Miquel 8/28/25 Miquel 8/28/25

One day in Taipei: best things to do and to see

First impressions of Taipei

Taiwan is often in the news due to it being one of the world’s top geopolitical hotspots.

These can be seen on the streets of Taipei

Now, the long-running strategic Great Game between the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of China (which is the official name of Taiwan) and the US are beyond the scope of this post and, to be honest, there is no shortage of material out there to read about the origins of the conflict, its economic and military implications (from microchips to aircraft carriers) and possible future scenarios.

So, I leave it to you to make your own opinion on this matter!

As it happens in Seoul with its northern neighbour, when you are in Taipei, the existential dispute with mainland China is, of course, always lurking in the background.

In this particular case, my visit to Taipei coincided with a national election. This is an event that always brings the matter of the island’s prospective independence to the fore, with the subsequent reactions from Beijing. Although I must admit I know next to nothing about Taiwanese politics, it was rather interesting to come across a few public meetings on the streets of Taipei.

There was also a fair amount of political propaganda all over the place and, proof of the global implications of the Taiwan-China issue, is the fact that, when I checked the press at the Starlux Airlines lounge at Taipei airport, pretty much all major international newspapers had the Taiwanese elections on their frontpages.

Politics aside, Taipei is a modern, buzzing and rather orderly and clean city. It has quite a large, modern downtown with several hubs of commercial and business activity. Some parts of its central district even reminded me of New York City a little bit!

As we shall see next, it also has a rather efficient public transportation system which lets you move around easily and not too expensively!

Navigating the Taipei Metro

The underground system in Taipei is really a thing of wonder: it is extensive, efficient, reasonably priced and full of all sort of Hello Kitty-themed motifs!

I also liked the way the information is depicted, with each station having maps that show the exact location of the platforms, corridors, exits, etc. with respect to the main landmarks and streets above ground.

It is also spotlessly clean and the platforms are delineated with specific areas to wait for the next train, so that people can queue in an orderly manner, something that they do religiously!

By the way, there is even an automated umbrella-rental service at some metro stations and convenience stores! Very convenient if a tropical storm suddenly pops over the city!

Taiwanese pop culture: Hello Kitty and its friends

Another amazing thing about Taiwan and, certainly, one that will catch the eye of many foreign visitors is the ubiquity of Hello Kitty and other similar cartoon-themed characters, LITERALLY EVERYWHERE.

I am not exaggeration if I say that Taiwan looks a almost like a HelloKitty-cracy. From before landing at Taipei (the airline’s videos already had them!) and at every step as you move through the airport, then the city, you come across all sort of cartoonish creatures on billboards, screens and the like.

This is, by no means, unique of Taiwan, Koreans like this style a lot too, but in Taiwan it is on a completely different level!

What to see in Taipei: Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

So, what are the top things to do and to see in Taipei if you are in town just for a day or two?

I would say the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall comes possibly very near the top.

Chiang Kai-shek is, of course, the “founder” of modern Taiwan, or, more accurately “the Republic of China”, since, in this view, when he moved over to the island from mainland China after the Communists took control of the mainland, he was actually maintaining the pre-1949 Chinese state. This monument is, thus, devoted to preserve the memory of Chiang Kai-shek, who died in 1975.

To be honest, regardless of what your views on this conflict are, the place is really majestic, with the memorial standing at one end of a large square surrounded by perfectly manicured gardens.

There is not much to see inside the memorial itself other than a massive statue of a seated Chiang Kai-shek, but there is always a guard of honour, which gets changed regularly several times a day and the change of guard is really a sight to behold!

Best view in Taipei: get to the top of Taipei 101

The other top thing to do in Taipei is, of course, get to the top of what was until recently the World’s tallest building, Taipei 101.

Taipei 101 is 508 meters high and has 101 above-ground floors (hence its name!).

Even if it is no longer a record holder (it was surpassed in 2010 by Dubai’s Burj Khalifa), Taipei 101 is a thing of beauty and, of course, has the best views of Taipei.

What’s more, it can be visited in the evening and after dark (perhaps even better than during the day, since you can admire the colourful lighting), so it is a great activity to close the sightseeing day.

