Dihua Street
MH & WL had woken up at 0330 and been out for breakfast before sunrise whereas I had some muesli in the room. We took a taxi out around to Dihua Street.
The street is lined with nice character buildings, some from the Japanese era, selling traditional dried foods. MH was looking for dried long beans but none were found.
I had previously wondered why the street was named Dihua as it sounded like the floor is slippery. In fact, Dihua was the old name for Urumqi.
Text continues after this gallery.
-
- Dihua Street.
-
- Dihua Street.
-
- Temple off Dihua Street.
Test Results
At Dihua, I received emails of my recent CT Calcium Score scan. As it involved downloading and wading through many scan images, I did that while seated in the air-conditioned comfort of Family Mart.
I was extremely relieved to learn of my score of Zero, meaning I have no detected obstruction. For now, I’ll disregard the cardiologist’s suggestion for me to start on statins. However, I will discuss the results with my GP when I get back to Auckland.
Taipei 101
I had never eaten at the famous Din Tai Fung restaurant which does xiaolongbao and other delicacies. I had always thought it was from Hong Kong, because I thought the name sounded Cantonese to me.
It was only in recent years that I learnt it was from Taiwan and it seemed like a good time and place to try it out.
We took a taxi to Taipei 101, formerly the world’s tallest building, where there was a branch. It was already fairly busy when we walked in a little after 1100, which was their opening time. With a group of four, we were able to order and enjoy a good range of food beyond dumplings.
After lunch, the girls and the guys split up for a wander in the fancy mall at the base of the skyscraper. The girls then found a timeslot in the café on Level 88 which allowed us to enjoy a bird’s eye view of the city with a minimum spend in the café of TWD300 per person (half the ticket price to the observatory at the top).
Text continues after this gallery.
-
- Taipei 101, formerly world’s tallest building.
-
- Lunch at Din Tai Fung.
-
- Handmade dumplings at Din Tai Fung.
-
- Glass window at Tiffany & Co.
-
- Mall at Taipei 101.
-
- View from 88th floor.
Rest of the day
MH wanted to go for a wander at Decathlon and Carrefour, so we took a taxi to a mall with both. While nothing jumped out at me, I bought a few snacks from Carrefour. What surprised me was how expensive some things were, but other were very cheap eg. ice cream.
We taxied back to the hotel for a rest around 1530 until it was time for dinner.
With the wet weather, we knew that Ningxia Night Market would not be an enjoyable place. Armed with umbrellas, we wandered our neighbourhood in search of options.
Then I thought we could go to Ximending where there would probably be plenty of options too. That worked well, with us finding a simple of meal of cutlets with noodle soup or rice.
For dessert, we also found a shop selling shaved ice with mango. The shaved ice here is like snow, so soft!
We finished the day with a walk through the crazily cluttered Japanese store Donki, a first for WL!