Elephant Mountain
In the morning, I got up to go hike up Elephant Mountain. I made the 15-minute motorbike trip over to the start before commencing my journey up the steep steps leading to the lookout over the city. It was very hot walking up even though it was in the shade, and the steps were quite steep, however it was a very enjoyable hike. Something I found quite interesting throughout Taiwan is the coexistence of enormous cities with nearby natural beauty. Elephant Mountain is one of the places that highlights this well. The mountain itself was quite pretty and once I got to the top, I was able to take in the city views of Taipei, with the iconic Taipei 101 stretching far above all other buildings.
Addiction Aquatic Development Taipei
After finishing the hike, I decided to treat myself to a meal at the Addiction Aquatic Development seafood market. Inside the market they had lots of live and fresh seafood on offer with a fancy restaurant in the centre. After waiting for around 30 minutes for my number to be called, I was able to enter the restaurant where I got a seafood platter with the most amazing sashimi, crab, scallops, oysters, caviar, and every other kind of seafood you could think of. It cost around $60 AUD, but the food just did not stop coming. It was a very satisfying meal and much needed after my morning hike.
National Palace Museum
After recovering from my food coma, I got back on my motorbike and rode to the National Palace Museum. I browsed around the museum for around 3 hours quickly glancing over the artifacts that were there. The museum contains around 700000 ancient Chinese Artifacts and artworks that were moved from Mainland China. The artifacts that I found the most interesting were the rare ancient Chinese texts that showed ancient writing systems, as well as how the writing has evolved over time. The building itself is also quite impressive. I was sure to take lots of photos of the palace from the outside as well.