There is an observatory at the top of Taipei 101, which you can buy tickets for.

This is a popular attraction, so expect some queues!

Taipei 101 is also on top of a massive mall at the eastern edge of downtown Taipei, at the core of one of the city’s several business districts. It is also right next to one of the stations (Taipei 101 / World Trade Center) of the red line of the metro.

In fact, Taipei 101 lies just on to of a massive mall with plenty of shops and large food court with all sorts of food styles and budget options, so it is also a good place to have lunch or dinner after your visit to the top.

The place is fitted with some really fancy infography and when you are the lift going up there is an electronic display that shows you how fast you are climbing.

The view from the top is really cool as well, since Taipei is a really big, buzzing city that glitters at night.

Recommended place to eat in Taipei

滇蜀饌

No. 9號, Taoyuan St, Zhongzheng District, Taipei

This is a really, really simple Yunnan-Sichuan food place located on a side street very close to Ximen metro station.

This is, however, that type of place where locals queue to get a spot at. And the reason for this is none other than the hot beef noodles soup you can see here depicted. Worth checking it out!

Where to get the best dessert in Taipei

This place is located in one of the most lively areas of Taipei, the Yonkang Street area in the Da’an district. It is a neighbourhood with plenty of commercial activity and pedestrianized steets.

Smoothie House

No. 15號, Yongkang St, Da’an District, Taipei

http://www.smoothiehouse.com

Its highlight is this massive mango shaved ice dish, which they call “mango snowflake ice”.

By the way, ot seems, someone from CNN has checked (it wasn’t me who issued that previous recommendation, even if I am a CNN contributor, but I endorse this opinion!)

What else can I say?

It is one of those rare cases in which the real thing is even bigger than it looks in the picture. This dessert is really, really huge and it has ice cream plus iced mango cubes topped with cream and syrup.

It is also one of the very few (if not the only) time that I have been unable to finish an ice-cream dessert, not because I didn’t like it, but simply because there was soooo much of it!

Dadaocheng Wharf Plaza & Ningxia Night Market

And we finish our tour of Taipei with a visit to the Ningxia Night Market and the adjacent Dadaocheng Wharf Plaza, which overlooks the Tamsui river.

As the name implies, the market is open in the evenings and it stretches over several streets on the westernmost part of downtown Taipei. This is an area with lots of commercial activity with plenty of shops and food stalls where it is possible to buy the most incredible types of foods, vegetables, spices and the like.

It is not, however, supercrowded, so you can walk through leisurely and there is an order to it.

Adjacent is the Dadaocheng Wharf Plaza, which is, essentially, a riverside promenade. It also has some food stalls and bars and it seems to be a popular place with the youth of Taipei. It has also some rather interesting cool paintings. Here you can also walk on some piers that protrude into the river and have a look at Sanchong, which is the district of Taipei right on the opposite bank.

Where to stay in Taipei

Taipei Roumei Boutique Hotel

No. 9, Lane 64, Section 2, Jianguo North Road, Zhongshan District, Taipei

https://www.roumeihotel.com

This was quite a random find, since I booked at the very last minute and most of the international chain hotels were either fully booked or very pricey.

So, I took it because of good reviews and decent price and I think it was a good choice. Not so much because of the facilities, although the room and bathroom were pretty large!, but because of its very central location, just meters away from one of the metro lines that take you straight to and from the airport and also within walking distance of one of the city’s downtown business districts.

Flying to and from Taiwan

This was a rather short but intense visit to Taipei and it was made possible in great part because Starlux Airlines, a young Taiwanese premium airline invited me to check out its new A321neo aircraft.

You can find here my Starlux Airlines Business Class and Economy Class reviews.

Miquel 8/15/25 Miquel 8/15/25

Great value places to eat and sleep in Osaka

Since my recent posts about the Expo 2025 in Osaka, and my reviews about the best pavilions to visit, have proven to be wildly popular and garnered quite a lot of interest from readers all over the world, I thought it would be useful to supplement them with some practical tips about where to stay and where to eat while in Osaka.

