Taipei, Taiwan

We were in such a hurry to get to the Cebu airport to make our flight to Taiwan that we didn’t have time to change our clothes. We arrived at the airport with bags in hand and only swimsuits and flipflops on. We got quite a few stares and laughs as we ran our butts through the airport to catch our flight, then proceeded to freeze our butts off on the plane. To top that off, I forgot to check the weather beforehand and just assumed Taiwan was going to be as warm as the Philippines since it’s only a 2-hour flight away. When we landed in Taipei, we looked out the window and it was pouring rain and only 50 degrees. Oh, just wonderful. Everyone else had pants with warm jackets on and the stares and laughs increased 10-fold when we got off the plane and stood in the long customs line. We looked ridiculous and definitely learned our lesson to have warm clothes at the ready in our bags. But who cares, I’m just glad we made our flight!
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We quickly changed into some warm clothes at the airport and grabbed a taxi to Roaders Hotel in the bustling Ximen district. Immediately after walking in, the boys were in heaven - the lobby was a full on arcade with basketball, fighting arcade game, air hockey, and a huge screen where they were playing Kungfu Panda movies. The best part, they had snacks and drinks that were all FREE! We let them play for a while and then all took hot showers and put on WARM CLOTHES. 

We set out for a fun night on the town! It happened to be the annual lantern festival so there were lots of various lantern displays and live music. Such a fun surprise! We cruised through packed shopping streets soaking in all the culture around us. The boys were on a mission to find some new shoes since theirs were literally falling apart. Luckily, shoes stores are plentiful in Taipei, like literally on every other corner. We stopped in several stores before they finally found shoes they liked at one of the Nike stores. Tyson also found a new backpack since his one at home was also toast. Wesley is obsessed with stuffed animals and spotted a store with hundreds of them. Of course, he had to go in and search for a stuffy to add to his giant collection at home. After shopping, we grabbed some dinner before heading back for the night.

The following morning, we started the day off at a cute little cafe to enjoy some French toast and banana paninis. Yum! Down the street was a gorgeous temple built in the 1700s with the most intricate architecture. There were several women playing string instruments in the front of the temple with many worshipers praying all around. We stood and watched for a while soaking in the authentic moment.
 
We didn’t have a plan for the morning so we thought it would be fun to just get lost in the city.The boys love arcades so we’re always on the lookout for them when we travel. While we were walking around, Tyson found a coin on the ground that said 'Toms Arcade' on it, so of course, we turned all our attention to find said arcade. It didn't take long before we found it on the top floor of a 5-story shopping center. We bought both the boys a small bag of coins and they took off. They quickly found their 'favorite game' where you drop a coin in the slot and it pushes it forward in hopes that more coins will drop off the ledge. There was a line of about 10 of those machines and more than half of them were being played by GROWN MEN, each with well over $100 worth of tokens trying to get a stack of tokens to drop. What were they trying to win with the tickets….a stuffed animal in worth like $10? Lol!

We left the arcade after a while, but the boys still had a pocket full of change they'd been carrying around all day. Fortunately for them, Taiwan has tons of those claw machines where you try to win stuffed animals, toys, and even iPhones. The only thing is that these machines are insanely rigged where’s it’s nearly impossible to win. The claw goes down to pick up the object but then releases the claw before it even gets to the hole. We all laughed about how terrible these games are but that didn’t stop the boys from wanting to play more and act surprised it DID IT AGAIN! They love a good challenge! Wesley ended up beating the system and won a Pokémon toy. Nice job dude!

At that point, we were ready to go check out another area of the city, so we Uber'd over to the Taipei 101 tower which is Taiwan’s tallest building. It looks HUGE in person! The first few floors of the tower are upscale shops. We window shopped for a while and then Tyson found a sports store and got himself a new zip up hoodie. Didn't take long for us to get tired of shopping, so we took off back to the hotel to relax for a while and play in the lobby arcade.

Later that afternoon I had a treat planned for the boys. Themed restaurants are super popular in Taiwan and what could be better than a pooped themed restaurant? Totally my jam! Most of the chairs are actual toilet seats that you sit on. All the dessert items on the menu involve poop somehow. I ordered chocolate and vanilla swirled ice cream that came inside of a toilet bowl. Wesley ordered a chocolate fondant turd that came on a plate the shape of the top of a toilet. Tyson and Marshall both ordered a giant plate of poop shaped waffles with bananas, ice cream and chocolate sauce. So poopin’ delicious!

Down the street is the Shilin Night Market which is a huge night market with local vendors selling street foods such as grilled squid, snails and even "chicken butt". There are also clothing and souvenir shops as well as a plethora of carnival games. The boys played a few games like shooting BB guns at balloons, bouncing ping pong balls in cups and tossing rings on drink bottles that you can win. Tyson actually landed a ring on a bottle, but it was a flavored vodka bottle instead of the Coke bottle he was going for, lol.

After wandering through the packed streets for a couple hours we officially wore ourselves out and were ready to head home. By that time, it was time to head to the airport for our flight back to Seattle. Taiwan was a fun, vibrant city with great shopping and site sightseeing. Perfect way to end our Asia trip!