What should I avoid in Taipei?

Shilin Night Market is the one every first-timer hears about, and it's the one we'd skip. The stalls around Jiantan station repeat the same giant fried chicken cutlet a dozen times, and the underground food court smells of fryer oil and bleach under fluorescent tubes. Raohe Street Night Market, beside Songshan station, is a single lane of roughly 600 metres, which is far easier on a jet-lagged brain. Join the queue at the Fuzhou pepper bun stall by Ciyou Temple, where the buns come out of a clay oven too hot to hold for the first minute. Ningxia Night Market, a 10-minute walk from Zhongshan station, is smaller still and leans on oyster omelettes and chewy taro balls. Taipei 101's 89th-floor observatory costs around NT$600, and on a grey day you pay that to stare at cloud. Look up from Xinyi Road before you buy: if the spire vanishes into mist, so will your view. Otherwise, climb the Elephant Mountain trail from Xiangshan station, a sweaty 20-minute stair climb that costs nothing and frames the tower from the side.

Shifen on a Saturday is the day trip we'd talk most people out of. Pingxi Line trains from Ruifang run roughly hourly, so the carriages pack tight, and the lantern shops along the track charge around NT$200 for a single-colour sky lantern you write a wish on while strangers film you. Plenty of those lanterns come back down as wire and singed paper in the hills above Shifen waterfall. Jiufen has the same weekend problem. Jishan Street narrows to a shoulder-wide alley of taro-ball steam and incense, and the 1062 bus queue at Zhongxiao Fuxing station can stretch past an hour on a Sunday afternoon. Go on a Tuesday, or stay overnight and walk the steps after 7pm, when the red lanterns at A-Mei Teahouse light up and the day crowds have left. Yehliu Geopark is worth seeing, but the Queen's Head rock draws a photo queue that can run 30 minutes by 11am, so arrive when the gates open around 8am.

The rule that catches first-timers on the Taipei Metro is food. Anything edible or drinkable past the ticket gates, including a sip from your water bottle on a 33°C August afternoon, carries a fine of NT$1,500 to NT$7,500, and Metro staff do enforce it. Leave the dark-blue priority seats empty even when a Tamsui-Xinyi Line carriage is full; locals stand rather than take them. At Taoyuan International Airport, ignore anyone in arrivals who offers a flat-price ride into the city, follow the purple signs to the Airport MRT, and board the express rather than the commuter service that stops everywhere. The express reaches Taipei Main Station in about 37 minutes for NT$150, about US$4.70. The official taxi rank is metered and honest, though the ride into central Taipei runs well over NT$1,000. Inside the city, yellow cabs use the meter without argument, and Taipei scores 8.5/10 for solo-traveler safety (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index), so late-night rides carry little risk.

Typhoon season runs from July into early October, and when the Central Weather Administration issues a land warning, Taipei can declare a typhoon day that closes offices and halts the Maokong Gondola, so check the CWA app before booking any Yangmingshan hike. Tonight's 24°C at 79% humidity feels muggy rather than hot, but from late October the northeast monsoon brings a cold drizzle that soaks Jiufen and Keelung for days. The National Palace Museum, open since 1925, fills with tour-bus groups between 10am and 2pm, so arrive at the 9am opening. Near Taipei Main Station and in Ximending, men in monk robes press prayer beads into your palm and then ask for a donation; Taiwan's Buddhist associations have warned for years that real monks do not solicit cash on the street, so hand the beads back and keep walking. The Maokong Gondola also closes most Mondays for maintenance, which strands anyone who planned a Taipei Zoo and tea-house afternoon.