Advertisement
Published: April 1st 2013
It was an early morning flight to Taipei, but not a long one, and flying out of Haneda instead of Narita made it seem much shorter. I arrived at Songshan airport with my girlfriend, Miki, and we took the MRT subway to Ximen, where our hotel was. When we surfaced at Ximen, I took in my first impressions of Taipei. The immediate area around the station was a populated intersection, complete with store fronts, food vendors, big screen advertisements, and tall buildings in the background. We had been told this area would be like Shibuya, and so far it was living up to expectation.
As we walked toward the hotel, the sidewalk seemed narrow. The store fronts all crowded right up to the sidewalk, and the street was not far on the other side. Foul smells came and went, but the smell of Chinese food and cigarettes seemed to always be there in the background. Part of me was thinking, “ok, this is not any worse than most of the other major cities I have been to, in terms of smell.” Then I thought, “Tokyo must be spoiling me.”
We arrived a few blocks later, and checked in at
the Kingshi hotel. This hotel was on the seventh floor of the building, and only the seventh floor. We arrived too early to check in, so we left our luggage and went out to explore and have some lunch. We took a different route back to Ximen station, and took note of all the things to eat on the way: fried chicken, chicken legs, chicken head, virtually every part of the chicken appeared to be sold. We stopped for some “chicken nuggets” from a street vendor. They were freshly fried right in front of us, and served in a bag with spices. Two or three wooden skewers were thrown in the bag also, which served as utensils. The chicken nuggets tasted great, but every once in a while we chomped down on a bone fragment. Oh well.
After walking around a bit more, and sampling a bit more of the local flavor, we checked into the hotel room. I was impressed at the size of the hotel room. It had a nice big living room in addition to the bedroom, and the bathroom seemed to be of normal size. Too bad we wouldn’t actually be using the room for
anything except sleeping. Back at the station we met our friend, Ben, who has been studying Mandarin in Taipei for a while, and a couple of his friends. Our first stop was a restaurant called Modern Toilet. The title of the restaurant matched the theme. All of the chairs were toilet seats, the tables were glass-covered bathtubs, and the food was all served in some sort of toilet: traditional, urinal, or ground urinal. The hot-pots were served in a traditional toilet with a cap shaped like… a chocolate ice cream swirl… that was not intended to represent chocolate ice cream. With this in mind, I decided to order some chocolate ice cream. Miki and I shared a ground urinal full of chocolate ice cream, shaved ice, raisins, chocolate balls, and some other interesting toppings.
Now that we had taken care of what I was sure would be the highlight of the trip, it was time to do some of the normal touristy stuff. So we all took a walk to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall Square. At the entrance stood a large “gate”, which wasn’t so much of a gate, but struck me as more elaborate, oriental version of
Street Vendor
"Would you like fries with that?"the “Arc de Triomphe”. As we walked through the gate, two seemingly identical buildings stood at either side of the mostly-open square before us. The building on the right side was the National Theater, and the building on the left side was the National Concert Hall. A single flag pole stood in the center of the distance, and behind that was the Memorial Hall itself. Though we could see the statue of Chiang Kai-shek from a distance, the building was being renovated, and that was about the best view we could get. It seems that no matter where you go, there’s always something under construction.
From there we took the subway to the National Taiwan University (NTU), where Ben was studying. As we walked down the road leading to it, we could see the main building front and center in the distance. This was mainly because we were walking in the middle of the road, but the cars didn’t seem to mind. On the other side of the main road from campus was a much busier area full of night markets. There we stood in a long line for about 10 minutes to get a cup of bubble tea
from a place that only sold bubble tea. Though the wait was long, it was some very good bubble tea, and they weren’t cheap on the tapioca balls. Every sip I took included 5 or 6! From there we stopped at a street vendor who had a bunch of different food laid out on the stand. Ben took a bowl and filled it with one item of each thing that we wanted. For every item, the vendor added an entire serving of that item to the deep fryer. Battered chicken, battered squid, green beans, mushrooms, tofu, sweet potatoes, and a few more things all went into the deep fryer. Once they were cooked, they were bagged and handed to us along with skewers to eat them with. It was here that I started to notice a pattern in food containers and utensils.