Now, my stay in Osaka was rather short and for most of its duration I was actually within the grounds of the Expo, so don’t expect a long post here.

However, my guess is that, if you travel to Osaka for the Expo 2025, you may as well spend one or two days in town and wander around a bit downtown.

So here are a couple of proposals that I hope can bring something of value. For the record, I checked a few other places to eat, but I am highlighting only the one I liked the most.

Great value accommodation in Osaka within easy reach of the Expo

Best Western Plus Hotel Fino Osaka Kitahama

1 Chome-7-17 Imabashi, Chuo Ward, Osaka, 541-0042

Ok, this is not the most glamourous of hotels. It is not even a traditional Japanese ryokan.

But this branch of the global Best Western chain offers a modern, functional option to stay in central Osaka for a price of around $100 per night.

The rooms are small, as is the norm in Japan, but clean and neat, as is also the norm in Japan! But perhaps the best attribute of this hotel is its extremely central location and its great public transportation links.

There is a metro station literally just around the corner that takes you either to the area close to Namba central station direct in around 15min or to the Osaka 2025 Expo in about 25min (with either with just one change of line or, if you walk 10min to the closest Green Line station, direct to Yumeshima Station, which serves the Expo).

A couple of notes: breakfast is not great and you don’t miss much if you skip it and go grab something at one of the eating places or convenience stores nearby.

There is another “Best Western Fino” hotel in Central Osaka, so make sure you get the right one!

Great place to eat Japanese food in Central Osaka

Haneda Ichiba, Super Fast Fresh Fish Sushi, Umeda

This restaurant is located at the 9th floor of the Hanshin Umeda Department Store, which is right next to Osaka’s Umeda station, one of the largest in the city.

The restaurant is located in a sort of food court area, with several restaurants (although each has its own dedicated, enclosed space) and has great views of the surrounding business district.

We got there quite late in the evening, actually, and without a previous booking (something that often proved to be quite an issue in Japan), but they welcomed us very nicely. Also unusual in Japan, the manager was fluent in English (he lived in the US for quite a few years) and very kind throughout. He even advised us on the different types of sake and offered us a bootle on the house!

This is a sushi place which manages to combine coziness with an elegant, yet unpretentious setup, and offers also a rather good selection of entrants at rather reasonable prices. We decided to go on tasting mode and get a broad selection of what was in the menu, which you can see here.

And then, there is the sushi, of course, of which we got a couple of nice platters, all freshly prepared and served in generous portions.

A walk through Kuromon market and the Dotonbori area

Another place in Osaka where you can sample quite a few different culinary options is Kuromon Market, which is located near Namba station and the Dotombori riverside (another of the city’s highlights).

I don’t have a specific recommendation for this area, just walk around and check the different seafood stalls, many of which will prepare you som dish on the spot. You are likely to find something that looks tasty if you are into this sort of casual eating.

Also, I would like to add that we visited the area quite early in the morning, just as the shops were opening and the streets were rather quiet and deserted. So, we managed to get a rather postcard-like view of the area, with not too many people in the frame.

By all means, add a visit to this area to your Osaka schedule!

Miquel 7/28/25 Miquel 7/28/25

48 hours in Riyadh: what to do and what to see

Top thing to do in Riyadh

The bridge at the top of Riyadh’s Kingdom Center

If there’s an iconic building in Riyadh, this is the Kingdom Center, a 302m skyscraper with a very prominent “eye” at the top.

The very top level of the building, which acts as a bridge between the two sides of the opening, can actually be visited. And this is actually something I would recommend doing first if you find yourself with some spare time in Riyadh.

From the top of the Kingdom Center you have the best views of the city, giving you an idea of the extension covered by the urban sprawl. It is even possible to discern exactly where the city ends and the desert starts, without transition.

From here you can also get an excellent view of Riyadh’s central strip, which the Saudi authorities expect to develop, over time, as a sort of Dubai or Manhattan-like skyscraper district.

As of 2025, only a few of the planned high rises are currently standing. One of them is the Al Faisaliah Tower, which is another iconic skyscraper, with a roughly triangular shape and a giant 24-meter diameter ball at its top (you can see it in the picture opening this entry).

