Itinerary: Elephant Mountain 象山, Coco Curry, Ice Monster, Shin Kong Mitsubishi
The weather is turning warmer once again after a few days of rain last week. It was so sunny this morning when I went out to buy some hash browns for my weekly pancake breakfast, I decided we ought to go hiking! I’d been wanting to go to 象山 for 3 years ever since I saw my cousin’s post about hiking up there to get a free view of Taipei and Taipei 101.
We took MRT to the end of red line and followed the directions to 象山. Thankfully, we chose the 20 minute hike instead of 40 minute one. Because, wow, it’s basically a series of steep stairs!
And it was not 20 minutes! Not with 5 children in tow. Amazingly Fleur eventually carried both kids on her, with one on her shoulder, and many people who walked by said, “好厲害”.
Getting to Elephant Mountain
To get to the mountain, we walked about half a mile to the trailhead. It’s hard to miss with so many people walking on a Sunday. The whole trail is 2.2 miles so we just veered toward the right, hiked up to the vista point, had a little snack, then hiked back down.
That took us prob 1.5 hours total. By now it was lunch time, I suggested we walk toward the shopping area close to Taipei 101. We were so hungry, we just went to something familiar, Coco Curry, in the Breeze Center B1.
Rewarding Ourselves with Shaved Ice!
But we made sure to save room for Ice Monster, on first floor of the same building,. The children had a kiwi+lychee snow and the adults had mung beans+仙草+粉粿 shaved ice. So so yummy! Not like the Ice Monster in Walnut Creek.
We spent the rest of the afternoon strolling around the pedestrian area next to Shin Kong Mitsukoshi and the Breeze Center. The children saw a magician, a hula hoop girl, some guy making shapes out of sugar, and spent a long time asking a balloon guy to make kittens for them.
We even went up to the 3rd floor of Shin Kong Mitsukoshi to check out Jamie Oliver’s new restaurant in Taiwan. This is the closest we will ever get to Jamie Oliver. The food prices were around $400-$500 NT, which is on par with Pasta Pomodoro prices, but obviously tastier?
Weekends really are a great time to go to this shopping area. There are just so many street performers and provides an easy way to entertain the children for free. Oh the way home, we also took a detour, even with really tired children, to 五十嵐, for some grapefruit yukult drink that is our new love. Sadly, the one by 公館 (Gong Guan) made a better version.