The next day I met with my friend Danny, a Taiwanese American that I went to high school with. I actually knew his young brother, Dave, very well, because we were the same age. We met Danny in Xindian, where he and Dave grew up before moving to the US. First, we went back to his parent’s
apartment, the same one that they had grown up in. Danny gave us a tour of the house, and there was one room in particular that stood out. It was an entertainment room, complete with TV, stereo, etc., and I remember Dave describing it to me many years ago when he went back to Taiwan one summer in high school. Who knew that a decade and a half later I would be standing in it? Danny took a picture of Miki and me standing in it, which I sent to Dave shortly after. The apartment was quite large due to the fact that it was actually two apartments without the wall separating them. After the tour we sat down for some tea and fruit that Danny’s mom had prepared for us (Thanks Mrs. Wan!). Both fruits were new to me: Guava and Lambu (or wax apple).
From there we went to the main riverfront of Xindian. This area had a nice boardwalk along one side of the river, while nature was preserved on the other side. We sat down at the table of an outdoor restaurant to enjoy some hot pot with a view of the river side. The
hot pot reminded me a lot of nabe, a meal I had often eaten in Japan. Both involved heating a bowl of broth and cooking meat and vegetables in it, then enjoying the broth after the meat and vegetables have been eaten. Afterward, we walked across the bridge to see the other side. This pedestrian bridge was nothing more than an old suspension bridge that bounced and swayed ever so easily. Standing in the middle gave way to some great views, and proved to be a good spot for photos. There was not much on the other side of the bridge. It seemed to turn instantly into city again, with the crowd of street vendors and buildings, so we walked back soon after arriving.
From Xindian, which is on one end of the subway line, we went all the way to Tamsui, which is at the very opposite end of the subway line. The ride was almost an hour since there are no express trains in Taipei, but well worth it. Tamsui is right along the coast where the river meets the ocean. We walked along the boardwalk there, which was all city on one side, and all water
on the other. A few lights could be seen in the far distance. Towards the end of the walk, we took a ferry to Marina Bay, a very nice tourist spot complete with a big hotel and a mix of local and western conveniences. A large disc rose up a column in the distance. At first I thought it was a ride like the Detonator at King’s Dominion, but it didn’t free fall upon reaching the top. It did, however, continue to rotate throughout the whole trip up and down, and appeared to be fully enclosed, more like the old Skies in Kansas City.
We met back up with Ben afterward and had a couple beers. Danny took the subway home, but Miki, Ben, and I shared a can ride home. During the cab ride home Ben shared a story that took place in Japan of a woman beating a cab driver because he kept telling her to buckle her seatbelt despite her refusal to do so. However, it wasn’t the story itself that was intriguing, but the way that he told it. He explained the story to Miki in Japanese, then to me in English, and then to
the cab driver in Mandarin! It was an enlightening moment of how little language I actually know.
The next day, we had a pretty full day planned, and it started with a foot massage. I had never had a professional massage of any kind, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. We went to a place very close to the hotel, and there was a woman there who spoke English. She told me that they would go easy since it was my first massage. When I resisted, she got a worried look on her face. I kept telling her it was fine, but who knows what she told the masseuse… except the other Chinese speakers anyway. The massage lasted about 40 minutes, and while it mostly felt good, I know I grimaced a couple of times. Towards the end I noticed something unusual. Apparently the masseuse was missing three fingers in one of her hands. Interesting occupation for someone in that condition, I thought, though it didn’t seem to hold her back any.
After the massage, we met up with Miki’s friend Lin, who lives in Taipei. Lin drove us to the National Palace Museum, which holds the
largest collection of Chinese treasures. Apparently Chiang Kai-Shek brought his collection with him from China, so not even China has a larger collection, and most of the visitors are not locals, but actually from China. The museum is huge, and we didn’t have much time to spend there, but there was so much. Naturally, we started off spending way too much time on the first floor, when we should have gone immediately to the third floor where the good stuff is. By the time we figured that out, a massive line to get around the third floor had formed. We had to wait to get into literally every room, and follow a specific path instead of going straight to the room we wanted to see. Eventually I saw the three things I wanted to: a stone that looked like a piece of pork, a cabbage etched out of jadeite (apparently the Chinese had a thing for stone that looked like food), and a mesmerizing ivory ball. This ivory ball was a series of concentric hollow spheres, yet was carved from one piece. I don’t want to know how much time that piece of art took to make.