One thing that surprised me is that there was almost no one around when I visited, neither in the viewpoint, nor in the luxury mall at the base of the building. I counted about a dozen employees on my way to the top, but only a couple of other visitors in the whole time I spent there.

Nevertheless, the views were magnificent!

Riyadh Season & Boulevard City

One of the symbols of the process of liberalization that Saudi Arabia is undergoing is the Riyadh Season.

This is a festival that runs from October to March, with many cultural and entertainment activities scheduled throughout the city. This is quite a radical development is you think that cinema, music and other forms of entertainment were severely curtailed until only a few years ago!

The Riyadh Season has several venues but one of the epicenters is Boulevard City and the adjacent World (BLVD World), a massive entertainment complex on the western side of Riyadh. Think Disneyworld meets Time Square, but in the desert!

At the time of my visit I was only able to pay an evening visit to Boulevard City, so I will focus on this bit. The area is being developed so fast that it is likely that by the time you read this post, new amusement areas have already sprung up in the vicinity (there is certainly no shortage of land for this!).

You can tell Boulevard World is really new and no effort has been spared in order to create a sort of immersive experience with plenty of sensorial stimuli, be it light, music or water effects.

In some ways, it is not too different from the typical set up of a World Expo (and, yes, after Osaka, the next World Expo will actually be held in Riyadh!)

By the way, to give you an idea of the scale of the place, Boulevard World also hosts a massive man-made lagoon, which is quite a thing considering the Riyadh’s desert environment! (always wondered where do they get the water from to run such a huge city in this very high and dry location).

There are also plenty of places to eat throughout Riyadh’s Boulevard City, although the two suggestions I present further below are actually in other parts of the city.

The Saqer Al-Jazirah Saudi Royal Air Force Museum

I did cover this museum in this post for the Allplane aviation site, however, I thought any post about things to do and to see in Riyadh should include a mention to this excellent museum.

If you are even minimally interested in aviation, you will like it! Even if, truth, be said, it is far from easy to reach. The only way to get there is by taxi/Uber and the entrances are not clearly signalled, so actually my Uber left me at the far end of the perimeter, not at the main entrance.

Likewise, getting back to my hotel was a small odissey, since I Uber drivers kept cancelling rides at the last moment and took me something like one hour or waiting time, plus a not very pleasant walk on the side of the mortorway to a nearby McDonald’s to be able to get a ride back! So make sure you have enough battery and a charger with you and some way to access the internet on your phone if you don’t wish to get stranded!

On the positive side, I must say that the museum staff were super friendly and helpful and helped me with my internet connection and offered me tea and sweets during my wait.

The museum collections are pretty impressive and are split between an indoor and an outdoor part. Pretty much every model of aircraft operated by the Royal Saudi Air Force is in display here and there are also some civilian aircraft that were once operated by flag carrier Saudia, including a rather remarkable Lockheed L-1011 Tristar.

Where to stay in Riyadh

Since I have been at two different hotels in Riyadh, on different occasions, I will outline both here, starting by the one I liked the most.

Radisson Blu Diplomatic Quarters

This is a very nice hotel, located in the diplomatic area of Riyadh, to the west of the city. In fact, the whole area has some sort of special security status, as there are checkpoints to get in an out.

The whole facility is super new and it shows in its design. It is not super central, but you need a car to move anywhere in Riyadh, so I guess this is a rather secondary consideration here.

Also worth of note is the breakfast, which was really tasty and had an interesting mix of international and Arabic specialities.

I was also surprised to find out the room had a small kitchen!

A couple more pics of the room, which was impeccably clean and contemporary in style.

Al Waha Hotel Riyad

This is a more centrally located hotel, belonging to a local chain.

The room was quite spacious, but, to be honest, there were some service glitches and, overall, despite being technicall a four-star, it was not nearly at the same level as the other hotel I previously commented on.

The registration took very long, I understand there is some paperwork to be filled, but it was not done very efficiently to say the least.

