台北 Taipei - Day 02: Yonghe Soy Milk King, Elephant Mountain, Yongkang Street, Huashan 1914 Creative Park, Tonghua Night Market

For our day 02, my friend and I visited the following places:

• 永和豆漿大王 Yonghe Soy Milk King
• 象山 Elephant Mountain
• Yongkang Street (永康街)
• 华山 Huashan 1914 Creative Park
• 通化夜市 Tonghua Night Market

永和豆漿大王 Yonghe Soy Milk King

Top left: Sweet soy milk
Top right: Salty soy milk
Bottom left: Egg and pork floss pancake wrap
Bottom right: Shao bing

Before spending energy on the Elephant Mountain trail, we must have a filling breakfast... And since it's early in the morning, we should have something warm for the stomach to start its 'engine'! So here we are - Yonghe Soy Milk King! 

  Yonghe Soy Milk King

  No. 102, Section 2, Fuxing South Road, Daan District

  Opening Hours: 

  24-hours daily

  How to get there:

  Take red line to Da'an station, exit 5 or 6

  Walk straight till you see a fire station 

  The stall is just beside the fire station

Note: There are 永和豆漿 Yonghe Soy Milk and 永和豆漿大王 Yonghe Soy Milk King... Do not mix the two up!

Both my friend and I have not tried salty soy milk before, thus we ordered one to try! Of course, how could we miss out on the traditional sweet soy milk... right??!

We also ordered shao bing and egg and pork floss pancake wrap... I must say, the shaobing and pancake wrap were superb! The salty soy milk had lots of ingredients in it... There's soy beancurd, shrimps, and scallion (spring onions)... And the taste feels like having miso soup porridge. Haha! As for the sweet soy milk, it smells great and it isn't that sweet...

I personally prefer the salty soy milk to the sweet soy milk... I just wish the sweet soy milk to be slightly sweeter... So if you're someone who don't like sweet stuff (like my friend), you will probably love the sweet soy milk more... 

After a very shiok breakfast, off we went to the Elephant Mountain!

象山 Elephant Mountain

It's both our first time going on a trail overseas... We were quite excited and scared at the same time, because we don't know what to expect and if we were able to make it to even the bottom checkpoint. But we just YOLO and went ahead to try! 

To get to the Elephant Mountain, take red line to Xiangshan station. It's the first/last station on the red line. Once you alighted at Xiangshan station, you will see signboards of the path to the Elephant Mountain almost everywhere. You won't be lost one lah! Haha!

Signboards to Xiangshan from inside the station
to outside the station

Seriously, you don't have to worry about getting lost as the signboards are there every 100m to 150m. Probably the confusion comes only when you reach this very steep slope up! Like out of a sudden, the signboard(s) is/are nowhere to be found! 

Anyway after you got up the steep slope, just turn right and you should see a lot of people going down and coming down.

Us at the mountain trail start! Or maybe it's the end...? Haha!

We got tired and sweaty even before we started the trail! Haha! We are so weak, I know! It was pretty sunny and hot that day, considered a good time to do a trail. Otherwise, it may be slippery up there... 

And here we go~ Started the trail! Woo-hoooooo! 

Looks simple right? We thought so too...
Until we did it... Super tired~

I love this crafting!
It looks good when the sun shines on it and casts a shadow on the floor..

Along the way, there's lots of this kind of yellow boards... It acts as a form of encouragement for the visitors...

For people who can't read Chinese, the board says
"Beautiful women are those women who smile"

So keep smiling, beautiful ladies! =D

Climb, climb, climb... 

Go as high up as our legs can carry us to...  

After 15-20 minutes later, ta-daaaaa!

Signboard to inform visitors that they've reached Yi Xian Tian

The view of Taipei 101 from Yi Xian Tian

You may choose to climb even higher than this... But my friend and I decided that we don't want to torture ourselves anymore, so we ended at Yi Xian Tian. Hahahaha

OH! OH! Please remember to bring insect repellent or mosquito patches for this trail! We got lots of mozzie 'kisses' from this trail... #dontSayINeverRemindAh

After we spent about 30mins climbing up and down 象山, we took a rest at a cafe first (to rest our jelly legs) and then headed to Yongkang Street shortly after. 

Yongkang Street (永康街)

As it was already lunch time when we came down from the Elephant Mountain, we headed to Kao Chi (高記) YongKang Main Restaurant to satisfy our xiaolongbao and siew mai cravings! *slurps*

Kao Chi (高記) YongKang Main Restaurant

  Kao Chi (高記) YongKang Main Restaurant

  No. 1號, Yongkang Street, Da’an District, 

  Taipei City, Taiwan 106

  How to get there:

  Take red line to Dongmen station

  Map from the station to Kao Chi Restaurant

I did my 'homework' about what's good in Yongkang Street, and many people mentioned about this Kao Chi restaurant being equally good as Din Tai Fung at a much cheaper price.

