- Taipei
See one of Asia’s lesser-known capitals as it takes on a
confident new character, where revitalised spaces hum with
inventive start-ups, and there’s always time for a snack
H
IGH ABOVE THE CITY,
an elephant stands watch,
with a lion, a leopard and
a tiger by its side. That, at
least, is what Taipei hiking
maps say. The eastern hills reach four arms
out towards the city, each named for a wild
creature. It’s easy to imagine one appearing
suddenly out of the steamy forest. Beneath
Elephant Mountain, streets spread across
a plain nine miles wide, surrounded on all
sides by more hills, except for a gap where
the Tamsui River escapes to the nearby sea.
Taipei’s setting is a bonanza for citizens
looking for outdoor pursuits. But until quite
recently the city had the feel of an
accidental capital, with not much time for
leisure. Half a mile west from Elephant
Mountain lies 44 South Village: a gaggle of
humble, tiled-roof houses surrounded by
the high-rises of the Xinyi district. Like
similar settlements across Taiwan, most
now vanished, it was built for evacuated
soldiers of the Chinese Nationalist army,
after their defeat by the Communists in- For the Nationalist leader Chiang
Kai-shek, Taiwan was to be a temporary base
from which to ‘retake the mainland’. The
island had just emerged from 50 years of
Japanese rule, when Taipei was a city of
showpiece official buildings on grand
boulevards. This vision was almost lost in
the post-war years, as first survival and then
economic growth took priority.
Today the mood is different. Chiang
Kai-shek’s statue sits gazing out of his
mausoleum, while in 44 South Village,
people picnic on the grassed-over bunkers,
browse the small Sunday market and sit
down to coffee by the shelves of speciality
foodstuffs in the café. Towering over it all
is Taipei 101, the world’s tallest building
from 2004 to 2009. Many passers-by are on
YouBikes from the city’s cycle-hire scheme- still something of a novelty in Asia, but
now part of the urban landscape.
Taipei has proved it can do landmark
skyscrapers; reinvention today often takes
the form of giving neglected buildings of
the early 20th century a second breath of
life. Huashan 1914 Creative Park led the
trend, turning a former wine warehouse
complex into a mix of galleries, shops and
cafés; it has been echoed to the east by the
Songshan Cultural and Creative Park: a
1930s tobacco monopoly headquarters,
now home to the Taiwan Design Museum,
among others.
Both locations are tremendously popular,
the institutional architecture softened by the
riot of plant life outside, serving as a blank
canvas for Taipei’s 21st-century passions. At
Huashan Park, Edward Tseng is minding the
AJ2 pop-up shop, in front of an outdoor stage
where people are practising swing dance.
The design firm (its name spoken in
Mandarin sounds a bit like ‘love home’)
specialises in small, foldable sofas, as well as
more idiosyncratic goods: a geometric
metal-frame letter rack in the shape of a
French bulldog, say, or swivel lamps on
wooden bodies with legs, to sit on ledges.
Since ‘Made in Taiwan’ became a
phenomenon – even a cliché – in the 1980s,
many mass-manufacturing businesses have
moved to countries with cheaper labour.
‘In Asia’s market today, “Made in Taiwan”
means better quality,’ says Edward. ‘The
particular style here is multi-function,
because most condos are small.’
Thoughtful design and quality coffee have
joined eating out as Taipei obsessions. Night
market stalls like the ones on Raohe Street
hawk everything from watermelon juice to
cockscombs. A huge fish market is home to
Addiction Aquatic Development, where
diners sate their seafood cravings under a
canvas with black-and-white films projected
onto it. And the local dumpling specialist
Din Tai Fung has gone global with its
delicate, soup-filled parcels, each hand-
made with precisely 18 folds in the dough.Central Taipei and the
Tamsui River seen from
the 91st-floor outside
deck of Taipei 101Natural wood details are used throughout
Home Hotel Da-an. Clean-lined guest rooms
occupy the sixth floor and above, and a buffet
breakfast is served at the ground-floor café
(from US$165; homehotel.com.tw/daan.php).
See more on the city at travel.taipei, and read
about Huashan and Songshan parks at
huashan1914.com and songshanculturalpark.
taipei. A plate of five dumplings at Din Tai Fung
starts at US$3.20 (dintaifung.com.tw); a meal at
Addiction Aquatic Development starts at
around US$19 (addiction.com.tw).Essentials
Take the train for a 2½-hour trip along the scenic
east coast to Hualien. From here, the entrance to
Taroko Gorge is a half-hour drive away.