Ximen Station

The Times Squares of Taipei

Walking around Ximen resembles the street of Times Square in New York. Not that I know, I’ve never been, but hey I’ve seen New York Minute with the Olsen Twins. At Ximen, you’ve got big buildings, tons of people: people walking, people shopping, people dancing and singing, people eating. Lots and lots of people. There’s lots to eat and do here.

The first time we went into Ximen was on our walking- “Old Taipei Tour” where we saw the entrance to the performing older ladies. Since then, we made it a regular stop.

FOOD- DISCOVER SOME NEW DISHES; :o :)

Since we have been going to Ximen bi-weekly, we have discovering some new favourite meals.

Here’s a list of what we have tried so far:

Baked Squid:

We got this twice, once with just garlic and once with teriyaki sauce- I recommend getting in with some sort of sauce because it comes with like 10 cloves of garlic anyways and it’s the same price.

Kimchi Pancake: This is a vegan Korean dish we were told about- and we’re so happy we managed to find it. (Very easily too) It’s very yummy and filling. As a bonus, the lady who serves this dish is super sweet!

Baked Potato goodness:

Ok so you basically can get a baked potato with anything and everything on it. We got a cheesy garlic one and it was delicious!

CNN approved fried chicken:

LOL- it’s CNN approved so obviously we had to get it! It was good, pretty tasty, but I would get something more adventurous if you only have one time there!

The Dream Cool Drink- This is a huge hit at Ximen, there's a lady that's job is to hold up a sign that says dream cool this way. There's tons of different flavours- The most popular ones are number 2, and number 6. I got number 2, which is a lemonade kinda juice. Very yummy!

There also plenty of stuff to do, it’s always turnt up at Ximen Square. (Station)

Here a list of things to do:

Catch a movie- go watch a movie at one of many movie theaters. We have been twice already- we saw Dr.Strange and Trolls It cost around 500 dollars for two people, that includes you popcorn and drink- there’s also a student deal. Your ticket has a seat number on it. The top selling movies (like Dr.Strange) are in a huge movie theater- I mean HUGE- maybe 3 times as big as the one at home.

Get a piercing/tattoo- we we’re told if we wanted to get a tattoo or a piercing that Ximen was the place to go. We got some piercing- which were pretty cheap, we paid around 300NT per piercing- depending on what earing you got. Our friends got a tattoo (I’m not sure about the price) but we get travel tattoo so we will do it soon enough! (sorry mom)

If you come to Taipei you definitely want to go to Ximen Square. With tons of shops, you can pick up just about anything. I have this pizza bucket hat that I’ve been eying. There are tons of food stands, and tons of stuff to do. So keep updated as the list gets longer!

Maybe on NYE there will even be a ball drop… you never know ;)