Taipei, the robust capital of Taiwan, trumpets itself as a fusion of China's Fujian, Hakka and Cantonese traditions and Japanese and Western influences. The city's growing addiction to contemporary arts, architecture and culture, on the other hand, permeates ever so subtly, adding an unexpectedly unique twist for visitors.
8.30am
Rise and shine in the artistic sanctuary of San Want Residence (128 Nanjing East Road, Section 1; +866225115185; www.swresidences.com), a new boutique hotel owned by two local business- men with a penchant for Taiwanese sculpture. More than 150 pieces grace the foyer, corridors and dining room allowing guests a peek at one of the city's most esteemed private collections. Moretime would merit a visit to Juming Museum (2 She-shi-hu, Jinshan, Taipei County; +866224989940; www.juming.org.tw) but the hotel's own bronze from Juming's Tai Chi series is a worthy consolation prize on a short stay.
9.30am
From San Want take a 10-minute stroll to the laneways around Zhongshan Metro. The small grid of streets is dotted with cute cafes that double as innovative craft and clothing boutiques such as Booday (18-1, Lane 25, Nanjing West Road; +886225525552; booday.com) and Dialogue (1-1, Lane 20, Section 2, Zhongshan Road; +886225630568). Don't miss Spot (18, Section 2, Zhongshan North Road; +886225117786; www.spot.org.tw), Taipei's film hub and cultural space housed in the former US consulate. It has a shop dedicated to all things cinematic with an excellent selection of books, DVDs, CDs, knick-knacks and T-shirts. Copies of Taiwanese director Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Lust, Caution make worthy souvenirs.
11am
Jump on the metro from Zhongshan to Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall, the performance venue based on the design of a Tang Dynasty palace and named after the "Father of Modern China", who founded Taiwan's Kuomintang political party. Continue walking to Taipei 101, where the fastest lift in the world ascends in one minute to the top of the tallest building in the world. The "101" moniker denotes the new century that arrived during construction, the tower's 101 floors and its location in Taipei's business district postcode 101. Similarly symbolic, the eight-section design echoes that of a Chinese pagoda or a bamboo stalk. It peaks at 509.2 metres, a height from which you can see the Danshui River sweeping into the western distance and the Yangmingshan National Park peeking its head up in the north. Keep the eyes peeled for Four Beast Mountain, shaped like an elephant, tiger, lion and cheetah.
12.30pm
Hail a cab to the ingenious Five-Dime Driftwood House (8, Lane 32, Section 1, Neihu Road; +866285011472; www.five-dime.com.tw). The modern Taiwanese restaurant has tasty and beautifully presented cuisine but the real eye-popper is the architecture. The Gaudi-esque exterior depicts two giant ceramic female figurines fashioned from steel and stylised concrete. This theme continues inside where driftwood carvings, rusted steel sculp- tures and elaborate table settings add a mythical quality to the labyrinthine space. Despite championing a new school of architecture in Taiwan, the creator, Hsieh Li-hsiang, has no formal training and insists her forte is pottery.
2.30pm
After lunch, head into the hills of north Taipei to the National Palace Museum, lauded as one of the world's top four museums alongside New York's MoMA, Paris's Louvre and London's British Museum. It has more than 650,000 works that piece together China's 5000-year history. The most auspicious exhibit is a jadeite cabbage (think jade bok choy) from the Ch'ing Dynasty. Don't overlook exhibit No.334, a jasper sculpture intricately crafted to resemble a local dish, Dongpo pork. Achieving this level of realism was apparently a skill highly venerated in its day.
6pm
Did somebody mention pork? Din Tai Fung's (194 Hsinyi Road, Section 2; +866223218928) open kitchen grants diners the perfect opportunity to see a real dumpling kitchen in action. Bamboo steamers are stacked increasingly higher as a dozen or so chefs stuff small circles of pastry with pork, chicken, scallions and the like. Din Tai Fung's specialty is soup dumplings: wontons filled with succulent bird's nest broth. Poke a small hole in the top to let the steam out, then eat it in one gulp.
7.30pm
Get tickets for a show at the National Theatre Concert Hall (www.artsticket.com.tw). The most coveted are for Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (www.cloudgate.org.tw) performances. Lin Hwai-min, regarded as one of the 20th century's best choreographers, founded Cloud Gate in 1973. It has since toured the world earning accolades for its inherently Taiwanese style, a fusion of Western classical ballet, modern dance and the slow movements of tai chi. Follow the show with a stroll around nearby Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, a white octagonal building named after the ROC President who took control of the Kuomintang when Sun Yat-sen died in 1925.
10pm
Hail a cab to Shihlin, where the biggest of Taipei's night markets is packed cheek-by-jowl with shops selling shoes, clothes and handbags, and stalls cooking fried seafood cakes, "little cakes wrapped in big cake", cuttlefish stew and local favourite Shihlin sausage.
Midnight
If sleep still eludes you, end the day or start the next with some downtime at Eslite 24-hour bookstore (11, Songgao Road, Xinyi District). The super-cool shrine to art, fashion, lifestyle, design and all things intellectually hip has six levels, two of them devoted to books and magazines, in Mandarin and English.
Vietnam Airlines charges $910 with a change of aircraft in Ho Chi Minh City, while for $738 Malaysia Airlines will take you there with a change of aircraft in Kuala Lumpur. Fares are low-season return from Melbourne and Sydney and do not include tax.
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