Day 18:Taipei cafes, eating and shopping

The greatest thing about any city are its cafes. Taipei is not short of great cafes. From more generic brand stores like Starbucks and Barista Coffee to funky little hangouts, these are the places for travelers or anyone to spend a bit of time with friends or just people watch. 

My favorite cafe right now is Ueshima Coffee (UCC) on Dunhua Nanlu 敦化南路. It is just off Zhongxiao E.Road Section 4 so it is a very short walk from the MRT station. I like it because it has a long bar section which looks out onto a side lane and from there it is very easy to study, people watch and let the day pass by!

Taipei's Ueshima Cafe UCC

The coffee and sandwiches are great. My only issue with UCC is that they do ask a fee for wifi but since I didn't really need it today, I never asked how much. According to one of my teachers, this practice is becoming more frequent and I guess I can understand why with costs rising everywhere. I even discovered some places have a fee if you wish to charge your phone!

UCC's milk coffee

Taipei's Ueshima Cafe UCC - sandwich and iPad

I also was sent some great links on shopping and eating in Taipei. One great blog which was sent to me is entitled A Hungry Girl's Guide to Taipei This blog is amazing and covers all the latest must eat hang outs in Taipei. It is very up-to-date so I am going to post it as a link out on my blog later. Another great blog for shopping I was sent is entitled Cracking the Egg: Shopping Guide Taipei. Although the post is a few years back, it is still rather current, containing a lot of useful information. 

The main thing I have noted in Taipei is that people still shop at smaller local stores. Aside from the chain corner stores such as 7 11 and the like, I saw smaller shops that specialize in coffee and teas. Hence when I could not find Peppermint tea at the Wellcome supermarket, I stumbled across it in a small street store where everyone was buying their coffee beans, specialized tea and such. It made me realize that Taiwanese still shop in smaller more localized places which is great to see. 

My next posting will be on great shows to watch on TV in Chinese. My Chinese teacher introduced me to a great program which I had actually watched before in Singapore. So pleased that I can access youtube in Taiwan because I ended up just watching all the uploads there! More to come on that later.