We came home to Taichung on December 27.
We quickly found our way to Feng Jia night market to sample all of the amazing foods that Wei-Wei had told Jonny about! We had braised stuff (滷味), oden, pepper cakes (胡椒餅), cold butter hot bun (冰火菠蘿油), sausage in a sausage (大腸包小腸), and more.
Jonny got the family tour — meeting many of WW’s relatives (and of course eating more delicious food). We were very grateful to have so many homecooked meals made by Yingwen, since we have been eating out so often while travelling.
Jonny’s first Taiwanese breakfast!
Pepper cakes at Fengjia Night Market.
WW’s very excited to be at the night market!
Braised things… yum.
We went to Pingtung for a battle and Hustle event!
We stayed in Kaohsiung, but attended the all-styles battle in Pingtung. It had a “cypher-format” prelim format which Jonny really liked because it was very dynamic and everyone got to dance quite a bit (as opposed to showcase style prelims where you only dance for 40 seconds). Out of 70 dancers, Jonny made the Top 8! There was also a Hustle class and mini-social where both WW and Jonny got to show off their skills and mingle with the local dancers.
It was lovely to meet other dancers, and get a feeling for what the vibe in South Taiwan is like! Shout out to Southiest Battle in Pingtung for the amazing time!
Jonny with his playing card that tracked his number of wins during prelim rounds. He was happily surprised!
We also visited a military village museum in Kaohsiung.
We spent the next section of our time in Taichung mostly hanging out with family and doing some travel planning. We celebrated New Year’s Eve on the apartment rooftop watching fireworks go off around the city. We kept training for our bike trip, and of course ate more delicious food.
We went to Taipei on January 5 for a Hustle event!
We were in Taipei for a few days, so we had some time to explore the Chifang area with so many little vintage shops and cute cafes (heaven for WW), as well as eat delicious food at the Ningxia night market and the “Seafood Addication Aquatic Development”.
The Hustle event was the HustleHustleTW 9th anniversary party. There were probably 200 people in attendance. We were happy to get the chance to dance with so many different people and form new connections with people from Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam!
Exploring Chifeng neighborhood.
Exploring Chifeng neighborhood (behind the scenes).
We hiked up Elephant Mountain just outside of Taipei City!
Back to Taichung!
From Jan 6-16 we were back in Taichung and took it pretty chill. We continued to attempt to train for our bike journey around Taiwan, with many stationary bike sessions, and a couple of long bike rides.
We biked the Houfeng bikeway with WW’s family (16km), the Tanyashen bikeway twice in one day to get to 50km, and also biked to Gaomei Wetlands, which was prohibitively windy so we had to call it off 50km in instead of our goal of 100km.
WW also voted in the election, and we visited Sun Moon Lake with WW’s parents. WW also got the chance to reconnect with an old high school friend Maddy!
Jonny connected with some Taichung Lockers (Coinlocker Crew) and they practiced 3 times over the course of a week.
J They were very welcoming and fun to dance with. I felt like despite the differences in culture and language we had similar vibes. They enjoyed teaching me Chinese and Taiwanese swear words! Haha! We even recorded a video! (Should be posted on IG sometime in the future)
For more photos, check out this post. Next up, we attempt to bike around Taiwan in two weeks!
Did you know that you can comment on this blog? We’d love to hear from you so that we don’t feel like we’re shouting into the void… (thank you to everyone who has already been adding comments, we love seeing them!) 😀
happy new years guys! congrats on top 8 jonny & weiwei that shirt is “fire”
i like the photo of the surveillance hand
good luck on the bike tour!!
thank you my mum absolutely despises this shirt and it almost makes me like it more ????
spoilers: we have survived the bike tour but stay tuned for the post 😉
Very cool, loving the blogs and the pictures! Our regards to your parents Wei-Wei! We are living vicariously with you – safe journeys, stay well, have fun! xxoo
thank you!!! miss you both!!
<3 <3 looks like it was a blast!!
The night market food looks amazing!! 🤤