Taipei for The Night Owls: a Friday-to-Monday weekend

Eat at the temple gate: a pepper bun straight from the clay oven, then herbal pork-rib soup and stinky tofu if you are ready. Arrive at dusk, before the crowd.

The old wine-factory warehouses glow after dark, and people sit on the lawn drinking from the convenience store; the brick courtyard is a good place to pick tonight's venue.

A live-music hall in a former wine warehouse: indie bands, a few rooms, a decent sound system and a crowd of mostly under-thirties; check the calendar before you go.

Salty soy milk, shaobing and a fried cruller for the people who are still up and the people who just got up; the queue is quicker at six than it looks.

Taipei's teenage district: a pedestrian maze of record shops, tattoo parlours and the 1908 octagonal Red House with its craft market, which is a nice place to sit with a drink.

A basement live house in Gongguan where Taiwan's indie bands cut their teeth: loud, cheap and low-ceilinged, with doors at nine and a beer in hand.

The original xiaolongbao shop: each dumpling folded in 18 pleats, 21 grams of filling. Book via the app, order the pork-and-crab ones and finish with red bean buns.

A 1937 tobacco factory beside a pond; the building has a long, low horizon and is the quietest place in Xinyi to wake up slowly for the night.

A small dive bar near Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, with a loud jukebox and a pavement crowd that spills all the way across the road by midnight; it is not subtle.

The temple is quietest on a Monday morning, with the incense smoke, pigeons and elderly worshippers; a calm place to let the weekend settle.

Shops of ginseng, dried seahorse and pressed herbs, with the old weighing scales and stacks of paper-wrapped parcels; the apothecaries are friendly and can tell you what each one is for.

A simple room for hand-pulled dumplings and beef noodle soup, the food that cures a three-night weekend; sit down and eat all of it before your flight.