Taipei Day 4 | From Brown to Green Line

Hello Taipei! Rise and shine for yet another day of adventure! Yesterday, we took the red line all the way to Tamsui and today we will be taking the brown line all the way to Taipei Zoo station where we will be taking the Maokong Gondolas!

The brown line is kinda like Singapore's LRT, a small train with only like one or two cabins.

Arrived! It's still quite early and Taipei Zoo station is relatively quiet. Therefore today we are on selfie mode. A picture at the beautifully pruned Taipei Zoo bushes.

And we headed to Taipei Zoo's Gondola station which will take us all the way up to Maokong station!

So excited! Cable cars as transport today! Would never take cable cars in SG, but as a tourist in Taipei, why not?

Our crystal cabin arrived! One of the highlight of their cable cars, where the floor is all glass and we can see through what's beneath our feet.

The normal cabin, we patiently waited for our Crystal cabin. So nice as it's non-peak hour and we need not share with others.

Feels like I'm not awake yet... yeah it's still quite early in the morning

Pigg is so excited!

Leaving Taipei Zoo gondola station, the ride to Maokong will be all the way up which takes 20-30mins!

Singapore should totally have these!

Up up and away!!!

More excited now as we go higher!

Pigg and his cat shirt that we bought at the store which I got my eyes shirt

A little cloudy up here, but we could still see the city below us.

Not sure when Pigg took this but I'm just busy soaking in the sights that I see

Buildings became smaller as we go higher

Got to take a picture with the glass flooring!

And we passed the temple station. Next stop will be our station! Realised all the other cabins also did not alight at any stations, means they are all going to Maokong!

The thing about travelling is that you would wanna make as much memories you can, and just take as much photos as you can.

Again! Pardon Pigg's long neck 😂

Finally reached Maokong! The skies up here look so fluffy and clear! The air is even fresher here due to the higher altitude

Played around with one of their optical illusion floor murals

At Maokong, there's a lot of tea houses as the cooling temperatures here are good for tea planting. We even caught some tea farmers in action as they shared with us that they need to collect 5 bags of tea leaves everyday.

However we decided to hike at the camphor trails since it's such a nice day for some exercise!

Wefie by putting our monopod on the floor and setting the timer

Just nice some passer-bys asked us to help them take a picture. And in return, they help us too

Riding a bicycle in the fields

An old uncle who saw us struggling to take a picture volunteered to help us out, and the picture he took turned out quite nicely

Can't get enough of the green fields

Pigg strolling 🚶

Wanna move here to be a tea farmer 🍃

Not bad, Pigg is quite good at grabbing angles now 😏

Again, took by another bunch of friendly locals who saw us struggling

Hiking back! We were really lucky that it only started to rain while we were on our way back to Taipei Zoo station via the minibus!

Cute matcha cat ice cream! Soft and milky! Not overly sweet unlike the one which we ate at Bali Left banks which was terrible... the cat biscuit on top of the ice cream seems to represent 猫空hills

Pigg is so apt with this tee! Ice cream cat!

Din Tai Fung for lunch! We took the metro from Taipei zoo station this Station. It was surprising that there was no queue! This outlet that we went too is actually their main store which has 3 storeys!

In 5-10 minutes we were already seated upstairs!

Pigg wants to eat the shrimp dumpling, so we ordered a bowl of shrimp dumpling noodles to share and also our the signature xiaolongbaos!

Service is so good here! Everyone smiles! They even showed us the ratio on how to mix the sauce for the best flavour. Something Singapore service sector should really learn from.

And this is what we came for! The legendary Xiao long baos! Something that everyone should try when in Taiwan! It's really taste better! Plus the service is 👍👍👍, everyone greets you, be it when you just arrive, or leaving

Time to try it!

See the soup! The proper way to eat it is to slightly tear it apart, pour the soup on the spoon and eat it with the dumpling. This is to prevent scalding if it's too hot.

It's the best xiaolongbaos ever! These beautiful baobies

After lunch, we headed to Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Yet another must-see in Taipei. We did so much sightseeing and shopping, now it's time for some historical attraction! Somemore entrance is free!

The building that houses the grand statue of Chiang Kai Shek. We had to run up the stairs to make it for the ceremony in time

Chiang Kai Shek bronze statue

Whoa the lighting is so good here

Another nice picture taken by a professional Korean

So much for the photobomb

Every building is so picturesque

Freedom square

Done with our historical sightseeing, we headed for more shopping at wufenpu! Took the metro again to Songshan station.

Wufenpu is a few minutes walk away from the MRT station, depending on which side you exit, one will take you to wufenpu while another will take you to Raohe Night Market, which we will be going at night for dinner.

Wufenpu can be likened to Bangkok's Pratunam morning market where there are many wholesalers. However, the clothes were a little disappointing and overpriced here. What I went back with was only socks and underwear.

It was nightfall by the time we reached Raohe. Actually we have yet to finish wufenpu even though we spent almost 2 hours there, but it was too big. Since the stuff there was expensive, we decided not to waste time and go for dinner instead

Pigg got his beef cubes the first thing we reached the night market, which he raved about.

Using Angus beef, the stall owner will cut them further into cubes and torch them to cook faster. According to Pigg, it is very soft and buttery, melt in the mouth.

Time to find our dinner place, the vivid colours of the dishes looked so appetising and we decided to eat here.

Seafood soup and lu rou fan! Still could not deny that Formosa chang lu rou fan is better, but this one is not bad too! The seafood soup also has generous ingredients!

A snack after dinner! Fried small crabs! Saw this snack at almost every night market we went too. We have been craving this for the past few days but because of our throats, we managed to curb the temptation. But today, we were feeling better and decided to try it before we regret. However, our cravings turned disappointing as the crabs were actually double fried and did not taste as nice as it seems.

Raohe night market is one of my favourite (minus our the arcade where we spend over $10 on the claw machines which was rigged -.-) too, but I got quite a lot of stuff here and also got Pigg a new era cap for his birthday. His one cap amounts to the many items that I bought... $83. But at least it's authentic and I'm willing to pay the price. After buying that, I almost emptied out my wallet for the day and it means time to go back to our hotel 😂 where I did more shopping at ximending!