I was told by friends that I had to visit Danshui 淡水 (also written as ‘Tamshui’), a small city to the north of Taipei. As it’s by the sea, the port city used to be the centre of shipping and commerce in the 19th century. These days, it’s more of hotspot for tourists and locals alike with its bustling markets, food stalls and restaurants.


While you can choose to take the subway straight to Danshui (it’s the last stop on the Danshui line), I chose to cycle there from Guandu station (關渡), a few train stops before Danshui. I met up with a newfound friend from Couchsurfing, and he was to be my guide for the afternoon. So we rented a bike for NT100 each, and it even came with a complementary bottle of mineral water. The journey is an easy and pleasant ride along the Danshui River and takes about 30min to get to Danshui at a rather leisurely pace.


When we got to Danshui, we were dripping in sweat and the first thing we wanted was to have a shaved ice dessert!!!


A simple dessert, but oh-so-heavenly at that point, made up of just shaved iced laced with fragrant palm sugar (the Taiwanese call it 黑糖 i.e. black sugar), sitting on top a bed of fillings of your choice. You can choose from green beans, red beans, grass jelly, tapioca flour balls, longans, yam, sweet corn etc.


Spongebob fans will no doubt love this stall selling these Spongebob character pancakes. Spongebob’s Chinese name is 海綿寶寶 which when literally translated, becomes Spongebaby. A cute translation I’d say!


A close-up of the Spongebob pancakes. Of course, accessories are excluded when sold. Hehe.

These are a specialty of Danshui and they are 鐵蛋, literally translated as ‘metal eggs’. These are actually stewed eggs that have been dried. Chicken and quail eggs are normally used to make these.


Deep-fried durians are being sold by the stall on the right. OK, no thanks, I much prefer the fresh Malaysian durians I get back in Singapore!!! Nothing like the real thing in its original form I say.


A poster put up by the Tamshui Church advertising for a children’s summer camp organised by the church. Where the Avatar connection comes in I have no idea.


A small section of a large tiled wall along the streets of Danshui. I loved that different artists were each given a small space to express their own creativity. The tile on the left depicts a stall selling fish balls (魚丸) in Danshui. It’s a good spot to stop and admire this nice piece of street art.


I liked this particular tile on the left which says: 原諒別人就是善待自己; 生氣是把別人的錯誤來懲罰自己. Translated, it means to forgive is to be kind to one’s self, while being angry at others’ mistakes is punishment wrongly inflicted on one’s self.


Danshui’s Red Castle 紅樓, a historical colonial building that sits on atop a hill in Danshui. It used to be the place where rich businessmen gathered to have drinks and talk shop. Now, a restaurant is located there.


A view of the mountains as we cycled back to Guandu to return our bikes.