台北 Taipei - Day 01: Qingguang Market, Oia Cafe, Tamshui Old Street, Ningxia Night Market

Just came back from Taipei this morning, and I can't wait to share my 5-day itinerary with my dear readers! 😊

Here's my itinerary for Day 01:

• Qingguang Market (晴光市場)
• Oia Café (伊亞藝術咖啡館)
• Danshui Old Street (淡水老街)
• Ningxia Night Market (寧夏夜市)

My friend and I travelled by JetStar airline and arrived at Taoyuan airport Terminal 1 at about 6am, had a quick breakfast at the food court, and made our way to the Inn Cube Minquan to put our baggage. Shortly after we're done with leaving our baggage in the hands of the Inn Cube Minquan staff, we began to start off our holiday officially. 

Qingguang Market (晴光市場)

Qingguang market is kind of like our pa sat (wet markets) here as there are food stalls, clothes stalls, vegetables and meat stalls, and condiments stalls. This is the first place we visited simply because it's near Inn Cube Minquan.

 晴光市場 Qingguang Market

  No. 41號, Lane 10, Shuangcheng Street, 

  Zhongshan District, Taipei City, 

  Taiwan 10491

  

  Opening Hours:

  9AM to 8PM

Even though it says opens at 9am, there's no point going there so early because there are only a few stalls opening before 10.30am.

Since there's nothing much there when we visited, we just walked around to see what's there... We got ourselves some 滷味 to eat... And we were surprised by the taste! 

豬血糕 (Pig blood cake)

How it works in the shop: 

You choose the braised dishes you want and then the owner will chop/cut/slice the dishes for you to eat on the go. You will be charged based on what you ordered, by pieces.

So my friend and I took the following dishes:

• Pig blood cake (since we have not tried it before)
• Pig intestines and tongues, 
• 豆干, and 
• Chicken stomach

It cost ~400+NT and it's a big pack. We almost couldn't finish it... LOL! To be honest, the bag of 滷味 didn't look appetising. BUT! They were seriously good! The pig intestines and tongue and chicken stomach were super chewy! The pig blood cake tasted good with the pickled vegetables, although we prefer 豬血 to 豬血糕. HAHA!

After we're done with this big bag of 滷味, we set off to the Oia Cafe! Exciting~ 😊

Oia Café (伊亞藝術咖啡館)

Oia Cafe is a cafe with alpacas running around, usually you will see two to three alpacas running around. When you're somewhere near the cafe entrance, you will smell the not-so-pleasant animal smell... 

  Oia Café (伊亞藝術咖啡館) 

  252, Taiwan, New Taipei City, 

  Sanzhi District,

  後厝里北勢子12-1號

  

  Opening Hours:

  11AM - 8PM

  

  How to get there:

  Take the red line from Taipei Main station to

  淡水 Tamsui station (~1hr)

  Take bus 860/861/862/863 from the bus interchange

  (it's on the right of exit 2, the brown-maroon red

  brick building) to 後厝 Houcuo stop (~1.5hrs)

And so, we arrived at the cafe and we saw a fluffy alpaca seated at the entrance.

We were asked to sit on the sofa at the entrance there until one of the staff attends to us. Customers won't be allowed to go into the cafe to play or take photo with the alpaca until you've ordered something from the cafe. Thus while waiting, we took photos of the cats...

Savannah Cat

My friend and I ordered some finger food, drinks, and waffle ice-cream as we're still full from the 滷味 we had at Qingguang Market.

Our fearful lunch...

The nuggets were really shiok! Much better than what we have in Singapore! No joke! The drinks were also good. As for the rest of the food... Er... Just don't set high expectation on the food since this cafe's main highlight is the alpacas. HAHA!

We were lucky to see three alpacas roaming actively around the cafe! There were 2 white (named Snow and Li Bai and both are females) and a brown one (named Brown, male).  