😏😏😏 Of course, how can we not try out the recommendations people gave right?

  

It was like a short walk (about < 2mins) from Dongmen station, and the restaurant is quite noticeable... Unless if you're always looking at your phone lah! 

Top left: Pork xiaolongbao
Top right: Pork xiaolongbao with crab roes
Right bottom: Siew Mai

The xiaolongbaos were awesome too, except that my friend and I got a little thirsty after finishing them. My friend preferred the ones with the crab roes while I preferred the original ones... The soup were delicious! 

But! But! My favourite is still the siew mai! Like I super <3 the siew mai till I believe I could finish all 8 pieces by myself! They're so so so... soooooooooooo different from the ones we have in Singapore and/or Hong Kong! Similar to after my trip to Hong Kong, I'm never going to 'touch' Singapore's siew mai for the next N months... And I'm not even exaggerating... Haha!

After a fulfilling lunch at Kao Chi, we did some window shopping around Yongkang Street. By the way, Yongkang Street is well-known for having many yummy local foods. Other than that, there's nothing much to do there... Nothing much to shop too... This was why my friend and I did some window shopping only. 

After walking around and getting ourselves tired, we got into a cafe to rest our half-jellied legs. The name of the cafe is 8% Ice-Cream Shop. I kind of like the cafe's interior design. It's a two-level cafe, and instead of going up, its second level is downstairs. Plus, the decorations from the place where we sat at all the way to the bottom level, it's all plants (or maybe they're grass)! 

Fantastic backdrop for photos, isn't it? But it may be a little scary for people to stand at that small area, especially if the person is scared of heights. 

Ordered their high tea set for 2 pax, which consists of
2 drinks (hot tea/coffee) and a seasonal
fruit ice-cream waffle

After we were done with the ice-cream waffle, we realised we were overly-full for any other more food... Hence, we decided to move on to the next venue - Huashan 1914 Creative Park. 

华山 Huashan 1914 Creative Park

We travelled to Huashan 1914 Creative Park by the Taipei Double-Decker Night-Sightseeing Bus, which offers as a package together with the MaoKong ticket by KLOOK. So we waited for the bus at the designated pick up stop. Otherwise, you can always take the orange line from Dongmen station to Zhongxiao Xinsheng station. Exit from exit 1 and follow the map. It's not difficult to find your way there...

When we reached there, most of the shops were already closed and there were no more performances... Hence we just took a walk and snapped pictures of the cute decorations around... So be sure to check the performance timings before heading there!

Oh! And we saw this interesting entrance for one of the shops which sells toys and many other interesting stuff... 

We spent about 1 hour at this place and then off we went to a night market!

通化夜市 Tonghua Night Market

通化夜市 Tonghua Night Market
Also known as Linjiang Street

Even though Tonghua Night Market is less known as compared to the other bigger night markets like Shilin, Raohe, etc, it was super duper crowded when we reached the Tonghua Night Market! 

As usual, I did my research on what's good (or at least worth the calories) here... And here we go...! 

The famous 生煎包 (pan-fried pork bun)

We walked around while searching for the list of recommended food in this night market... And this pan-fried pork bun stall was the first we found (because there's a long queue)! Luckily the queue moved quite quickly. Phew~ Otherwise I will die of the heat, especially if you're just queuing and waiting in front of the shop!

Anyway, this pan-fried pork bun is top-half steamed and bottom-half pan-fried. They tasted quite good except that we found buns quite oily, especially when they've turned cold. Worth the calories! 😁

Gua Bao

The next item we went for was the gua bao (pork belly bun)... We got the mixed gua bao from 石家割包... It's freaking awesomely delicious! It's so good till I don't know how to describe it... Juicy, fragrant, a good balance between the fatty oil and lean meat... We almost wanted to get a second one because it's really gooooooood! But we've decided not to because we wanted to try the 葱油饼 (scallion pancakes) somewhere back in the night market. 

This shop is located a little away from the Tonghua Night Market, but you can google the way there. 

The last item we ate there was the 葱油饼 (scallion pancakes)... It was also damn freaking shiok till we finished it without realising that we didn't take a photo of it... And the stall... -.-

For the rest of the night, we went shopping in the night market. Lots of things to buy! Haha!

That's all for our day 02! By the way, this Tonghua Night Market is a place where I will visit again the next time I'm back in Taipei... Lots of good food and cheap stuff here! 😉