🇹🇼 Taipei - Art Galleries, Food, Clubbing
Just add sugar
Taipei was a cosy home base for me in Taiwan. It was a great central point for day trips, and had what I look for in a city now - convenience, a music scene, and access to good local food. I didn’t travel to other cities in Taiwan because they didn’t offer much that I deemed special, and after 6 months of constant travelling I’ve started to become quite picky with my destinations. I’m beyond jaded when it comes to visiting temples and night markets.
Taipei, in general, was also just a really nice place to spend time in. I’ve experienced the least amount of culture shock coming here over any other destination - signs are in English, it’s easy to get around, and things just work. It’s also got that element of edge I really appreciated about Bangkok. It feels like people have a lot of freedom here, and there’s a strong local creative scene, resulting in also the best underground electronic music scene I’ve experienced in Asia so far (more on that later).
Travelling Taiwan
Taiwan has been great for a backpacker. It’s easy to connect with locals as many know English, and other travellers come here because they’re interested in the country and not because they want to get drunk for the lowest price possible.
Saying this, there’s also an interesting demographic that I’ve not met much before - unusual Americans. I ended up hostage in a conversation with Americans talking about which business class seats they’ve flown on and how they’re collecting memorabilia from each one - a world I didn’t even know existed. There are also quite a lot of digital nomad grifters gambling day-trading, crypto-scamming, and vibe-coding supplement dropshipping startups. I didn’t think I’d meet people like this outside Bali, and it’s really opened up my world.
Sightseeing, Museums, and Galleries
I went to a few popular sightseeing spots over my time in Taipei. Nothing too crazy here, just the usual temples and historical buildings. I found the museums and art galleries much more interesting:
Taipei Fine Arts Museum - despite it having ‘fine arts’ in the name, it contained many well-curated exhibitions showcasing Taiwanese artists and contemporary art. The building was really cool, too.
Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei - maybe I got unlucky, but the exhibitions here felt like duds. Half of the works were just videos, which I’m generally not a fan of in a gallery, especially if they’re just shown on a normal screen.
Ama Museum - a museum dedicated to comfort women in Taiwan. Despite being small, the exhibition is intensely poignant and highlights a piece of history that’s often overlooked.
Junji Ito (Japanese horror manga artist) pop-up exhibition - I lucked out by being in Taipei at the same time as this travelling exhibition. While Ito is Japanese, the exhibition was fantastic and had a huge amount of his works on display.
Treasure Hill Artist Village - this is a village on the side of a hill, composed of a bunch of small galleries and workshops. Most of the exhibitions were tiny, but it made for a fun afternoon.
Food
After hearing stories of Taiwanese food being too sweet, I was a little worried as I struggled with this a lot in Korea. Luckily, that wasn’t quite the case. While most street food was sweet, the food I got in restaurants wasn’t. For the most part, though, the food here was similar to that in China and Hong Kong (i.e., very good and tasty). I just stayed away from the street food.
As for Taiwanese specials, notable mentions for me would be:
Bao buns (gua bao) - these are by far my favourite Taiwanese dish. With them costing around £6 a pop in London, I was happy to get them for a sixth of that. Sadly, most had a sauce and buns that were too sweet. I hate to say it, but the more umami versions from Bao in London beat any I had here.
Tofu skin skewers - these are made by boiling soy milk until it curdles and grilling the result. They had a unique multi-layered texture, and were vegan to boot.
Boba - with most of East Asia being taken over by boba places sponsored by K-pop groups and dating sims, it was nice to get some boba that felt a little more authentic. Getting it unsweetened and with a roasted grain topping (that tastes a bit like misugaru in Korea) was my personal favourite.
Thick soup - I got this with Andy after a club night. I don’t think I’d have gone for this myself, but it was the closest thing open at 5 AM so we went for it. It was chicken soup thickened with starch, and the texture was really strange.
Din Tai Fung - I’ve never known about this chain until recently. While I was in Taipei, I thought I’d check it out. It was surprisingly easy to grab a table, and it was obvious that they pride themselves on service. All the food was good, especially their xiaolongbao (soup dumplings), which had a very delicate skin.
Asparagus juice - I saw this around and bought it one time. It tasted like if you sweetened the water that’s left after boiling asparagus. Hard to recommend.
Cooking Class
I did a cooking class with CookInn to learn how to make bao buns myself. The recipe was fairly simple, but it would be fiddly to make a lot of these. The buns ended up tasting great - nearly as good as Bao in London, but not quite as good as my friend’s, Big Dom’s.
I also made some boba from scratch in this class. It was a very laborious process, having to roll every pearl individually. I probably won’t do this again, but it was nice to make bubble tea that won’t put me at risk of diabetes.
Minna no Kimochi at Final
I was really excited for this night. I heard great things about Final, and Minna no Kimochi are some of my favourite DJs. I’ve seen them twice before, and the atmosphere they create by mixing trance and ambient is unparalleled. Final seems to have a very strong ethos around it, and I was hoping it’ll break a streak of lacklustre nights I’ve experienced in Asia.
