A Night Crawl Through the Markets of Taipei

My eyes find it hard to adjust to the bright lighting of the stalls, there are too many of them, and I don't know where to begin. There are people everywhere, and what surprise me was most of them are still in their school uniforms or suits, obviously came straight from their daily activities.

Does anyone ever sleep in this city?

"Come on! There are some snacks I want you to try!" says my guide, kindly holding onto my hand as we weave in and out of the traffic, approaching the mass of people gathered around a van-cum-kitchen stall selling all sorts of deep fried products.

I am in Taipei for a quick stop over en-route to Vancouver from Australia for 18 hours. Afraid of not being able to see anything, I managed to get in contact with a friend of a friend who was willing to take me around at night for some authentic experiences of Taipei city life. This, I have been told, is the soul of Taipei city - the night markets.

The metro train conveniently drops us off at the start of Taipei's largest night market - Shilin markets - for a mere 50 Taiwan dollars (less than 2 US dollars) from the main train station.

We choose to start with the food section of the market, where traditional street snacks provide essential dinner treats for the busy inhabitants of this city who seem to work from early hours in the morning to late at night, and still find the time and energy to play. As I bite into my introductory fried pigs blood rice cake with peanut sauce, which I later found is not nearly as bad as it sounds, my guide/friend ordered a few more items for my culinary experience.

Armed with bags full of salt and pepper chicken pieces, fried tofu, battered glutinous rice balls and other quirky snacks, we squeezed in and out of the pedestrian traffic to check out all the market stalls. The entire market area expands along three parallel streets and can only be described as a domino series of shops selling everything from imitation sunglasses, underwear, shoes, mobile phones, pet supplies, pets and toilet brushes with Hello Kitty holders.

I try my hand at an old traditional fishing game, where you try to catch small gold fish with a flat paper scoop. I couldn't master the art, after destroying about three sets of these paper scoops, I smiled embarrassingly at the children with three or four fishes in their bucket, and salute them for their skills.

We tried games such as lucky dips, throwing baseball at bottles and fish a duck and I managed to win a small key ring, but it wasn't about the winning, I thoroughly enjoyed each defeat.

As we browsed through rows after rows of clothing stores, I hear percussion music from a small alley way. Upon investigating we find a small stage set up just outside a temple showing puppet drama. Colourful cloth creatures come alive with their master hand at work, and along with music played with traditional instruments made a great little theatre.

"It's for the gods," My friend says, "but we can watch it too."

So we sit down with our packets of food still in hand to watch this fascinating tradition of entertaining the Divine. I take a quick peek at my watch, 12:45am. The night is still young.