Next up,
Snake Alley
There was a larger snake, but photos were not allowed... the Taipei 101. Not only was this building tall, but it looked awesome. A series of upside-down trapezoidal segments formed its “dragon” appearance. The base extended outward, and large brushed steel features accented the corners. Before going up, we ate at a restaurant inside that specialized in Xiao Long Bao, which are like dumplings, but with soup inside of them. Beware, because they can be very hot. The trick is to puncture the skin and let some of the soup pour out onto the spoon (where it can cool a little) before eating it. These come with all kinds of different fillings; meat, seafood, vegetables, and even some dessert fillings, though no soup was inside of those (what a pity, I was hoping for hot chocolate syrup!).
Finally, we got to go to the top of the tower, and by “top” I mean the 89
th floor, and by “go” I mean wait in a line for about 30 minutes. On the world’s fastest elevator, which has a top speed of about 40 mph, it took 36 seconds to reach the 89
th floor. The ticket to the top included an audio guide, which narrated 12 different viewpoints around the top.
There were many unique and interesting buildings right around the base of the Taipei 101. The World Trade Center was described by the audio guide as the “Lego looking building.” The audio guide also pointed to a tunnel that went through the mountains bordering the southeast side of Taipei, and led farther than I could see. Between the viewpoints, various pieces of information were displayed concerning Taipei, arts, etc. The two that caught my attention were the list of the tallest buildings, and the list of the greatest engineering feats. According to this list, only two buildings are taller than the Taipei 101: The Abraj Al Bait in Mecca at #2, and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai at #1. From 2004 to 2009, the Taipei 101 was the tallest skyscraper… only to be beaten by oil money apparently. Towards the middle of the floor was a 1/10 scale model of the elevator, which featured cabin pressure regulators and a spoiler. Past the elevator model, and in the very center, was the damper ball, a 66-ton solid ball that hung from the top of the building and was connected at the base by dampened springs. It is the only damper ball that is on display to the public, and absorbs about 40% of the building’s sway due to wind, earthquakes, etc. I understood the long line to go up to the top of the building, but I was surprised to find another 30 minute line to go back down!
Lin drove us from the Taipei 101 and dropped us off at the Longshan Temple, near snake alley. The temple was surrounded by a matrix of lanterns on all sides, and the inside was unexpectedly bright and colorful. There were quite a few oversized characters on display throughout the temple. Some of them were even mechanically animated. The smell of incense dominated the air from patrons lighting sticks by the dozen. Large statues of Buddha sat in rooms full of decoration. Though it was a larger temple, it didn’t take long to explore. From there we crossed the street into Snake Alley.
At first, I wasn’t sure why it was called Snake Alley. It appeared to be a large night market, but nothing seemed especially different about it. Perhaps the name was given because the road was windy, yet it didn’t seem to be. Then, in the covered part of the market, I saw the reason. It was bright yellow, at least 10 feet long, and sitting next to a cage of pretty large rats. And the place it was located in… a restaurant. Yep, apparently this area got its name from the fact that snake was on the menu. Not just at this restaurant either. I wasn’t sure if the snake on display was going to be cooked, or if it was just for show, but I assumed the latter. No way they brought in new snakes that often. We finished the night at an outdoor bar in Ximen, where Ben and Miki sang Happy Birthday to me just after midnight.
The next morning we got up really early to see the morning crew back at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall Square. This included many joggers, some light military fitness groups, and some old people doing tai-chi (badly… ok I’m not one to judge, just saying I wasn’t impressed, and it looked nothing like what I had envisioned, which was the whole place to be filled with people doing tai-chi in perfect unison… maybe my vision was a little fantastic…)
All things considered, Taipei did not disappoint. I now realize that Tokyo has truly spoiled me, but I always enjoy exploring new places. The Taipei 101 and the Tamsui waterfront will definitely be remembered… and probably the bubble tea as well. Plus after living in a place where I literally know zero words, I will return to Tokyo feeling like I speak a lot of Japanese!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.144s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 19; qc: 74; dbt: 0.0875s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Ben
non-member comment
Makiyo the Japanese model-turned-seatbelt attacker
Taiwanese taxi drivers love talking with foreigners about that incident! She doesn't have an English wiki page, but below (if the blog host doesn't strip the links), is her wiki pages. Japanese: ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B7%9D%E5%B3%B6%E8%8C%89%E6%A8%B9%E4%BB%A3 Chinese: zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B7%9D%E5%B3%B6%E8%8C%89%E6%A8%B9%E4%BB%A3