Taiwan Travel Diary #10: Maokong Gondola

Hey everyone~ another post about a place i went to almost two weeks ago. I really need to get faster at editing my photos :D

Back to topic:

I met up with three korean friends on a sunday afternoon to take the famous Maokong Gondola up the mountain. Here's a small tip: if you can, reserve your seats online prior to arriving there.

Just go to: http://gondola.trtc.com.tw/booking 

But be aware that this service is only available in Chinese, and apparantly only until June.

You can choose the cabin you want to take (regular or crystal cabin. Crystal has a see-through floor), and reserve for a certain amount of people. Make sure you arrive 15 minutes prior to your departing time and bring a printed copy with you (or at least one saved on your phone).

Reserving seats online allows you to skip the long line at Taipei Zoo station, which is great.

If we hadn't reserved seats we would probably have had to wait for at least an hour. But with the reservation, the staff just lead us past the line.

The gondola cabins are usually decorated with Hello Kitty and Pandas. Pandas because the gondola station is placed at the Taipei zoo.

It's super easy to get there, just take Metro Line 1 (Wenhu/Brown line) to Taipei zoo station and get out of exit 2.
A one way ticket to Maokong station (last station, offers the best view) only costs 50NTD.

And the view is definitely worth it.

When you arrive at Maokong Station, there are several paths that you can follow, so check out this map before you head off. There's a lot to see.

There's no need to bring snacks with you, because there are plenty of food stalls to replenish your energy!

This little guy here acted as a guardian dog, he kept barking at people who passed by.

Of course we got some snacks too. If you're going to places such as this with friends, make sure to share a lot. If you share, there's more space in your tummy to try more snacks!

One of my favourite snacks here is 

花生捲加冰淇淋

Which is basically an ice-cream burrito with shaved peanut candy.

It's super refreshing, especially on hot days!

This place is also really famous for their tea, so aside from Tea shops, there are quite a few places that sell tea-flavoured ice-cream.

Such as this delicious, but quickly melting green tea ice-cream. Which was a bit expensive (80NTD)

We stumbled across this small temple while walking around. 

After spending some time walking around we got quite hungry, so we headed over to one of the many tea shops/restaurants around the area.

They sell many different dishes made with tea, so to try out as many as possible, we got a set menu for 1000NTD that is originally meant for 2 people, but since we're all poor students on a budget, we shared it with the 4 of us.

Soup with Chicken and Mushrooms, and Tea of course.

different dishes, including super delicious tea fried rice.

As the sun was starting to set, we headed back to the Gondola station.

We discovered this pretty looking railroad and took some photos there. A few taiwanese kids started talking to us, they were really adorable!

Afterwards we queued for the gondola. Online reservation only works one-way, so we had to wait for a while. You could also take the bus down, or taxi. But we figured taxi was too expensive and waiting for a seat in the gondola was worth it compared to standing in a crowded bus for quite some time.

We actually got one of the crystal cabins for our way down, but since it was already dark we couldn't see much through the glass floor. 

That's it for today ^^

Did you ever take the maokong gondola? :D

Which places in Taipei would you like to visit if you had the chance?
Please tell me in the comments below.

Love, Lydia