U-Bike Taipei

Very last post on Taipei! 

I walked by this U-Bike Station everyday on Heping East Road and was always curious how it works. It's located right in the intersection of Heping East Road and Shida Road, making it super convenient for tourists and college students alike with the Shida Night Market right down the street as well as the university next door. We also found another rental station at the corner of Zhongxiao East Road and Guangfu South Road (光復南路), I suppose so people can ride their bikes down to Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall and the Xinyi shopping district where Taipei 101 is.

Hubby and I had imagined a whole day of biking around town on these, but between school and visitors, the next thing we knew Thanksgiving was already around the corner. And then the rain came. God, it rained, and rained, and rained. And it wasn't until right before we left Taipei did the sun came out for, like, a day. 

Taipei Eats - Heping East Road area Part II (和平東路, Picture heavy!)

Just a few more snack stands and a review for a couple of restaurants on Heping East Road (和平東路) here. 

This little cart selling fried scallion pancakes was at the mouth of my alley at the intersection of Heping East Road and Roosevelt Road (羅斯福路), right outside MRT Guting Station (古亭站) Exit 6. 

Adding an egg and/or spicy sauce and you have you'll have a yummy, satisfying, and filling snack. There were a couple of times when hubby and I had a huge lunch, so for dinner we each got one of these scallion pancakes and called it a night. Not the healthiest way to eat, but it worked for the time being. Better than instant noodles!

Taipei Eats - Heping East Road area (和平東路, Picture heavy!)

Disclaimer - another long post ahead of the shops along Heping East Road where I live!

I mentioned in my previous Shida Night Market Eats post that we don't have a functional kitchen in our Taipei apartment, so we eat out 2 meals a day, 7 days a week, which is why I'm gaining weight even though I walk 2+ miles every day to school T.T Anyway, in addition to the night market, we pretty much just randomly pick any stores, shops, carts, stands that looks good.

Zhang Mama Beef Noodles (張媽媽牛肉麵) is the very first shop we had lunch at the day after we landed in Taipei ^.^ We didn't know at the time, but this shop is actually a bit more expensive, about twice as much as most noodle shops and we paid around $6-7 (NT$180-200) for each of our bowl of noodles.

The red braised beef noodles (left) was decent, but not the best. The light broth beef noodles turned out to be disappointingly bland. I guess now I know that "light" really means "no taste" LOL! Won't make that mistake again :P

Braised beef noodle with tomatoes and Braised beef soup.

Itty Bitty Apartment Part II

After a restful night at Howard International House Taipei, we took a short taxi ride to the apartment building to meet with our landlord. The whole thing was rather nerve-racking since I found the furnished apartment on Craigslist Taiwan. Prior to moving to Japan, at least hubby's institution referred us to our landlord in Yokohama. But going to Taiwan we were on our own and it could turn out very very badly. But thank goodness it didn't. In fact, the place exceeded our expectations and then some!

Left: front of my apartment building. 

Right: standing at the front gate, looking left. 

Left: standing at the front gate, looking directly away with my back to the gate.
Right: standing at the front gate, looking right.