(OMG, my love for a quirky rhyming title that includes a throwback to Rent, best musical of all time, never ceases to inspire me.)

There aren’t many places we can get to quickly from Shenzhen. Turns out, distances are further than they appear. And Europe is downright quaint compared to the vastness that is Asia.

Back when we were first considering a move to China, we thought about the places we could travel on weekends, and, it turns out, there aren’t a lot of places close enough to warrant a weekend visit.

But one glorious exception is Taiwan.

Taiwan, aka the Republic of China, is a blissful one hour flight from Hong Kong, the definition of a weekend jaunt destination. In addition to its capital, Taipei, there are plenty of other cities and villages that can keep an eager traveler busy for many weeks. Over a recent holiday weekend, we took off for Taipei, and three days of city exploration.

Taiwan is a real food lovers’ destination. Many popular Asian food trends lately came directly from Taiwan. Bubble tea (with those tapioca balls and the big straws) and bao come to mind. Most of our agenda in town was eating, no surprise there. We plunged right in with a steaming bowl of beef noodles, walked around town consuming large bottles of whatever looked interesting at the 7-11, and basically stuffed our faces.

The famous dim sum restaurant Din Tai Fung (80 locations worldwide, mostly in Asia) also started in Taipei, and we just had to visit the original location. The soup dumplings here are literally the best we’ve ever had (just the right amount of liquid, just the right bite size, just the right filling). I actually remember the first time I ever tried soup dumplings, at a famous place in NYC, and I didn’t like them. They were huge, the skin was too thick to bite through, the dumplings didn’t fit easily in the spoon for proper slurping execution. I just didn’t understand the hype. I get it now.

Insider’s tip: Over our many visits to Din Tai Fung around China, we’ve actually fallen mildly in love with the pork wontons in spicy chili oil, another dumpling preparation jam packed with flavor. Don’t forget to add these to your order.

Insider’s tip: Man, Din Tai Fung is crazy popular. We arrived at 11:15am, and only faced a 25 minute wait. By the time we left the restaurant at 12:30, the wait time swelled to over an hour. Another nearby location was hovering around 2 hours. Come early. 

We capped off our food adventures with a food tour, which Drew covered in depth. The photo below represents how I felt after a weekend of eating, food coma city.

During our walks from restaurant to restaurant, we sprinkled in visits to  several important Taiwanese monuments, all of which are free to enter. Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall was grand, imposing and we both agree that the massive bronze statue of the man looks like a friendly grandpa. The massive plaza outside houses the National Theater and another museum, but after walking the length of the plaza and back, our poor legs were NOT up for a look inside.

Dr. Sun Yat-sen was the founder and first president of Taiwan, and one of the only Chinese leaders who is similarly revered in the mainland. There are memorials and monuments to Dr. Sun all over the place, but we happened upon a small house where he stayed when he was in the city back in the day.

Insider’s tip: Don’t worry at all if the long and harrowing Chinese history is a mere blip on your memory’s radar. A few Google searches will quickly refresh your memory. Given that we live in China and use the internet here, we’ll avoid any commentary about who’s who, and what’s what, and allow you to come to your own conclusions.

Insider’s Tip: While I’m on a roll with all these tips, my favorite way to brush up on world history is to go to YouTube and look for Crash Course. These fantastic short videos (10-15 minutes) cover details of various academic subjects including tons of world history. File this one under things I wish I had access to while I was in school.

One surprise of our weekend in Taipei was when we wandered up to the Museum of Contemporary Art, mostly to avoid some forecasted rain, only to find an exhibit covering the work of photographer Steve McCurry. He’s famous for one particular photo (see below) but his stuff is just breathtaking. Most of the museum was dedicated to his art, room after room of photos and travel and all the images I wish I had the skill to take. Amazingly, the entrance to the museum was only NT$50 (US$1.70).

You can skip the free audio guide, the guy who does the narration in English has the most irritating voice I’ve basically ever heard. Hard pass.

We also did some park walking, and spent the better part of an hour in front of this small pond in Da’an Forest Park, watching the birds and the people who take photos of them. It was the first inner city forest park in Taiwan, and the pond has attracted dozen of varieties of birds to the area. It is now a “birding” destination for locals, so there were groups of people with comically large lenses set up all around the perimeter.

A little nature break in the middle of a massive city is always appreciated.

As you may have heard, we’re huge AirBnB nerds, and we relish our AirBnB stays, frequently spending multiple hours scouring listings, picking just the right place for the occasion. In a hip and trendy city like Taipei, what’s more fitting than a small apartment off the back of a vintage furniture store?

Yes, you read that right and yes, we physically walked through the store to get to the apartment in the back. The owner is a very trusting guy, leaving a spare key out for when we came in after the store closed for the day. On our way in and out, we spent time selecting out the furniture of our dreams. Also, there was an actual working 8-track player in our room, with a small library of albums.

If you look up Taipei online, the number one thing to do is visit the Taipei 101 tower. This tower had a short-lived reign as the world’s tallest building, and it’s certainly iconic looking with the stacked Chinese-takeout-container vibe. The bottom floors are a huge mall, which we visited, but huge malls are ubiquitous in Asia, so I wouldn’t ever steer someone there for the random fun of it.

Instead, we used the building as a lighthouse of sorts, to make sure we were always walking in the direction we intended.

After a weekend in yet another massive Chinese city, it may seem like they would all start running together after a while. But Taipei feels different. It has more Japanese influence (in the food, and architecture), the streets are clean and quiet (-ish), and there is a charm about Taipei that feels distinct. You can even visit the nearby Yangminshan National Park to see the Taiwan cherry blossom season, avoiding the massive crowds who flock to Japan every year. Who knew?

We loved it and we’ll be back, the next time a weekend away beckons.