Jeana Schreiber

We elected to stay in an Airbnb outside of Toronto’s city center near Jane Station. The Coffee Bouquets, The Coffee Tree Roastery, and Grillway all were stand out stars for food. We walked to the closest rail station to get to our next spot, Hudson’s Bay where the seventh floor houses a free pop-up outside of Kleinfeld’s. We began our drive home at 8AM stopping at the Coffee Tree Roastery for one more coffee before the drive home.

You can search the city of Seoul for a unique, new cafe to try or eat your way through Taipei’s many night markets. Food, even in expensive restaurants, can be much cheaper in Asia than in the USA. In Taiwan, you can have a filling meal for under $3 a person or even go to a 5-star buffet for only $20 US. From fried chicken in Taiwan to tteokbokki in Seoul there’s so much food out there to try. I was listening to a podcast called the Daebak Show with Eric Nam, Eric is a well known K-POP star and if he’s taking the subway then it’s probably a safe bet that it’s fast and convenient!

At bars, you usually pay an entrance fee but will get alcohol for free once inside (If it’s a Wednesday night it’s usually ladies night so free entrance and alcohol). This leads to my final point, ease of access, Taiwan while still a developing country has some of the fastest and most efficient transit systems in the entire world, you can pay only $30 US and go from one end of the country to another in less than 2 hours on the High Speed Rail. Their subway system is quite advanced and it’s very cheap (around $1.5 per ride no matter the distance within the city which is very cheap by American standards). The best part of all of this is the cafe culture and food culture has made food so cheap that it doesn’t make sense NOT to eat out!

Settled in the 1600s by the Dutch, Tainan city’s architecture is a mix of Dutch, Japanese, and traditional Chinese, with buildings dating back to the 1600s varying in style. One of Tainan’s best kept secrets is the Anping Treehouse behind the Tait and Co. building in the Anping district of Tainan. Presently, this building is part of a 3 building museum highlighting the merchant trade in Tainan between the Dutch and Chinese, calligraphy and other rotating exhibits. As the unofficial culinary and cultural capital of Taiwan, Tainan has quite a few night markets, however, they are regulated and do not occur every night.