Then there were issues with some of the lights in the room, namely the one in the cupboards, which wouldn’t switch off due to some faulty sensor, so I had an ongoing fight throughout the night, since it activated at random several times, waking me up.

Last and not least, my room was not done upon coming back from my day appointments and this, I was told, was due to not having indicated my preferences for room cleaning, since apparently it is a requirement so that female staff can know when they can enter a room. This is apparently by regulation, but I would have appreciated some warning before hand.

Having said that, when I complained about the above points, the staff were apologetic and they made sure the issues were fixed on the second day of the stay.

Where to eat in Riyadh

When it comes to getting the proper Saudi eating experience in Riyadh, the choice is clear.

Najd Village

https://najdvillage.com

This is a bit like an oasis in the middle of central Riyadh. There are no traditional tables, but rather an array of eating areas arranged around a central courtyard with a small garden.

Najd Village restaurant aims to replicate the atmosphere of the desert caravanserais, where desert travelers used to rest and eat. You actually seat on the ground, or rather on carpets, and usually you would share the

Now, beware the portions, because they are really, really huge!

We were three in our group and we each ordered one item from the menu and we could hardly finish it! But it was really good! I’ve been twice to this restaurant and the standards have been pretty consistent.

As per the food, there is a good selection of Arabic cuisine specialities, lots of nicely cooked meat and rice with a diversity of breads to go with, which really adds to the experience!

Restaurant Awani - أواني Tahlia

This more of a Lebanese place offering specialities from the broader Middle East. It is rather central, modern and functional, and the dishes were actually pretty tasty, so I thought it worth including it here, even if it is not really a local Saudi cuisine restaurant. You can get an idea of what it is like with the pictures below.

Day trip from Riyadh: a tour of the Edge of the World

If looking for something to do just outside Riyadh, but without having to venture very far out, the Edge of the World tour is your thing. It can even be done in half a day, since the main sights are less than an hour by car from western Riyadh.

Very important, though: you need to get a guide with a proper 4x4 car. This is not an activity a non-local can really do on its own. There is, however, no shortage of companies offering day tours of the Edge of the World from Riyadh.

In fact two “Edges of the World” are marketed as day excursions from Riyadh by these tour operators.

We chose the one called “Second Edge of the World” by a company called Riyadh Tours, but my understanding is that, whether “first” or “second” Edge of the World, it is pretty much the same experience, with the difference being the access route. One of the routes is only open on certain days, while the other is always open.

Only the “Second Edge of the World” was available when our group was there, but don’t be fooled by the name, it was well worth it!

In fact, I think the actual experience is pretty similar and it involves venturing out into the desert towards a ridge of hills west of Riyadh, contemplate the otherworldly landscape, have lunch on the spot and head back to the city.

Definitely one of the top things to do in Riyadh if you have a spare half-day!

This was quite an interesting experience for me, since I always imagined the Saudi desert as a sort of flat space with sand dunes, but the reality is a lot more diverse. There are, actually, quite a few plateaus and hills in the desert and not all of it is sandy, a big part of it is actually a hard crusty surface!

So, in these tours (I think they more or less follow the same programme), the guide comes pick you up to the hotel in his vehicle and he takes you through a number of panoramic viewpoints in the desert.

The Edge of the World derives its name from the fact that there is a vertical cliffs that falls directly over the vast plain of the Saudi desert. It is pretty spectacular and provides great opportunities for Instagram-like pictures.

Most of the tours include also a lunch on the spot. The guide carries everything that is needed for this in the back of the car. At the time of the visit the temperature was pretty warm, in the high twenties-low thirties celsius, but still pretty bearable. So our guide just spread out some carpets and cooked some simple, but tasty meal on the spot. It was a great convivial moment with the group, an amazing experience.

As an added bonus, on our way to the Edge of the World we passed by some bedouin settlements that had camels and we stopped for a quick look at these amazing animals. As you can see in the picture below, they were quite friendly!

By the way, is planning a trip to Saudi Arabia, you may also like my post about Jeddah, its UNESCO World Heritage historical town and the Red Sea Corniche!

And if you considering traveling with Saudia, the national airline of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, check out my Saudia flight review!