Songshan, in the east of the city, is where old Taipei and the creative new city meet. Once the riverside district where goods came up the Keelung River, it keeps one of the city's most atmospheric temple-and-market quarters around Raohe Street, while a few blocks west the converted tobacco factory at Songshan Cultural and Creative Park has become a hub of design, exhibitions, and architecture.
The heart of the old district is the Songshan Ciyou Temple, a richly decorated Mazu temple, and the Raohe Street Night Market that runs beside it — one of the oldest and most beloved night markets in Taipei, famous for its black-pepper buns baked in a clay oven at the entrance. To the west, the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park occupies a 1930s Japanese tobacco factory, its old warehouses now galleries and design shops set around a landscaped pond, with the curving Eslite Spectrum and the Taipei Dome alongside.
Songshan layers the sacred and the stylish: incense and street food at one end, design exhibitions and craft boutiques at the other. It pairs naturally with the adjoining Xinyi district to its south for a full day in the eastern city.