Our First Day in TAIPEI! First Impressions of Taiwan's WILD City (Ximending, Street Food & Shopping)

Do you want to get some jiao long bao later? Jiao long bao let's say together. Bao bao we do something else first. The balls are warm as well. You can see just how overwhelming this place is. That's insane. Good morning from our first morning here in Taiwan, Taipei. This is pretty good coffee. It's a button press machine and normally it's not good but it tastes amazingly delicious this morning. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Feeling good and you're going to join us today on a full day of exploring. We arrived yesterday. We spent maybe an hour walking around last night in our area but we didn't really get to see loads because we got the boys to bed. So today's going to be a full day of exploring out all day, eating some amazing food. We've got some really fun food planned. We found this small dumpling shop that I want to go and find. There might be a bit of a queue to wait but it looks incredible. We're going to go and check out the area near where we're staying because we've got the best location I have to say. We're staying at the Westgate Hotel and it's literally in the main bit you want to be in. You walk out on the street and you're just there instantly. It's amazing. We've got some breakfast this morning. Some noodles, some braised pork in soy, some seasonal vegetables, rice, a bit of cheese. Did you see over there the plant? There's a plant you can eat. They said add honey to it. It's something plant. It tastes like aloe vera apparently. You add honey to it and you're only allowed three. Not recommended for pregnant people and stuff. So I don't know what's in it but it's fascinating so I might try that in a minute. A bit of house plant. Have you got chicken nuggets for breakfast? Just trying it for Coda. Just to make sure what he's eating is nice. Are they nice? Really really nice. I think I'm going to go get some. They're really good. That tastes like sausage doesn't it dad? It is a Saturday morning here. 9am in Taipei and this is actually super interesting. We are in the area where we explored very quickly last night and it is empty. Things supposedly don't open here until a little bit later. This street was buzzing last night and now there's no one. We're going to come out later and explore it properly when it is open and hustle bustle, everything going on. We're going to go into the stores, have a little explore, we're going to buy some food. But I thought I'd just grab the camera now when we're having a quick walk after breakfast just to show it in a slightly more unique way I suppose and just see it a little bit more quiet. Interesting eh? Isn't it? So so different. Like the same street. Oh no, not after that breakfast. Okay this place seems to be the exception. Looks very popular on a Saturday morning. Rice flour noodles since 1975. Okay equally still busy a milk tea spot. People grabbing milk tea on a Saturday morning. How cool. I love travelling man. It's just so good. Just rock it up. See like these people probably come here every weekend, every Saturday. It's like their routine and we're just getting a snapshot of it for a short amount of time. And capturing it on the vlog forever. How cool is that? Do you want to get some jiao long bao later? Jiao long will it take to get there? Are you sure you don't want to do bao a bao? We do something else first. Okay, one back at you. Did we not want to do type B today instead? Get it? No. Where are we? Type A? Type B? Type B? Oh type A. Right, got it. Or we could go to type 2. What do you want to say in Taiwan? Let's stay in Taiwan. We're here now. Thank you. Wow. I've never seen tapioca pearls being made. This is so cool. So you get like a massive bit of this solid version of a tapioca. Well they're always solid. The formed version. And it goes through it's almost like a custom maker. It goes round and then it knocks out these little balls at the bottom. So cool. I wish I did. Can I have that job? You want that job? Okay. You can work here when you're older if you want. You can do whatever you like mate. Have some fun of it. And I want to go into space. I want to do a lot of jobs. Really? Look, look, look. They've got dinosaurs. Oh it's warm inside. And cold there. Do you see that there's like a flame flame, is it called? It's a flame thrower. It is, yeah. So good. The balls are warm as well. Is that good? Great sentence, the balls are warm. It is nice. Wow. Another very popular one. People chewing up here. These look like pancakes. Maybe savoury. Love how easy it is just to grab some food on the street here. Such a cool place. You can just come shopping. You can just walk around, you don't even have to spend money. You can just take in all the sights. And you just wonder how many years, a gentleman here, how many years has he done this on this street potentially. It's his first day on the job. Oh is it his first day? Right, okay, cool. This place is doing egg burgers. Looks so good. Maybe for breakfast tomorrow we come out here instead and do something like this. When you look up things to do in this area, so we're in the Zimmern area, this shop, Don Don Donki, comes up quite highly rated and it's like a discount store, Japanese store. So we're going to have a little look inside and see what we