Itinerary: Children’s Amusement Park, 市立大學 Taipei City College, 曉食堂, Bookstar Bookstore
We got a late start today because we got home so late last night. Though I was tempted to stay home all day, I felt bad because the kids have been talking about Halloween non-stop and we did buy them cat costumes at Yabook.
So I did some research and found out that all the big Halloween activities already happened this weekend. Oops! The biggest one is apparently the one in Tianmu 天母. Not surprising since that’s where the international schools are.
Thankfully, the Children’s Amusement Park supposedly had an event where you can beg for candies so we went that route. However, after lining up at 3pm to follow some little witch around the park, we found out the candy giving part was actually this morning at 10am.
Boo.
At least the children got some stickers as consolation price. Thumper told me sadly when she got home, “Mama, I didn’t get candies this year.” She’d been looking forward to having her 9 pieces of candy. (She gets one more each year.) I guess we have to go find her some after the fact.
Instead of going home directly, we thought we’d swing by the swimming pool at Taipei City College to see how it is since someone invited us to take a swim class there. Because it’s in the basement with a low ceiling, the chlorine smell is really high. So I may not sign up. But the prices are amazing for semi private lessons of 3 people. It worked out to $12/hour/person.
By now it was dinner time, so we decided to just walk toward where there are lit storefronts. Then I spied Bookstar in a little ally! Sadly the children must eat first so Fleur and I just ate at the Japanese restaurant next door, so excited were we to visit the bookstore ASAP.
The restaurant is called 曉食堂 and it’s actually pretty good. It’s very clean and bright and everything is made to order. It sells set meals mostly. I ordered the tonkotsu and chicken teriyaki and croquette. I learned that teriyaki is called 明燒. The food is probably a 7/10, not super delicious but very good. Here’s a review of the restaurant with more pics.
And of course the best part is that it’s right next to Bookstar. I actually ditched Fleur as soon as we were done eating and took the kids with me to browse.
My gosh, this bookstore! It’s my favorite physical bookstore so far. It’s not the cheapest. Most children’s books are 75% of list price, though you should always double-check. For example, the 東方 old literature sets are $100 a book, which is 71%.
BUT, for such a little store space, they’ve managed to squeeze in way more books than 南門書局 which is actually only a few blocks away. They also have textbooks and children’s board games! Like Carcasson. And the little logic games that Mandarin Mama loves. There was also the complete set of Chronicles of Narnia and Anne of Green Gables.
We were there for at least an hour and had to stop ourselves from buying all the books we wanted to get. I got 2 of the Miyazaki Picture Book set which many of my other friends are getting, plus a comic book on Chinese language, which I’ve never ever seen before! The Miyazaki books are the cheapest I’ve seen at 78%. Most bookstores sell it at 80%.
I would take a picture of what we bought, but if you spend over $2500 you get free shipping! So we won’t get our books till Wednesday.
We are definitely going back, without some of the children, so we can spend hours and hours in the bookstore.
Addresses:
- 曉食堂 – 臺北市南昌路一段59巷5號
- Bookstar 彩繪星球 – 臺北市南昌路一段59巷7號
