Taipei Travel

We visited this place on a hot and sunny afternoon. Quite a lot of people around, mainly youngsters. The place would appeal to those interested in creative arts. This place is similar to the Pier 2 Art Centre in Kaohsiung, but smaller and not as nice.

In the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945) this was a "wine factory." "Wine" is a Chinese term for any form of alcoholic beverage. These days its s creative centre, all sorts of arts and crafts. It also has numerous cafes and resstaurants. To a walk around, it's fun!

Huashan 1914 Creative Park dates from the Japanese colonial era (1895-1945) when it produced alcoholic drinks, refered to in Chinese as "wine." The centre is very popular with young people for its exhibititons and concerts. There's also lots of cafes, restaurants and shops It's now one of Taipei's cultural and creatve centres.

The area consists of 9 old red brick buildings housing arts, gifts, hand made items, toys, a movie theatre, art galleries showing art of famous artists, special events, like a dinosaur building for kids, a cat celebration of Fumeacats, (a famous Internet cat site) where you can buy cat knickknacks, a blow up bouncy room for kids, specialty food stores for honey, yam products. There are many coffee shops and little restaurants, including a pizza restaurant. This is a fun district to browse through and I particularly liked the toy stores; some with the latest anime toys, some Toy Story characters, Sponge Bob, Star wars. Everyone knows Hello Kitty and the latest new character created by Japanese parent company, Sanrio, is a woeful, sad egg yolk which has gained huge popularity. It's name is Gudetama. My favourite toy store was one of hand made wooden toys in miniature. At the front were glassed in display cases of turning music boxes, tops which spun, little wooden cars that were ‘driving’ around the other music boxes Adjacent to this brick area is a very large green park with playground for kids, lots of seating for adults to rest. There is a pond, a sculpture of a leaf growing out of the lotus plant. There are walkways, bicycle paths. Alongside the park is a street of many bus stops and an overpass bridge runs parallel to the street. This is a great area to visit on a weekend or holiday period in this city.

Mix of shop, restaurant and outside show to spend a nice spring evening. Two favorite restaurant : Piccola Botega an excellent Italian restaurant (Dish and environnement) or 光合箱子 華山店 ( ! )