can see. But it was so busy around here last night and it's really nice being here as the shops are starting to open and it's been much quieter. There's no queues. People are opening up their shop front. Feels like the day is starting. Oh wow, it's open 24 hours. And this is the first one of these stores in Taiwan. Very cool. Excited to go inside, although I don't know where Koda and George are. So once I've found them, we'll be going inside. This place is crazy. It is like 3 or 4 floors and it almost feels like a maze. Like you've got snacks, you've got toys, you've got a ton of beauty products. It is just really crazy. We managed to pick up Koda some new little Pokemon toys. He's starting to get really obsessed with Pokemon. It's really sweet. So the haul so far is a Hello Kitty sparkling strawberry drink, some Don Don Donki socks, because the song is so great in here and I want to remember it forever. I had to use Google Translate to see what this was, but it's some kind of premium hydrating moisturiser gel thing. Looks really good. And then some Hokkaido milk mochi. Oh, I just love like the branding of all this stuff. It's great, isn't it? So cool. And then Koda's chosen. Show your toys. Oh yeah, what did you get? Charizard. Charmander. When Char... When we beat... When Charmander evolves. I could defeat... Could defeat what? I defeated Charmander and then it turned into this one. It doesn't defeat, it evolves. So Charmander evolves eventually into Charizard. That's the biggest, strongest one. And who did you get? I forgot. Ash. Ash. Yeah, very cool. You can see just how overwhelming this place is. These strawberries. £678. So that's like what, £15? Expensive, but look how perfect they look. They look amazing. They almost look fake actually. I almost want to like try one. I don't think I want to spend like £10 on strawberries. But they're like so red. They look so good. They look beautiful. You think they have those strawberries like street food outside? One, I can't remember where we were, one time we had these amazing fresh strawberries out on the street. It would be good to try, wouldn't it? Okay, get them to try. They're like £8, but I think we should do it. £8 or £9. Worth it? Probably not. It's like a pound each, but okay. What is that? What have we found? It's like a frozen... I don't even know where to start with what this is. I have no idea. I don't know if it's sweet or savoury. No clue whatsoever. Frozen Satsumas. Frozen Satsumas? But here, we'll say random. Wow. You see so much crazy stuff here. It's so cool. All just stuff... Oh, these look nice. Stuff we just would never get in the UK. Yellow apples? There's stuff we don't even know. There is stuff we don't even know. There's stuff we don't even know. You're so right, mate. That is why we travel. What is that one? What is that apple? That's a different colour? That's fair. That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. That is fair. Apple. Green red kiwis? Red kiwis? No, you... Yeah, you kind of got that, actually. Oh, it's two different songs, actually. Oh, really? Oh, they've gone. There they are. I hope this song isn't, like, copyrighted. It probably is. Probably, but it's a good song. I feel like I've been walking for another ten minutes and we're still in this same store. Crazy. What's that? Dried tomato. Dried tomato in a packet. I'd say try it, but I don't really fancy it. It's like sun-dried tomatoes. Oh, fine. But that is not sun-dried. All these alcoholic drinks now. Japanese... What is that? I don't even know. Looks cool. All this stuff you could just spend so long... I'm not sure. Dried tomato, yeah. Spend so long looking at all this stuff. Crackers. How would you ever choose something, though? You just have to randomly choose and hope for the best. We've come now to a place, an area just down the road called America Street, and there's, like, amazing graffiti art everywhere, you know? It's still... Things aren't open yet. It's gone 11, and things are still closed. I think things sort of open up at midday, which feels really late here, but it's like a night city, isn't it, around here? Wow, there's so much graffiti. It's amazing. I don't know how graffiti artists do it, like, with a spray. I don't get it. I don't get that. I can do painting, but I don't get spraying. It's very talented. So cool. Literally every surface you look, there's art. Okay, we are going to try these strawberries. Can you imagine I drop them on the street? Oh, my God. They're very expensive strawberries. These are, like, £1 each. Like, maybe $2. It's not quite double, is it, American dollars anymore? Yeah, hang on, mate. Not quite double? It's nowhere near double. Oh, my goodness. They look great. Let me take a picture first. Hang on. Very expensive strawberry taste. So good. Red, red, red, red. Honestly, the sweetest, softest. Mmm. It's delicious. It tastes like when you're a kid and you grow strawberries in your garden. It tastes like the sort of real strawberries that I remember from my childhood. Not the, like, hard, white ones you get in the supermarket now. So good. I nearly dropped them then. Did you see that? Sorry, George. None for you. Unreal. I don't know. Do they change these? Like, do they do something to them? I don't know. Mmm. Wow. So soft. That is how you want every strawberry to taste when you