Taipei Yue Lao Love-Praying Escape
For praying to Yue Lao in Taipei, the first name that comes to most minds is the Xia-Hai City God Temple in Dadaocheng — but this route sets the order for you. Start the morning at Manka Longshan Temple, letting the stillness of a near-300-year-old temple settle your heart before you ask its Yue Lao, the Matchmaker God, in the rear hall for a good match. Then take the MRT to Dadaocheng and finish at the Xia-Hai City God Temple's Yue Lao — the most trusted and most thronged in all Taiwan. Two stops in half a day, and just right for one person. For quiet, pick a weekday at dawn.
🚇 By MRT and on foot; an EasyCard is easiest. The two stops are about a 15-minute MRT ride apart.
🙏 Pray for: A good match, and a settled heart to open the way
Longshan Temple is dedicated to Guanyin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and its rear hall also houses Yue Lao, the Matchmaker God. Compared with the crowds of Dadaocheng, the Yue Lao here is far quieter — and that is the point of putting it first. In the calm of a near-300-year-old temple, let your heart settle and think through the match you truly want. A settled heart makes a sincere wish.
💡 Longshan Temple no longer burns incense — pressing your palms together to pray is the norm. To pray to Yue Lao, you can bring fresh flowers and wedding candy, and sincerely report your name, birth date, and the match you hope for. The temple is quietest at dawn, and best of all for lingering alone.
🙏 Pray for: A match, a true and lasting love, and a relationship that bears fruit
The Yue Lao of the Xia-Hai City God Temple is the most renowned and most incense-heavy Matchmaker God in all Taiwan — travelers fly in from Japan and Korea just to pray here. Its love-praying customs are the most complete anywhere: pray to Yue Lao, take the red thread, offer wedding candy and lead-money coins; and if the match comes good later, remember to return with a box of wedding cookies to thank him. The first stop settled your heart and made the wish; here you hand it to the most trusted Yue Lao to finish.
💡 The temple is small and the worshippers unending; the red thread and offerings can be requested right beside it. Carry the red thread you receive with you, and don't wash it off. To avoid the crowds, be sure to pick a weekday and steer clear of weekends and the run-up to Valentine's Day. After praying, walk down Dihua Street — the century-old dried-goods street is scenery in itself.
Hour-by-Hour Plan
- 09:30 Manka Longshan Temple (Yue Lao — settling the heart and praying for a match)
- 10:20 MRT from Longshan Temple Station to Beimen Station (change at Ximen, about 15 minutes)
- 11:00 Xia-Hai City God Temple (Yue Lao — finishing with the prayer for love)
- 12:00 Lunch on Dihua Street in Dadaocheng, and a slow wander
What to Eat Nearby
🍜 Manka — Huaxi Street Old-Taipei Eats
Step out of Longshan Temple and you're in the oldest quarter of Manka, right beside Huaxi Street Night Market. Sesame-oil pork kidney, oyster vermicelli, old-fashioned sweet soups — much of it from shops that have kept the same flavors for decades. A bowl here after praying for love is a taste of a century of Wanhua street life.
🍜 Dadaocheng — Cisheng Temple Courtyard & Dihua Street
In Dadaocheng, home to the Xia-Hai City God Temple, beyond the dried goods and traditional pastries of Dihua Street, those in the know turn into the food street in front of Cisheng Temple — a long row of tables and chairs under an old banyan tree, with fish soup, fried snacks, and pork-rib soup over rice. It is one of the few places left in Taipei where you can eat quietly in a temple courtyard's shade, and it suits a solo traveler well.
📝 Both stops are free to enter. This route deliberately saves the most famous — and most crowded — Xia-Hai City God Temple for the finish, so for any quiet at all, be sure to pick a weekday at dawn and avoid weekends, the 1st and 15th of the lunar month, and the run-up to Valentine's Day. There's no rush when you're praying for love — walking alone and thinking things through slowly is meant to be a quiet stretch of time for yourself. If you still have energy that day, Dadaocheng's dried-goods shops and the temple-courtyard food street by Cisheng Temple make a fine extension; if you're spent, save it for next time.