Design*Sponge's guide to Taipei

A bang up-to-date and very comprehensive introduction to places to shop, eat, drink coffee and soak up culture, the Design*Sponge Taipei City Guide is recommended for people planning to spend a few days or more in Taiwan's capital. Among the 100-odd listings are sightseeing highlights like Bopiliao and Shifen, some of the city's museums, tea-houses, and the seafood market-restaurant complex called Aquatic Addiction Development, which I visited recently to research this article.  

The guide was compiled by Stephanie Hsu, aka The Thousandth Girl, on whose site you'll find other useful Taiwan-related articles.

Taiwanese restaurateur wins 'Asia's Best Female Chef' award

Chen Lan-shu (陳嵐舒), chef-founder of Le Mout, a French restaurant in Taichung, has been named 2014's 'Asia's Best Female Chef'. For more details about Chen and the award, click here. For more about the restaurant, go here.

Tax-free shopping

There's a tax-refund system for foreign visitors who shop at participating stores. If you spend more than NTD3,000 in a single day at any of these shops no more than 30 days before your departures, and you take the items with you when you leave Taiwan, you can reclaim the 5% VAT at the airport prior to boarding your flight. The list of participating shops includes almost every department store in Taiwan, some computer shops and a good number of opticians. Weighing cost and quality, getting a pair of glass made while you're in Taiwan isn't a bad idea...

100-plus reasons to go for a soak in Taiwan

Taiwan has at least 100 hot springs, places where geothermally-heated water rises to the surface. Some of the springs are very sulphurous, others not; at least one is muddy. Different sources give different totals, perhaps because new hot springs occasionally appear and old ones dry up due to earthquakes. Almost all are in or up against the mountains.

Famous hot springs resorts include Guanziling in Tainan County, Beitou in Taipei City, Zhiben (Jhihben) in Taitung County, and Guguan in Taichung County.