On Sunday, we had an entire day on our own to explore the city. We started with coffee, of course, before heading to the weekend jade and flower markets. The jade market was a set of stalls selling wood, jade, and other stone jewelry and sculptures. The flower market had a lot of flowers, but also tea sets and trinkets and lawn ornaments. There was also an animal rescue represented, and we got to pet some adorable dogs.

A wall covered with motherboards (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Shopping at the jade market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The flower market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole made some new friends at the humane society adoption area (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After the markets we took the metro to the Maokong Gondola, where we had heard that you could ride a glass-bottomed gondola up the mountain. Every five or six gondolas is a glass-bottomed one, so the wait is a little longer, but I highly recommend getting one of the glassy ones if you won’t be too freaked out. It’s such a unique viewpoint to see the jungle from above, and it’s really fun to take pictures around your feet.

The animal(?) mascots at the gondola (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The canopy from the gondola (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The view from the gondola (Jason was tall enough to take pictures through the top windows) (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Maokong, at the top of the gondola, is a cute little village with a beautiful view of Taipei. There are a few main roads lined with restaurants and tea houses, and we stopped at a random one to have a delicious lunch. After lunch we walked to a city viewpoint at a temple, then decided that we had walked far enough from the gondola that we could just walk back to the city. We then proceeded to walk down stairs for at least an hour. If you’re going to walk one of the ways to and from Maokong, I’d recommend taking the gondola up and walking down. There were far too many stairs, and I was very glad we weren’t walking up.

Fancy lunch drinks (Photo/Jason Rafal)

For sunset, we joined the crowd in the hike up Elephant Mountain, which has a couple of platforms and rocks that have a great view of the city and Taipei 101, which was the tallest building in the world until 2010 , when it was surpassed by the Burj Khalifa. The hike was rather humid, and we were incredibly sweaty, and I kept being amazed that there were so many people at the top who weren’t sweating through their clothes.

We walked by a puppet show on the way to the hike (Photo/Jason Rafal)

There was quite a line to take pictures on the rocks part way up Elephant Mountain (Photo/Jason Rafal)

I’m not sure words can express how sweaty we were when this picture was taken (Photo/Some Random American Dude)

The view of Taipei 101 from the third platform (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The crazy Times Square-like area of Taipei (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Monday, we hired someone to take us to the old mining towns to the east of Taipei. We started in Jiufen, which was a gold mining town from the 1400s to the mid 1900s. The town is built into the hillside next to the coast, and it’s an incredibly picturesque area with ocean, jungle, tea houses, and temples. We took a walk through the adorable old street before stopping to have tea at the famous A Mei Tea House, which locals all claim inspired the bathhouse in Spirited Away (there’s a rumor that Miyazaki visited Jiufen and liked it so much that he put it into the movie, but he has claimed this is incorrect). It’s a beautiful tea house that’s still owned by the same family, and they have a nice outside deck for sitting down to have tea and snacks with a view of the ocean.

The coast from a temple in Jiufen (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Much like all of the cats we met in Taiwan, this one did not care about us at all (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The beautiful A Mei Tea House (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Tea at the A Mei Tea House (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After tea, we visited the first movie theater in New Taipei, which is right across the street. The theater was started as a form of entertainment for the miners, and was rebuilt and restored over time. It had a very cool old projector, as well as some old movie memorabilia.

The old film projector at the Shengping Theater (Photo/Jason Rafal)

From Jiufen we went to Shifen, home to the annual lantern festival and the biggest waterfall in Taiwan. The parking area was a bit of a mess, so I was a little concerned about the crowds, but there were several places to view the waterfall, so it didn’t feel too crazy. The waterfall was beautiful, and the sun even came out for the first time during our trip.

The bridge to the waterfall (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Shifen waterfall (Photo/Jason Rafal)

There was also an area between the parking and the waterfall that had food, Taoist religious symbols, and places to hang out. We some had sausage, I got a large container of mango slices, and we hung out for a bit.

In which Nicole finds a completely appropriately sized horse (Photo/Jason Rafal)

From the top of the falls (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A ridiculously tasty sausage (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The lantern festival had originally begun in Pingxi, which was our next stop, but the town was too small to support the crowds, so the festival was relocated to nearby Shifen. The lanterns were originally released for safety, to let everyone know that the bombing had ended during WWII. Now, a giant lantern festival occurs after the Chinese New Year, but people still visit Shifen and Pingxi to write their dreams and hopes on a large paper lantern and then watch it float up to the heavens (or however close the wind will let it get on that particular day).

Repainting a mural in Pingxi (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our day trip included a lantern, but we were not expecting quite the scale of the project when the shopkeeper produced a four-foot-tall, four-sided sky lantern and invited us to write and draw on all four sides. Our guide mocked us gently for not immediately knowing our hopes and dreams.

Drawing on the lantern (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After several minutes discussing and painting on the lantern, the shopkeeper put the paper “money” at the bottom of the lantern, brought us outside to the old railroad tracks, and lit the bottom of the lantern. After taking some pictures, we released the lantern into the sky and watched it rise. I have to admit, since I have no cultural connection to paper lanterns, I wasn’t expecting it to mean much to me. But…there’s something about writing and drawing well wishes on a big piece of paper and sending it up into the air that’s pretty cathartic.

Adding the “money” to burn (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We also stopped for a traditional snack of shaved ice cream, peanut candy shavings, and cilantro in a rice wrap. It was weirdly delicious, even as someone who’s not a huge fan of peanuts.

A man shaving a block of peanut candy for the ice cream (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Three guesses as to how much this cat cared about our existence (Photo/Jason Rafal)

When we got back to Taipei, we headed over to Pier 5 to see dusk settle over the river. There are a few container restaurants along the river, and it’s a nice place to sit and watch the sunset. As it got dark, we headed to one last Taiwanese night market for dinner.

Jason insists that this is the last cool camera trick that the robots can’t do (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A lovely scene at Pier 5 (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Huaxi Street Night Market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Tuesday, we had some more coffee, tried another fantastic beef noodle soup establishment, and got on a plane for Hong Kong.

We stayed on camera street in Taipei (Photo/Jason Rafal)