<Alex> Tourist Attraction: 天母 Tianmu

Tianmu, a wonderful community in Shilin district, Taipei, plays a significant role in my childhood. I lived there for almost 15 years since I was born. The place where I live now is also lovely and has a great living quality, but compare to Tianmu, it is more inconvenient and not so lively. In Tianmu, you can enjoy all kind of foreign foods, such as Japanese sushi, Korean BBQ and even Mexican Tacos. Walking in the Tianmu community is just like walking in foreign countries because Tianmu has a lot of Westerners and Japanese.

This is the map of Tianmu

After the World War II, Tianmu used to be the place where all the American soldiers lived; but after the United State and Taiwan break off their political relationship, most of the Americans went back to the states and some of them stayed in Tianmu. This is the reason why you can see a lot of Americans walking on the street. Besides the Americans, a huge amount of Japanese also live in this community. In 1979, the Taipei city government established the "Taipei American school" and the "Taipei Japanese School" in order to deal with the tremendous amount of foreigners, and created a diverse community. The picture up there is the Tianmu white house, where the American armies lived; and now, those old houses are considered official monuments and have established a museum for all those houses.

This tremendous Starbucks store is one of the landmarks in Tianmu. It used to be a Haagen-daz ice cream store since 2006, but because of the expensive house rent, Haagen-daz gave up the use rights. So in 2017, Starbucks announced to take over this area. From the photo above, you can see that there is a huge garden for you to enjoy whatever food you ordered; furthermore, if you can prove yourself live in Tianmu, then you can have a 10 percent off discount in every item that is a hundred NT dollar or above. Despite the tremendous Starbucks store, I recommend a high quality pasta restaurant 200 meters from here, Pamela Pasta. Click here to see more detail

Just like all other communities, there are various drink shops in Tianmu, such as the one in the photo and several other brands of drink shops. They all have their uniqueness, for instance, Comebuy is famous for its bubble teas and Coco is well known for its reasonable prices.

Unlike other areas, there are three different department stores and one movie theater: Sogo, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi and Takahagi Takashimaya. If you want to watch a new movie in a high quality theater and enjoy your time, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi is your best option. If you want to buy some western brand clothes and accessories, such as Gap, Net, etc, I recommend you Takahagi Takashimaya; besides, Takashimaya has over a thousand parking lots so it will be very convenient.

Sogo has a lot of cool and popular restaurants, and it is next to the MRT station, so it is also very convenient.

In Tianmu, there is a giant sport park where you can play any kind of sports known as the "Tianmu sport park 天母運動公園." It was established in 2000 and has an area of 168 hectares. Currently, the main sports facilities include 6 tennis courts, 1 ice skating rink, 1 children's playground, 1 open-air theater, 4 basketball courts, and 1 multipurpose lawn, night lighting, toilets, water features landscape, service centers and other facilities. In addition, It is the park most visited by the people in the Shilin, Tianmu area and is also the center of the daily activities of the surrounding residents. Tianmu Sports Park originally belonged to one of the parks under the jurisdiction of the Taipei Municipal Sports Department (Taipei Municipal Government Sports Bureau). Currently, the management rights have been transferred to the Taipei City Sports Institute (Taipei City University, Tianmu Campus) and were scheduled to serve as the school’s future private sports area.

The Taipei City Tianmu Baseball Stadium is a baseball stadium located in Tianmu, Shilin District, Taipei, Taiwan. the construction began on March 25, 1997, and it became usable on August 15, 1999. The stadium was originally designed to accommodate 20,000 spectators. The main stadium is located on the northeast side of Shih-Dong Road and Shih-Dong Road, next to Tianmu Sports Park. Furthermore, the 2017 Taipei World Cup baseball game will also be held at this stadium. The Taipei city government first prohibited the stadium becoming a professional baseball stadium. After many rounds of communication and negotiation between the Chinese Professional Baseball League and the Taipei City Government, the Chinese professional baseball club held its first regular match at Tianmu Baseball Stadium and the ban was lifted.

However, if you have no idea where to go during the weekend or, you want to try something new, Tianmu will be your best choice.