buy strawberries. Wow. How's that? Oh, just ran back because we left this camera on a little ledge whilst we were eating those strawberries and then we walked off for, like, ten minutes. We just realised the camera wasn't with us, but it was exactly where I left it and loads of people were walking by, so if that isn't a sign of a safe city, obviously there's exceptions everywhere both ways, but that was very, very lucky. We have been queuing for these famous xiao long bao. I'll show you the queue. It's behind me here. People are queuing. We got here when it opened and it's still a pretty long queue, but it's closed all the way in there as well, but apparently this is really, really good and some people just walked past and said, we had this yesterday. It's amazing. It's worth the wait. So Lucy's gonna go in. I'm gonna go with Kodo, grab a coffee and we're gonna get it to go because there's limited seating in here, but sometimes it's worth it to do these popular things and do the queuing time. Sometimes the queuing time's impossible with the boys, but we've pushed through today. Kodo's opened his Pokemon. That's kept him distracted. Remi's all good. Getting there. Getting a little bit closer. So you queue the same amount of time for dining or takeaway and then they've got a minimum order of one plate for two people. We're only ordering one plate for four people, but we wanted it to take away anyway because it's a little bit warm in this bit so we're gonna find somewhere a little bit cooler to eat at or maybe even back at the hotel because it's literally around the corner from here. So yeah, I managed to skip about four people in the queue because there's no dining spaces available yet. But the main queue is for both dining and takeaway. And yeah, now the plate is only a hundred and... 135 for seven pieces which is very cheap. Great value. And yeah, cannot wait for this. Someone shouted out to us when we were queuing, it's worth the wait! An American lady. So yeah, cannot wait for this. Okay, back to the room now. Let's try these. That has been a long wait. It was a whole eight minutes that I was carrying them, just dreaming about eating them. So let's go. Let's try these Xiaolongbao dumplings. I'm gonna try and prop my phone up as well. Okay, let's see what we've got in here. There's a chilli bag, chilli sauce bag, soy sauce and there should be a ginger. No ginger. Huh. Sure, I asked for ginger, but there we go, that's alright. Ah, ginger's on top of it already, perfect. So gingery. Oh, look at the steam, they're still steaming. Now, I don't have a little pot for the soy sauce, so I don't know how I'm gonna do this. I'm just balancing on the edge of a bed, awkwardly. I think I'm gonna have to do like a soy sauce in spoon situation for each one. I don't know how to do this, unless I need a table. Could you... I need the ironing board. There we go. Perfect! Oh, so good. More soy sauce. Mmm. Oh, it's so good. The pork is really soft. Very full of flavour. Amazing. Oh, it's so good. Mmm. The top of the actual dumpling where it's all like round round. It's so good and chewy. Oh, it's amazing. That is unreal. I'm comparing it to Din Tai Fung and this is like a million times better. And I love Din Tai Fung. Here you go, try this. This is good. I made a whole bite for you. How is it? I don't like it. You don't like it? Fair enough, that's fine. My trusty ironing board that's got multiple uses. Also gonna try a couple of these. So we've got the milk mochi. I'm really much more of like a milk vanilla flavoured thing. Milk vanilla flavoured person than chocolate. Oh yeah, they are like little pancakes. Let's give it a go. Ooh, look at that. Mmm. Oh, it's nice. It's not too sweet. Do you like it? Look at this angle. You wouldn't have thought this would be on my job for many years. And these are... These taste like, you know the street food we had yesterday that tasted like an ice cream cone. It tastes like the hard version of that. Do you like those more? These ones are in a packet so I need to open it. They're the crunchy ones, they're the soft ones. They're the soft ones. I think I like these more. Do you? It tastes like an ice cream cone, doesn't it? Made in Japan. I like them more. This all has a very Japanese vibe, doesn't it? What does? All the snacks. Because it's a Japanese shop. It's got more than a Japanese vibe. It's literally Japanese. A whole store? Yeah. It's the first one in Taiwan. It's a Japanese shop. Hilarious. I thought you were joking. What happened there? Oh, it's gone all misty, look. Oh, misty. We're about to tell you a story about this, but maybe we'll tell you in a minute. Okay, out a couple of hours later. Back in this amazing area where it is so much busier now than it was this morning. There's a lot of people out. Koda just got a balloon from these ladies here. He had to choose a pose and then do the pose and then they give him a balloon. It was like cat ears or a heart. He looked a little bit confused the whole time, but he did it. He got his balloon. That's hilarious. We were like, are we going to pay for this? What do they want? Then they're going to do this data capture. You need to fill this form out. So this is called Red House. I was hoping I'd remember the facts I learned about it when I hit record here, but it appears none of them have retained in my