Taipei aka Japan Lite?

On a recent weekend trip to Taipei I discovered the city to be quite an interesting mix of mainland China and Japan. On the one hand, roads are much winder and space seems more abundant allowing for more green space and parks (something I don’t see much of in Hong Kong). In the denser shopping/entertainment districts, the streets begin to look more like Japan’s urban landscape with vertical shop signs and the familiar ubiquitous Japanese shops like Family Mart and Mister Donut.

Apart from the streetscape, many buildings in Taipei are built with a Japanese architectural style and Japanese-style teahouses are dotted throughout the city. Additionally, Taiwan boasts having the world’s highest number of Japanese restaurants outside of Japan. Of course, besides trying the famous local dishes of beed noodles, shaved ice, Taiwanese breakfast hamburger, one must also enjoy some Japanese food (“kareh raisu,” anyone?), which tastes just as good as any authentic version in Japan.

Taiwan is also big on tea culture, especially milk tea. Walking into any 7-11 store, you can have any choice from an entire fridge of teas, ranging from black to green or milk teas in various flavours. Bubble tea also originated from Taiwan, so it is no wonder why the locals love their teas in all styles and flavours with tapioca or jelly (and again, either flavoured on non!)

{ Tags: culture, japan, taiwan, travel, urban }