Over the holidays my mom, sister, and I took a trip to Taiwan for the first time in ages. My mom went about nine years ago but my sister and I hadn’t been since we were five and nine years old. My mom’s entire side of the family still lives there so it was a bit strange to see everyone again, especially now that two of my cousins have had (adorable) babies.

We mostly stayed in Taichung at my aunt’s house and we took two trips, one to Taipei and Jiufen and that area, and another to Tainan. There was a ton of shopping and I pretty much ate everything in sight. And also a cat village and lots of indoor and outdoor markets.

Brushing up on my Mandarin was also an adventure! Normally when I speak to my mom, if there’s a word I don’t know I just stick in the English word. It’s much harder to do that when you’re speaking to relatives who only know a few English words here and there!

I also posted a bunch of photos on Instagram while we were there. These are mostly ones I pulled from my camera.

A giant Costco-sized maze of fabric on the second floor of a large building in Taipei.

Pretty sure this should say “This way lives an overwhelming amount of fabric.”

We went to Jiufen, which was the inspiration for Spirited Away! It was super crowded with lots of lanterns and shops. Also food.

We stayed at a shmancy hotel with hot springs outside and two in every hotel room. It was difficult to leave.

CAT VILLAGE.

They’re just sitting around waited to be petted.

And there’s lots of little shops selling cat-related things. (This one’s where I got my tights!)

We did a lantern! Each color represents you can wish for (health, success, love, etc.) and then you draw/write on it and they light a fire under it and it flies away .

We went to a town in Tainan called Anping, which happens to be my sister’s name and mine put together. Somehow no one realized this until my sister and I kept noticing our names written everywhere.

Even the disposable cutlery is adorable.

Bugs at a night market. I did not try these.

My cousin dug out a photo from when we were tiny. We used to talk about living on farms next door to each other and having a cat family together. 

An Asian-style photoshoot may have happened. (My hair was HUGE.)

The most intensely painful massage happened here. The foot soaking/shoulder rub was ok but then they took us upstairs and I wanted to die. Afterward I felt amazing but I still can’t believe how painful that was.

A market near my grandparents’ house. 

The outdoor market-ness on my grandparents’ street! I used to wander around here with my cousin when we were little and we’d go buy Taiwanese hot dogs on a stick (kind of like corndogs but different). Eighteen years later it was still somehow exactly how I’d remembered it.

tl;dr – I ate my way through Taiwan and bought all the things.