For a decent intro to the club, there’s a short film on it by Boiler Room (which is perhaps the antithesis of what Final seems to want to represent). Another auspicious detail about the night is that Minna no Kimochi were on at 3 AM, and were playing until close at 5 AM - set times this late are unheard of in Asia, and I feel are conducive to a good crowd. I was even more excited as Andy was in Taipei at the same time, and having his infectious energy anywhere is a blessing.
Andy and I started the night by bopping around a few bars. Nisei was particularly good; it’s a Japanese bar which served an amazing white Bloody Mary.
Eventually we went to Final, which is in the basement of an unassuming building. We turned up at around 1:30, and the club was full, with a one-in, one-out policy. We got drinks at the 7-Eleven next door (which you can pop out into at any point from the smoking area if you get peckish, incredible), and waited.
While in the queue, a blacked-out car pulled up and a 6’3 jacked figure donning a white Margiela shirt styled like a kimono stepped out with hands in his pockets. The figure asked us if we were in the queue, and Andy asked him to join us. We were a little stunned by his sheer aura. His name was Mark; he was Belgian and had been working in Taipei on some crazy neural interface that mostly flew over my head because sadly my brain is too small to understand such things. Mark was super chill, and graced us with ceaseless knowledge about Final and the club scene in Taipei.
We got in after queuing for about an hour, and caught the end of Rrose’s set. I’d have liked to have caught more of it; maybe they were melding to Minna no Kimochi’s tastes, but the tracks they played had really cool sound design and developed well from each other.
The club had one room and a bar. It was a pretty bare-bones space, but it looked and sounded good. The crowd was certainly a highlight, though. Everyone was dancing, and I sweated for the first time in a club in Asia - something that I didn’t think was ever going to happen. I didn’t think I’d ever say this in a club in Asia, but the crowd was perhaps a little too dedicated - I got hushed a few times for speaking too loudly, and I heard other foreigners get the same treatment. As the person who usually avoids talking on the dance floor, the bar to get hushed really didn’t feel high.
The hushing might be to do with the club maybe being quite quiet. The bass didn’t shake my body, and I think I was the only one with earplugs. Maybe they just respect sensible volume levels here.
Minna no Kimochi’s set was incredible. I have no notes; they just played fantastic trance. Every time I’ve seen them, there’s a point in the night where things feel like they shift, with everyone dancing in unison and just being one with the music. They managed this in Taipei also; I loved it. The set was further supported by Mark conducting everyone around us, ensuring that we’re always together and have space to dance. Our guardian angel.
I recognised a fair few tracks that they played and tried to identify a few I didn’t later (with the help of Andy’s Pixel). Two Serpents by Aisha Devi was one of my favourites; I’ve not heard of her before, but I’ve absolutely devoured her discography since this night.
We stayed until the end, and much of the crowd did too. This has been the best night I’ve been in Asia. It seems that there’s something special about the scene in Taipei, despite it being a fairly small city of only about 2 million people. Sadly, at the end of the night our saviour, Mark, disappeared without a word. I was wondering if I’d see him again.
Sausha at Final
…until I did, the following week. I was back in Taipei for a few days before my flight to Japan, and went out to see Sausha. She’s a Colombian DJ who plays deconstructed club with a Latin influence - all good things. I had such a good time in Final the week before, that it was easy to convince myself to go again.
This night was a lot quieter, with an hour earlier start time. With the metro not running late in Taipei, I got to the club by renting a YouBike - Taiwan’s city bike system. This was an experience in itself.
Taiwan is known for its excellent cycling routes, but the situation is a bit weird in Taipei. Most cycling routes are on pavements, and they randomly cut off and then start again, so you often don’t know if you’re cycling somewhere where it’s allowed. I thought I broke multiple laws getting to the club, but luckily the roads were quiet so it was chill. The ride ended up costing me 50p for 30 minutes on an electric bike; I couldn’t complain.
There was no queue for the club this time, and the dance floor was much quieter. So quiet, in fact, that I spotted Mark right away. He was out with a friend who was moving out of Taipei, and we spent much of the night together. It was great to see him again.
I caught the end of a local resident’s set, JEAH’s, who was playing a huge variety of things - dubstep, hyperpop, drum and bass, and techno. It was a good warm-up for Sausha, who continued to hop around genres. Her set didn’t really hit the mark for me, to be honest - it never quite got into a decent groove, and it felt like the crowd was flagging quite hard. You can’t have them all.
Shopping
When researching clothing brands to explore in Seoul and Tokyo, I saw some limited mentions of Taiwanese brands. I didn’t think there was much coming out of Taiwan, so I popped into a few shops I had noted.
I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. I discovered a few brands that I like - nozzle quiz, ALLENKO3, and Troubled Waters. They all have similar gorpy/grundgy elements that I like about many Korean brands. IONISM and HYST were cool multi-brand retail stores that stocked many of these brands
I was also pretty happy to find a jewellery brand that I liked here, called Recovery. I didn’t manage to find anything I liked over the last 6 months in Asia, so I really appreciated this. Interesting jewellery seems to be a bit of a rarity in Asia, actually - I saw Recovery being stocked in most other clothing shops I went to. I ended up picking up a fishbone ring from them.
Taipei surprised me in a lot of ways; it’s a really comfortable city to be in, and it’s easy to have fun here. Especially if you’re into underground electronic music, this place is great.