brain. Come on George, they're all waiting. Taipei's Red House today is now best known for two floors of shopping, full of craft stores, independent design shops, plus cute and quirky gifts. Is there no history there? That's what it's known for now. I meant the previous thing. It's a historic theatre. It used to be a theatre. There you go. Some factual history for you. Any dates? Didn't get that far. People can Google this. It opened in 1908 and it's still open today. So that's, it's been open 74 years. I don't know, it's nice. Oh yeah, that one's a bit extravagant. I like the last one. This is also really nice jewellery here and it's not bad. Some of these rings were like £12. Pretty good price. Koda's so confident travelling. I really love to see it. He just picked up a ring like Mum, I think Mummy would like this and he just asked the lady on his own, how much is this? We got some chicken from this place in the last vlog. If you haven't seen that, go back and watch if you want to. You don't have to, it's up to you. But we arrived last night for us and we came straight to this chicken place. Yes. So tonight we are on the search for something a little bit different. See what else there is. Probably from a street vendor. We're gonna just walk a little bit, suss it out, see if there's anything we like the look of and grab something. This looks delicious. We're not sure if we're more in the shopping streets right now because we're trying to find some food. This is the only thing we can find right now. Clearly we need to go to a different street. Thank you very much. Thank you. I think this is the brown sugar one. It's so funny because it tastes like milk tea but it's solid. Is it good? How is it? Okay, this is the peanut and sesame one. So satisfying. It's the kind of food I could just keep eating and eating and just never stop. Just so delicious. It's cheap, it's quite simple but just super satisfying. Okay, we have been walking around and we've come out to this main street. This is actually the street our hotel's on. Such a good location. Staying at Westgate Hotel if anyone is visiting and needs a hotel in the area I definitely recommend. They have hosted our stay here. They looked at the channel and they invited us for a couple of days which is just amazing and we're so grateful. It's a really good location because you can get straight in to all these kind of walking street areas. But anyway we have come to a place called Monga. Taiwanese style fried chicken. We saw someone walk out with it and it is the biggest piece of fried chicken I've ever seen and it looks great. Did you see them cooking it? I want to just go in and try and film a little bit of how they make it because it just looks so good. Okay, you can't really see much but basically you order on this screen here and then your number is called and I think Lucy went for one of these and it is a lot bigger than it looks on the lens. So I got an a-ling or a-ling. I got a-ling and a-ling. Glitching. It's like a crushed lemon drink. It's really nice. Tastes a bit like lemon zest. Do you know what I mean? It's not just juice. It's quite like... And not too sweet. Less sugar. Ah, that's why. We got the goods. Look what we've got. Lessons. Cooling it down with a fan. This kid is a genius. Cooling it down with a fan and then having a little nibble. My mistake. It's a bit spiky. That is so hot. I just burnt my legs. I actually burnt my legs. That's insane. We are nowhere near the point of eating it because it's so hot. It's not actually ever going to cool down. So Lucy did pick up a side dish as well and they are just amazing. They're these oh, they're so good. These sweet potato balls and they're just delicious. They're fried but soft. They're not like crunchy but not soft in a way where something fried's been sitting around too long it's gone soft. It's just soft from the beginning but fresh and just like slightly sweet but not too sweet and just the most delicious golden coating. Mmm. And kind of chewy but again in a fresh way not in an old gone chewy because it's been sat around too long kind of way. So good. I've never tasted anything like I've never had anything like this. On the way back to the hotel I picked up a mummy pancake egg puff and it's like one of these waffle things. Already eaten some. Koda's had a lot of it already. And it's got like chocolate inside a chocolate chip one. And it's really good. So that's going to end off today's video. So thank you so much for joining us. We've had a lovely first full day here in Taipei. Enjoyed so much good food. Really loved the whole atmosphere. People sort of enjoying themselves out. Darling you've got loads over there. This is me and Daddy's bit now. I've got loads. You've not got loads now because you've eaten it all. Thank you so much for watching this video. If you did enjoy it please give it a big thumbs up. Make sure you subscribe for more Taiwan Taipei videos coming soon. And we've got a few more countries on this trip so make sure you're subscribed to see where we end up next. If you're still watching at the end of the vlog please comment end of vlog club. We go through and heart all of the end of vlog comments and we really appreciate you watching until the very end of this video. So thank you for watching and we'll see you very soon in the next one. Goodnight.