The Girl Who Ate Everything

Note: I currently live in Norway, but I lived in Taipei from August 2014 to June 2015, and I have a million things I want to share about my time there. Why didn't I do it earlier? I'm slow.

Night bike ride with Xiangtai and Charlotte.

Do you like drinking? Dancing? Karaoke? Being smushed into dark, noisy enclosed spaces with strangers? Spending money doing the aforementioned activities? Did your face contort into a series of exponentially more horrified looks after you read each of the preceding questions? If so, then [smack] HIGH FIVE [/smack], we might be on the same page when it comes to favorite forms of nightlife entertainment. A page from the book, Cosmopolitan Living: How Not To.

Thankfully, Taipei has plenty of fun things to do at night for those averse to bars, KTVs, clubs, and spending more than NT$200 (that's about US$6) in one go. You can hang out in one of many cafes (well, one that's open late). You can walk around one one of many parks. You can go on a snack crawl through one of many night markets. And if all else fails, you can always rely on one of a million 7-Elevens. It's always open. Always watching.

Park, then river, then New Taipei City.

But my favorite cheap thing to do in Taipei at night is to go bike riding with friends along Xindian River. The Greater Taipei Area has over 100 kilometers of riverside park paths reserved for bicyclists and pedestrians. (You can download maps at travel.taipei.) If you don't have a bike, it's easy and cheap to rent a YouBike for a night. I much prefer riding at night than during the day. The main problem with day is the sun. Day is when the sun comes out and melts brain cells. Because the sun is very hot. (I took an astronomy class once—I know what's up with the sun.) Night is a much better time to go out, when the air is cooler, the neighboring lights of New Taipei City dot the skyline and glimmer in the river, and there are waaaay fewer people to hear me belting out off-tune Disney songs, which is a thing you might want to do when you're bicycling maybe I dunno "WHOOOO IS THAT GIRL I SEEEEEE?".

My favorite place to enter the riverside park is from Hakka Cultural Park near the south end of Shida Road. There you'll find a YouBike station next to a bike path that takes you up over a small bridge with a scenic platform. Keep going down the ramp and it drops you into a wide open section of the park with little else besides grass, trees, and paved road. I have no problem living in cramped city quarters, but as soon as I cross the threshold between ramp and park, I feel a burst of blissful freedom that I didn't know I was missing. "Ohh, this is what nature smells like. Mmmmm. Chlorophyll. Lack of exhaust fumes."

Here are some sights along the bike path if you go west:

Note: I currently live in Norway, but I lived in Taipei from August 2014 to June 2015 and am slowly making my way through writing posts about my time there.

Taroko Gorge. Taipei 101. The National Palace Museum. Sun Moon Lake. Shilin Night Market. Jiufen These are a handful of Taiwan's most popular tourist attractions, exemplifying Taiwan's beautiful scenery, achievements in architectural engineering, preservation of historical Chinese artifacts, vibrant street food culture, and mo—

Wuuut CAT VILLAAAAGE (and restrooms).

OMG OMG OMG!@#!^@%#! THERE'S A VILLAGE FULL OF CATS!!!!

[Violently shoves nature/museums/night markets out of the way, runs towards cats while flailing like an inflatable waving tube man and yelling like every goat combined.]

Before 2008, Houtong exemplified the decline of a once-prosperous coal mining village. Since 2008, it's exemplified how to resurrect a dying coal mining village: Just add cats. According to the Internet, in 2008 a local cat-lover organized volunteers to help take care of the village's stray cats. As photos of the cats circulated online, the village's new identity as a cat haven attracted enough tourists to turn it into an official cat-themed village with cat houses, cat sculptures, cat murals, cat-shaped food, a cat-themed walkway, and other cat things to take selfies with. All of this centered around a hundred-something real cats.

Yes, fluorescent pink child! Delight in the miracle of kitty!

Houtong Cat Village may be one of Taiwan's less significant tourist attractions for people who prefer mountains and museums and temples and food and stuff, but according to the cat version of TripAdvisor, it's the #1 significant tourist attraction in Taiwan for cat lovers.