Half Day Trip to 淡水老街 Tamsui Old Street @Taipei

Since we were staying along the 淡水信義線 MRT Red Line this time, it was a pretty easy ride all the way to the end of the line to 捷運淡水站 Tamsui Station. Note that not all trains will reach the very last station, so take a look at the signboard before boarding 🙂

We arrived just after 11am, and were surprised it was not too crowded despite being a Sunday.

As we exited the station and walked towards 淡水老街 Danshui (Tamsui) Old Street, the first thing that caught our attention was the street performance by an artist painted in gold (蚊”風不動 – 街頭藝人). He seemed to be sitting on thin air without any support and was completely still which got the audiences impressed. He moved in a very slow manner when some audience went up to him to take a picture with him and got everyone laughing. He was really good!

As we walked along the Old Street, dad spotted a 碳烤臭豆腐 Charcoal-grilled Stinky Tofu (NT$30 per skewer) and wanted to try. After trying, he concluded that it was not really stinky, and unfortunately, it was also not very warm. Oh well, we need to continue to hunt for the best stinky tofu for dad…

I also could not resist getting some 花枝 Deep Fried Cuttlefish (NT$100) from this rather popular stall 頭一家 that was giving out free samples. We could add the flavouring at a side counter, so it was rather fun too. The original flavour was good enough, and the huge cuttlefish pieces were so tender and juicy; I totally loved it!

Next up was this 冰淇淋春棬  Ice-cream Popiah (NT$40 per piece), which was very novel to all of us. The fillings of the popiah consisted of 3 flavours of ice cream, and lots of peanut powder and coriander, and was a rather refreshing treat.

In addition to street food, there are also plenty of souvenir shops in 淡水老街 Tamsui Old Street.

We opted to buy 三味蛋 Three-flavoured Eggs (NT$25 each) back home, for we had bought some delicious ones during one of our previous trips to 鹿港 Lukang.

This shop 醍醐大師 Ti Hu Master, where we bought the eggs from, claimed that its three-flavoured egg was the original, but we found out later that when we tried them at home, that the ones we had from 鹿港 Lukang were much better. There were supposed to be 3 layers of salted egg, century egg, and tea-infused egg (咸蛋, 皮蛋, 茶葉蛋), but most of the time, we could only taste 2 layers. In fact, we had one egg that was almost 100% salted egg. Felt a bit cheated, haha.

I also got some 翠玉茶 Tea Leaves for NT$300. Yet to try, hope it will turn out as good as the sample that I tried.

Mum got some 鐡蛋 Iron Eggs, which is a local specialty. Prices vary from shop to shop, and the more famous ones like 阿婆鐵蛋 Grandma Iron Egg could be almost double the price.

There were actually more stuff to do here, e.g. 淡水漁人碼頭 Fisherman’s Wharf and 情人橋 Lover’s Bridge, but we did not venture that far because there were quite a fair bit of walking.

Overall, it was a pretty relaxing half day trip for us 🙂 There were also plenty of benches available for resting, along the Old Street facing the river.