my hotel to the main station. I was heading out early tonight because the cleaning lady insisted on doing a full room clean at 4pm.
Running off the underground mall I was taking are many others, including this one, that is completely abandoned. Although if you follow it a bit further it turns into a linear underground book shop, I have taken photos previously.
I was bloody starving, because I was out too early before dinner. So I had this EXTREMELY over priced and overrated Cremia ice cream. These are from Japan, where people similarly line up for them in train stations as I did here. They claim to be made from special Hokkaido cream with life giving properties that cannot be described verbally or textually, only tasteually. To me it did not even taste as good as a normal soft serve. And the price! Christ! $7! That is about as much as last nights dinner cost me! Of course you do not get to see the price until you get to the front of the line. So there you go, Cremia, forget it.
Once I got off in Banqiao I decided to explore some back streets. Here is a typical Taiwanese old style back street.
There are temples everywhere, this is a less gaudy version compared to most.
Here is the Banqiao station, my recollection was that all the lines are underground, so such a grand tall building seems unwarranted. However as you shall see shortly, there is an above ground line.
That is a fully enclosed for some reason above ground train line. I have been on it. I assumed while on it that it was underground.
There is the mega mall, my early dinner destination as it turned out.
The government have erected themselves a building that looks like Darth Vader's palace.
Descending into the basement of the mall, and a huge line appears, what could it be for? Another Cremia? No, Din Tai Fung of course. I went to the Melbourne one the other night. You can get a Cremia soft serve, or an entire meal at Din Tai Fung for roughly the same price.
To offset the cost of Cremia a little, I headed to the Food Republic. Thankfully these places have done away with the pre pay card system that required you to buy a card, charge it, buy your dinner, then refund your card. Now you can pay with credit card. There are at least 50 places to choose from in this one, and plenty of spaces to sit.
I had Japanese food in Taiwan, I had Taiwanese food in Taiwan, why not Korean food in Taiwan? Bibimbap it is. Pretty good. Big serve.
After my hearty meal, I ascended to the top floors to see the slightly fancier options I could of had and probably should of had. Up here there are fountains, a piazza, blue sky ceiling, pools with gondolas, it was like I had woken up in old Venezia. I call Venice Venezia the same way we now say Turkiye and KyEEEeeEevvv instead of Kiev. Capiche?
Now for a couple of street shots, with scooters, east of the Banqiao station.
A very nice area.
For my final shot this evening, a crashed Borg cube.