Taipei and Hsinchu

I'm going to make this one brief.  I'm not feeling well.  Taipei pictures on top, Hsinchu on the bottom.

I feel Taiwan wasn't as cheap as expected, aside from street food.  Nothing blew me away like in Thailand in that regard.  A noticeable amount of Japanese food.  I even found Nagasaki Castella.

As for Taipei itself, its night markets were pretty good, definitely comparable to Busan, but not like Thai markets.  The food here consists of all the weird stuff, so I had food like dried blood cakes, pastries with worms mashed into them, and chicken head and heart.  I met up with a local (if you're reading this: hi!), who showed me around some parks, old bunkers from WWII, and a food tour.

Some things I saw included a cultural center in the middle of a park.  It was really hard to find a lot of it, and the exhibits were about design work I didn't have a big interest in.

Hsinchu feels much smaller than Taipei, but I like its culture a little more.  While this does occur in Taipei, there are free amateur outdoor concerts on the weekends.  They seem to draw a slightly bigger and much more dedicated set of fans.  There are hip-hop dance battles and fireshows right nearby said concerts.

Hsinchu is slightly more foreigner friendly due to an engineering firm around here.  Street food was still a challenge to order, despite being able to read a few characters.

I tried going to the fish market but I got there after it closed.  There were some nice parks in the area but I wasn't feeling up to walking the full trail, plus the buses back didn't run too frequently (I ended up walking).

My highlight was definitely the One Piece themed cafe.