30 April 2023
The busiest place in Taiwan
Shilin night market
Earlier today I got off a train at Shilin and had a coffee at 8am. Tonight I returned in the evening and went to the night market.
I have no doubt that it is the busiest place in Taiwan, I was there early, before night at a night market, and parts of it were already uncomfortably crushing.
It is here that apparently many strange foods now popular around the world were claimed to be invented, but probably just popularized. Obun's, steak in a bag, chicken schnitzel in a bag, actually you can find in Australia a few places have on their signs 'from the Shilin market in Taiwan' or similar.
The longest line was for blow torched mushrooms, I heard a guy walking up and down the line yelling one hour, plus some other gibberish I could not understand, so I assume he was yelling at people in the line for his store that it was a one hour wait, get out of the line you fools!
Of course, the long lines everywhere, and my general dislike of standing in the street eating stuff off a stick or out of a bag in a crowd meant that I fled back to the safety of a food court, for some great Taiwanese food.
I started at the far end from a station away. There was room to move here, and a lot of Japanese restaurants. However when I went back here an hour or so later they all had big lines already.
Getting busy, but still not too bad.
Super busy. I cannot believe there are still any squid left in the sea, I better explain that comment, lots of the shops are blow torching whole squid, which then get put on a stick and put in a bag.
There are temples everywhere, some look somewhat official like this, others look like a money laundering front.
Here is the head of the queue of the blow torched mushroom food stand. I kind of wanted to try it, but I was not willing to stand in a line for 50 minutes and then decide I cannot be bothered waiting any longer.
Scooter cat does not care about the big market crowds, he just snoozes all day.
Google told me this Japanese ramen place is TOP RATED, so there is a big line going down the street off to the right.
Store dog has had a long day guarding what I think was an optometrist.
There are hundreds of stores to buy useless trinkets based on a movie you never saw.
This temple was up a long dark alley, with various questionable establishments leading to this dead end, where there are no people.
I have read that all these places with lots of claw machines are specifically set up for money laundering purposes. Note that it is in a very busy part of the Shilin market, where you basically cannot move, and yet not a single customer is in there.
There are a lot of toilet themed cafes in Taiwan. I have no idea if this is actually the original one. It is very popular with people that make videos on Youtube.
Another intriguing store front. Do you just go to the screen and transfer your money to someones Russian bank account and it gives you a receipt telling you that you just lost your money? There is a bitcoin ATM in the Emporium mall in Melbourne that I never saw anyone use. If I recall correctly, there are also ones that issue you with a fake gold bitcoin, so you can prove that you own bitcoin after you insert your credit card.
That giant sphere on a building is not a shopping mall, it is seemingly just offices, with the Audi logo.
After I boarded the train I went down 3 levels under the main station to U square, a place I have been on previous trips. The food court is excellent.
I previously enjoyed this vegetarian buffet, however now that everyone has COVID, I am not sure how I feel about eating all you can sneeze on.
So instead, I had the most Taiwanese of all meals, beef noodle soup. Not bad, I have had better, I will have better before the end of this trip.