Lilasaur's Fun Experiments: Asia Trip 3/4 - Taipei, Taiwan (intro & scenic)

As have mentioned in the first post, the purpose of going to Taiwan is to visit Mr. Lilasaur's relatives and do wedding photography, so we actually had to stay for 3 weeks to get the fitting, photography, and development done. Since we are staying in Taiwan for so long, we basically had enough time to play almost everything Taipei has to offer as long as it is reachable by the MRT. So let's start with the transportation system.

Transportation

The public transportation system in Taipei is quite convenient, just like the one in HK. You just go to one of the MRT stations to obtain an EasyCard, load money in it, and use it like a cash card. However, unlike the Octopus Card in HK, EasyCard isn't as widely accepted, so please take note of that and bring more cash with you. It costs $500 NT to buy the card, which includes $400 spending dollars and $100 deposit. You can get the deposit and remaining money back with a small processing fee when you return the card at one of the MRT stations (there is one in the airport). Other than that, you also need to know these things about the public transportation system:

all the stops on the MRT are announced in English, Mandarin, and Taiwanese
it is much cheaper to ride the MRT than to ride the Skytrain in Vancouver - a 40-minute trip on the MRT only costed $40 NT (~$1.33 CAD) while on the Skytrain could have easily costed $3.75.
drinking or eating anything (including gum and water) is strictly prohibited in the train station- either staff would call you out on the PA or a fellow passenger would yell at you
you NEED to look at the map before you exit the train station to ensure that you are taking the right exit, otherwise you might end up more than 5 streets away from where you want to be
taking buses are cheaper than taking the MRT, but usually take longer (MANY stops), and they don't come as often
for buses, paying when you get on vs. paying when you get off depends on where the bus is in terms of the zone, and there is a light on the bus to tell you that. If you cannot read Chinese, if the left one is lit that means you pay when you get on, and vice versa.
you can download the Taipei Metro (MRT) app from the Apple Appstore or the Taipei Metro app from the Google Playstore for the MRT map

We basically went everywhere for 3 weeks using public transportation and it costed us under $1000 NT (~$33) each, and we were actually able to go to almost every attraction, so the Taiwanese transportation system is quite excellent.

Accommodation

Lived at Mr. Lilasaur's parents' place, so have no idea.

Strictly Sight-Seeing (admission prices are in NT, divide by 30)

National Palace Museum ($160): This place is known to the Chinese as the museum that displays all their stolen treasures. A bit of history: The Nationalist Party and the Communist Party both existed in China before, but they fought, and obviously the Communist Party won. The Nationalist Party looted a lot of treasures and gold from China before they fled to Taiwan, so these treasures are what is being displayed, and therefore they are supposedly better than the ones in the Forbidden City museum in Beijing. The things that I found to be particularly cool were: the rock that looks like a piece of meat, the jade cabbage with insects (smaller than expected), and the ivory ball that supposedly has 30+ levels with different patterns on each level. You can either rent one of those audio tour radios or sign up for a free guided tour; both Mandarin and English tours are available. More information here. No pictures were allowed.

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall ($0): Nothing much to see, just buildings that look historic but aren't really. We went because Mr. Lilasaur lives close to here and there is a marching performance done every few hours when the guards end/start their shift. There is also a gigantic statue of Chiang Kai-shek sitting on a chair, similar to the Lincoln statue. He says that it's just a normal park to locals. The garden is quite beautiful though:

Yaomingshan National Park ($0): We actually went there for our wedding photography but decided to go back on our own. Mr. Lilasaur and I aren't usually hikers, but we hiked for the whole afternoon anyway, and the views were quite nice. What's worth seeing in this park are the spots where sulphur comes out and Qingtiangang, where cows are wild. Note that the temperature on the mountain is much lower than in the city, so you should bring a jacket just in case. When we went for photography it was about 19 deg Celsius, but when we went by ourselves it was 15 deg Celsius, so the temperature can range. Here are some pictures:

Sulphur spring bubbling

It was beautiful... but the sulphur stunk

View as we hiked down

Wild cows at Qingtiangang. Lots of wild grass there, when the sun shines the whole field was golden. Couldn't quite capture this on camera.

Unknown berries

This grass looks like it has little maggots on its leaves, so I thought that looked quite cool

The "milky pond" (Niunai Hu)... very underwhelming

Don't know the name of this plant, but I like how its leaves grow out wiggly

Taipei Botanical Garden ($0): Mr. Lilasaur insisted that the lily pond would still be blooming with flowers despite me pointing out to him that it was the season to harvest lotus roots (saw that in Canton), so we went just to prove him wrong. As expected, we saw a whole pond of wilting leaves, wasn't a pleasant sight, hahaha. We did see this interesting tree:

No idea what berries these are

Taipei Zoo ($60): In addition to the admission ticket, you still have to pay a small amount of money to take the bus that gets you from the entrance to the main zoo. I don't know why they wouldn't just include that in the ticket, maybe you can walk there??? Anyway, you can actually see a lot of things for about $2 CAD, so it's a really good deal compared to the Greater Vancouver Zoo at $20.25 + tax which only allows you to see animals in our backyard (really, raccoons???) plus a variety of moose and deer that I don't care about. The map gives you a sense of what you can see. I only took pictures of interesting plants:

Really long and colourful beans

Pandanus utilis Bory (according to a sign at the zoo)

No idea what

Maokong Gongola ($50 from Taipei Zoo Station): The gondola is right next to the zoo, so I'd recommend going here in the morning so there is no line up. I recommend waiting for the Crystal Cabin so you can have a transparent bottom, but the ratio of normal to Crystal Cabins is approximately 3:1, so it's up to you how long you want to wait. The top didn't have much to see other than forests, so we took pictures of other things:

Inside the Crystal Cabin of the gondola

Mr. Lilasaur practising his photography skills

Another butterfly

This was a seed drink found inside one of the places at the peak, looks quite cool

You can just get off at the Taipei Zoo South Station on your way down to get to the zoo entrance.

Mangrove Protection Area ($0): This isn't actually listed as one of the attractions of Taiwan, but Mr. Lilasaur's mom suggested for us to go, so we went because we were running out of things to do. It is located at the Hung Shulin Station, you just get out of the station and follow a path, it's hard to miss. You can read about mangroves here, it's rather interesting how they reproduce. Here are the pictures from that area: