Travel Weekly
Date: Mar 29, 2019
By: Eric Moya 

Children get a drum lesson at the Ten Drum Cultural Village in Tainan. Photo Credit: TW photo by Eric Moya

When a top airline for a destination flies planes that are adorned with cartoon-themed livery, it’s a good bet that the destination is family-friendly.

Case in point: Taiwan’s EVA Airlines has a long-standing partnership with Sanrio, owner of Hello Kitty, and Taiwan’s infatuation with the character goes back decades. Capital city Taipei, for example, has been home to a Hello Kitty Cafe since 1976.

I visited that cafe four years ago, when I spent nearly a week in Taipei. It wasn’t on the agenda for my return to Taiwan late last summer as a guest of the country’s tourism bureau. Still, our group experienced a number of family-friendly sites and attractions during the eight-day trip, which included stops in Tainan and Kaohsiung, two of Taiwan’s other major cities.

After I arrived at Taipei’s Taoyuan Airport (aboard one of EVA’s non-Hello Kitty aircraft, alas), our group spent two days in the capital, including a stop at Taipei 101, which at nearly 1,700 feet high was the world’s tallest building when it opened in 2004. The first five levels house a number of high-end clothing retailers, and a basement-level food court offers a wide range of Asian- and Western-style venues to please most any palate. Its outpost of Din Tai Fung, the international dim sum chain that started in Taipei in 1958, always draws a crowd, but diners generally don’t wait long, thanks to the efficient servers and kitchen staff, who serve about 9,000 soup dumplings on a slow day.   [FULL  STORY]