Liouhe Night Market (六合夜市) in Kaohsiung City is the most popular night market in the country, followed by Taipei City’s Shilin Night Market (士林夜市) and Yilan County’s Luodong Night Market (羅東夜市), an online survey showed yesterday.
Liouhe garnered the highest votes in each of the six categories for being the “most eco-friendly,” “most tourist-friendly,” “most charismatic,” “most organized,” “most popular” as well as the night market with the best food. The votes fluctuated drastically during the process, with Huayuan (花園) Night Market in Tainan taking an early lead.
The focus, however, soon shifted to the race between Shilin and Liouhe, commonly referred to as the most famous night markets in the north and south respectively. At times, Luodong looked like it might upset the big two, but settled for third.
PHOTO: CHANG CHUNG-YI, TAIPEI TIMES
The survey, organized by the Tourism Bureau, was launched last month and ended at midnight yesterday.
The validity of the survey has come into question, however, as supporters may have inflated the votes by voting multiple times. Others said the survey inadvertently turned night markets into places to mobilize voter support for political candidates competing in the November special municipality elections.
Tourism Bureau Deputy Director-General Wayne Liu (劉喜臨) said that as both the elections and night markets were part of people’s lives, any interaction between the two was “natural.”
“The purpose of the survey is for visitors and local governments to pay more attention to the content and quality of night markets,” Liu said.
Liu said the competition involved three stages. First, a group of judges recruited by the bureau selected 10 night markets from 30 recommended by county and city governments. The second stage was the online survey.
“The first stage counted for 20 percent of the total score, as did the second stage. The remaining 60 percent will be given by seven judges recruited by the bureau to pay impromptu visits to each night market,” Liu said. “They will include travel agents handling in-bound tours, gourmet and travel writers from abroad.”
The results of the third stage of the competition will be announced next Wednesday.
The other night markets included in the survey were Miaokou (廟口) in Keelung, Huaxi Street (華西街) and Ningxia (寧夏) in Taipei City, Wunhua Road (文化路) in Chiayi City and Jhonghua Street (中華街) in Fongshan City (鳳山), Kaohsiung County.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS