Ximending, a miniature Times Square.

On the night before my flight back to the States, my sister suggested that we take the subway from Banchiao (where we were staying) to Ximending. She said it was a “popular” place to visit at night, so after stopping by MOS Burger to pickup a Rice Burger for myself, we drove to the Banchiao station and took the subway to Ximen. The subway system was fairly easy to understand since most signs where in both English and Chinese (I can’t read Chinese very well). The subway station exit was located right in Ximending, so we didn’t even have to cross the street or anything, very convenient.

Ximending is like a night market in a sense, but it is much trendier and there aren’t as many street vendors compared to other night markets; such as Shilin. Parts of Ximending almost reminded me of a miniature version of New York City’s Times Square with all the lights, advertisements and people roaming the streets. You will find a few local vendors selling some goodies, but street food vendors were rare. Apparently, Ximending doesn’t allow street vendors, so those that were there were operating illegally. It was rather funny seeing people screaming “Police, Police!” and watching the food vendors scramble…but in retrospect, I think it is kind of sad to live your life like that.

Our main goal was really to hit up the Sony Style store to buy my niece a digital camera for her birthday so once our goal was accomplished, we roamed around a little bit more and hoped back in to the subway to go home. Overall, I thought it was rather fun to visit and I would go again. The typical crowd is very young (high school or college) but there are plenty of stores selling goods for all ages. Ximending opens very late as well, I think we arrived around 10pm and left a little after midnight. Even then, the place was buzzing with life which is rather neat since back home, most places die down after midnight.

MAP IT!

Trendy and busy shopping district that opens late
Very commercialized (i.e. KFC, Sony, etc…)
Some areas look a bit shady
Not a lot of street food vendors