Day 12 -- Bitan and Shilin Night Market (Taipei, Taiwan)

12/29/2016 Thursday

We took the metro to XinDian station to Bitan which is pretty far from our place. I have heard good things about Bitan but never been there. In addition, we wanted to rent the bicycle since we wasn't able to do it in TamSui last time.

Bitan is in the outskirts of Taipei city and has a very scenic surrounding. It's where the locals hang out during the weekends to relax. Bitan means green lake in Mandarin and once you get there, you will see why it's named Bitan.

In Bitan, you can rent a bicycle or the duck shaped boat to ride on the lake. We decided to rent the bicycle first since we promised Mason. The bicycle rental was very cheap (US $3 each bicycle for 2 hours). Since Maddie is not able to ride on her own, and the bicycle that they had with training wheels was a little too small for her, she and Anthony went on the tandem bike while Mason and I each had our own bike.

It was drizzling a little when we reached there but it didn't spoil our mood to bike around the lake. We ride along the bicycling route while enjoying the view.

After 2 hours of riding, our legs were pretty tired, so we didn't try the boat ride. We went to check out their eating area where there are a few different stalls selling food and you can sit and enjoy the nice view of the lake.

There are many different cute statues and Maddie tried to imitate each of them. Pretty cute.

 After taking the pictures, we decided to cross the bridge to go to the other side. It was a suspension bridge so it moved as we walked across.

There are some hiking trails across the bridge but we didn't go as our legs were really sore at this time.

We took a quick look before heading back. On the bridge, we could have a great view and the picture below shows the area where the food stalls were located.

There was a water show at 6pm but since we have seen many different water shows, we decided not to stay. It was already starting to get dark and the bridge was lit up. 

We left and went to Shilin night market again. The kids played some games and we bought them each a souvenir since we were leaving soon.

After the games, we went for some shave ice. This time, we ordered the fruit shave ice. We were surprised that they had mangoes as it was not in season. Turns out they had frozen mangoes.