You can only really know a city if you explore it on foot, and this is especially true of a particularly ugly city like Taipei. Just travelling between work, café, bar and home, you can feel surrounded by the same architecture on every street, and the same 7-11 signs on every corner; you’ve got to spend time to get down into the cracks of Taipei, to find some of the more attractive spots, and I do this by taking long walks without a map. The heat and humidity means that this is best done in the evening or at night, but as autumn has arrived, now is the perfect time of year to go searching for new places in Taiwan’s capital.
Route number one: The corner of Longjiang and Minquan roads (near Songshan airport) to Taipei 101. This was my first ever long walking route in the city, and it takes around 90 minutes. Starting in the wide, social Rongxing park, you simply make your way towards the distant tower of 101, by whatever roads that look interesting. In Taipei, this generally means taking the smallest roads possible. The big streets have few redeeming qualities, and are usually also noisy with traffic, so I skirt around them. Walk through the sleepy neighbourhood on the north side of Minquan road until you reach Dunhua road (and the airport), and then slip south of Minquan as you continue east. The streets between Minquan and Minsheng in this part of Taipei are really attractive, so walk down through the little park at the top of Dunhua road and try to find the long curving tree-lined road with flower shops, a chic bar with outdoor seating and design studios. Keep falling south through the city as you go, through the big residential blocks towards the trendy little shopping streets just above Zhongxiao East road. By now, you’re probably too sweaty to enter any of the bars or try on expensive clothes, so keep going. At Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall, keep going south, through the park itself, and through one last little neighbourhood, before breaking through to the big business 101 area. It’s a uniquely Taiwanese moment: pacing past chicken diners and tea stalls, you look up and see the tallest building in the world. Once inside the 101 building, revive yourself on the fourth floor at the fresh smoothie stand, and then indulge in a wander around the great Page One bookshop.
Route number two: If you prefer your architecture grandiose rather than trendy and boutique, a better walk is from the NTU Hospital MRT station down to Guting. This is a shorter walk, less than an hour, I think, and a good one to do at night. Walk past the Peace Park, keeping the Mitsukoshi tower behind you as a guide, and find yourself in the government quarter of Taipei. Strange, large old buildings live here, and at Ren’ai Lu, you’ll see the Presidential Office to your right. Head towards Chiang Kai-Shek memorial, and try not to notice the plain-clothed policemen standing at the street corners. In the darkness, the CKS memorial is much more beautiful than by day: the white square pyramid gloomy in the streetlights. Now, if you want to keep moving towards Guting, be a little careful. I find that the CKS area is easy to get lost in, so keep going down Hangzhou Street until you find Roosevelt Road. Look for the fire station on the right side of the road, and the building on the left with an enormous tree growing out of its roof. At Guting junction, you have a choice of heading home, or getting wasted in one of Wax’s all you can drink nights (the nightclub’s entrance is just by Starbucks). In Wax, if you arrive already sweaty and disgusting, no one will notice.
Route three: A shorter, grimmer route is from Songshan train station to 101. This is a much less fancy part of town, but has some very cool (and very Taiwanese) sights. Squat temples, bird shops, scooters roaring through junctions – I did this walk as darkness was falling, and tried to stay north of Civic Boulevard for as long as possible. Taipei’s speciality is the little street, which stays magically quiet despite being right next to a titanic eight lane fly over, and this journey shows you a few of them. Another nice thing about the route is that, if you keep north of Civic Boulevard, you can finally swing down into Xin Yi a bit east of Warner Village, and so see the far side of the 101 / Xin Yi district – the elegant office buildings lit up in the night, the business people escaping work as the day ends.
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