Oh! The alpacas chew on almost anything. It chewed on my friend's bag zip and my pants! They also like to eat whip cream (the staff told us), which isn't good for them! We've also been warned by the staff to keep an eye on our belongings, our food and drinks, and our hair! If the alpacas touched our food and/or drinks, we won't get any replacement... 

Once we're done with our food and drinks, we got the staff to help us clear the table and we went around the cafe to take photos and videos...

There's a farm outside the cafe, and there's more alpacas and also goats there. Apparently, Brown's parents are in this farm...

Before you leave the cafe, you can also request the staff to help you take photos with the alpacas! The staffs have their ways to tame the alpacas so that at least a decent photo will be taken for their customers for memories. 

Finally a good photo with Li Bai after X-number of photos!

After playing with the alpacas, we headed off to Danshui Old Street (淡水老街). The nearest bus-stop is just a few minutes walk from the cafe. Just turn right and walk straight, and you will see the bus-stop back to Tamsui station. 

Danshui Old Street (淡水老街)

We took bus 860/862/863 (towards Tamsui station) from the Oia Cafe and alighted at Bei Tamsui stop. 

Danshui Old Street (淡水老街)

Such beautiful scenery, how can one not take photos right?

After that, we headed off to eat more food. Did some research before and lots of people recommended ah-gei and fish balls from this stall, so we went to try them.

Ah-gei and fish balls

For those who don't know what Ah-gei is... It's glass noodles inside a tofu, and then put a sweet sauce over the tofu.

Both my friend and I really love the fish balls... As for the ah-gei, both of us agree that the sauce is a little too sweet for me and a little weird for her. Hahaha! 

After that, we went to look around the stalls available there and then we got ourselves more food and desserts!

Top: Popiah peanut ice-cream
Bottom left: Rock sugar tomatoes
Bottom right: Custard cream pancake

This custard cream pancake is famous in Qingguang Market, and we managed to find it in Tamsui Old Street! As for the taste wise... It wasn't within our expectations. Not too sure if it's because it has turned cold when we ate it, that's why the taste wasn't really what we expected it to be... As for the popiah ice-cream, it tasted so-so (how wrong can it go, right?)... Except that when the wind comes, it'll be messy... At least that's what happened to me. Haha! We also tried rock sugar tomatoes... They're too overly sweet, and to be honest, it's quite a weird combination for me... =\

As the month of January is still a winter period in Taiwan, the sun sets at around 5pm... So we managed to catch the sunset! 

Sunset @ 淡水
#noFilterNeeded

Ningxia Night Market (寧夏夜市)

After catching the sunset, we headed off to the night market! Tonight, we're visiting the Ningxia Night Market. 

  寧夏夜市 Ningxia Night Market

  Ningxia Road, Datong District, 

  Taipei City, Taiwan 103

  

  Opening Hours:

  5PM to 12AM

  How to get there:

  Take red line to Zhongshan station

  Map from the station to Ningxia Night Market

It's only Wednesday and the night market was so crowded... I can't imagine if it's the weekends...

People mountain people sea @ Ningxia Night Market

I did my 'homework' before coming to Taiwan and I specially came to Ningxia Night Market for this stall - 方家 chicken rice & 魯肉飯. Everyone recommended this stall as a must-try stall.

方家

The menu

滷肉饭 and chicken rice

And it's true! The food is delicious and I also strongly recommend all to try this stall! I can't find any similar taste anywhere else in Taipei anymore... T_T

My friend mentioned that there's a popular food in Ningxia Night Market we should try, and that's the beef cubes... There were three stalls in the night market, two of which were having super long queue. So we bought from one of the stalls with longer queue.

Beef Cubes with some honey sauce

You can choose the portion of the beef and also the type of sauce you want, and we got the one with honey (can't remember the name of the sauce). No regrets! The fats and the meat were well-balanced! Not too oily, not too dry. The only downside is the time waiting for this beef cubes... But hey! Good stuff are worth waiting for, right? 😋

That's all for day 01 of my Taiwan trip! Will post the rest of my itinerary soon!