Advertisement
Published: February 24th 2018
Hey everyone,
Happy belated Lunar New Year! While most people in the US forgets that it even exists half the time, the Lunar New Year is a pretty major holiday over here in East Asia. As a result, Tanya and I had a long weekend, which we used as an opportunity to jump over to Taiwan.
Our planning process started a bit late; and our breaks at work during the end of January were spent frantically searching for flights and hostels in almost every country in East and Southeast Asia. Taiwan was definitely our first pick, as a way to celebrate Chinese New Year where it’s taken most seriously while not actually having to face the terror that is mainland China during the holiday. Seriously, if you’ve never seen the pictures before, take two seconds to Google pictures of either Chinese New Year traffic or tourists. It’s actually terrifying, and looks like what I imagine hell would be like.
While we were looking for places to go, we were hesitant to commit to Taiwan, as tickets were surprisingly expensive for how close it is. We also looked at Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, and even Shanghai (in a
serious moment of weakness that had us forgetting about needing a visa and of the hell that is major cities on the Mainland during national holidays). It turned out that tickets everywhere were really expensive, probably because everyone on this side of the world also had the exact same holiday, so it kind of came down to where we wanted to go the most. A very generous and unexpected donation from a kind source ended up sealing the deal, and we secured tickets and lodging within an hour. We were all set and ready for our five day weekend!
Until about a week later, when during lunch with one of our friends/coworkers it was revealed that we actually only had two days off; not three like we had previously been told. Well crap. News travels fast through the teachers at our academy, so by the time we approached our boss during our first break that afternoon, she had already heard that we had inadvertently booked our vacation for an extra day. She was super sweet about it, telling us that while she hoped that we would try to change our travel plans, if we were unable to change our
flight, it was no big deal. In the end, we did manage to change our flight, and looking at the flights again worked out for us, as we found a direct return flight they had added, so we wouldn’t have to layover in Okinawa for a few hours.
By the time our trip rolled around, we were definitely ready for a break. Children are draining. After six months of teaching (yeah, I’ve already been here for half a year; isn’t that crazy??), I’m not entirely sure what possesses people to WANT to go into teaching and working with kids full-time. I have some great students; don’t get me wrong. But constantly reminding classes of three to five boys (I swear it feels like Tanya got all of the girls at the academy and I’m just teaching boys all the time) to stay on task gets kind of soul crushing after a bit. I’m not sure how the Korean teachers manage to do it six days a week for years. As cushy a job as teaching English is, it’s definitely not my calling. I don’t like kids THAT much.
The trip to Taiwan itself was pretty uneventful. I definitely
ended up going about 48 hours without any real amount of sleep, but hey, that’s part of the fun of traveling, right?
Well it turns out that Lunar New Year ISN’T the best time to travel to Taipei, as most people have gone home to celebrate the holidays with their own families. So most places, especially food-related places, are closed for basically the whole holiday. Luckily all of the clothing stores stay open, so I guess if that’s what you’re looking for, you’re set. Unfortunately for us, we arrived pretty hungry, so we spent most of the first day wandering looking for food, finally ending up at a street food cart near the hostel. We got bowls of chicken noodle soup (one of the few options I could recognize right away), which actually turned out to be a lot better than we expected. After our late lunch, we returned to the hostel and rested for a bit, and ended up eating pre-made meals from 7-11 for dinner, having been told by the people running the hostel that we weren’t going to be able to find anything open for dinner. My 7-11 curry was definitely a huge throwback to when
I was in Taiwan studying what, two and a half years ago, now?
Our second day in Taipei started early (for us; I know all the parents are scoffing right now—remember, basically zero sleep the day before), and while we missed my target of 10 a.m., we managed to be walking out the door by 10:30. I directed us to 貓空 maokong, which is a small village on the outskirts of the city. In order to get to 貓空, tourists take a gondola ride to the top of a mountain, passing the Taipei zoo and some secluded temples. 貓空 boasts local teas and a view of the city, and is really nice if you can get over the terrible, horrible, excruciating gondola ride. Luckily, the desire to seem slightly more mature than the group of Filipino women who shared our gondola up, and who were very vocally freaking out about the gondolas was enough for me to get over it. I also might have been very proactive at making sure Tanya and I sat on the side of the gondola that allowed us to look up the mountain, rather than looking backwards at the disappearing ground. Regardless, I did
a pretty good job at not freaking out over how high up we were, if I do say so myself.
貓空was beautiful, and we followed the road for about an hour before conceding that we wouldn’t actually be able to walk over to the temple that was at the previous gondola stop (supposedly it was possible; or at least the road led there for the people driving, but we definitely weren’t getting anywhere). On the way, we stopped to admire a nice temple, where a friendly older man came up to us and excitedly tried to talk to us about Tanya’s bracelet of buddhist beads that I had gotten her when I was abroad. He was telling me how great it was that people our age would be so interested in buddhism, and was asking where she got them, and what sector of buddhism they were from, and I just didn’t have the heart to tell him I bought them for her just because I thought she would like how they looked. He ended up trying to educate us about buddhism for a solid 15 minutes, during which I was pretty lost, and Tanya definitely didn’t understand. He was
really nice, though, so we listened for a while, even though neither of us really understood what he was talking about exactly.
Once we were sufficiently tired out, we headed back to the hostel for a short rest, before heading out again; this time to the 士林夜市 Shilin yeshi (night market). It was really fun bringing Tanya to one of the biggest night markets in Taipei, and we had a really good time exploring the shops and snacking on street food. 蔥油餅 cōng yóubǐng (scallion pancakes), 火烤骰子牛 huǒ kǎo shǎi zǐ niú (flame-grilled beef cubes), 珍珠奶茶 zhēnzhū nǎichá (bubble milk tea), 小籠包 xiǎo lóng bāo (soup dumplings), and 雞蛋仔 jīdàn zǐ (egg waffles) are all some of my favorite night market selections. It was really fun to go and just enjoy whatever food we wanted to eat.
On our final full day in Taipei, we made our way to the Taipei 101 tower. We briefly enjoyed the fastest elevator in the world on the way to the top of the tower, and then kind of… enjoyed being in a cloud? Unfortunately, we picked a kind of foggy morning to go up to the top of Taipei 101, but
Night market 珍珠奶茶
While we didn't get the chance to personalize our bubble teas (how sweet, how much ice, etc.), the premade night market bubble tea was greatit was kind of cool being so high up. I guess a tower is a tower, so really it was basically like being at the top of the Empire State Building, or the top of the Space Needle (towers aren’t really that different from place to place). To be fair, we were REALLY there to wait in line for two hours. Just kidding. Kind of.
Aside from doing the touristy thing and enjoying the tower itself, we actually went to the 101 building for Din Tai Fung. Yep, that’s right, soup dumplings! And not just any soup dumplings, no. Din Tai Fung has the best 小籠包 anywhere, I swear. If you’ve been reading my blogs for a while, you’ll probably remember this place. I try to go whenever possible, the last time being in… Hong Kong, I believe. But yes, I introduced Tanya to the best soup dumplings in the world, and have officially ruined her for any other 小籠包 ever. Oops. The downside to Din Tai Fung, however, is that there is an inevitable wait time of at least 90 minutes, which is only alleviated by the fact that they are also one of the most efficient restaurants
I have been to. You mark down your order while you wait, and someone comes and takes your order to keep at the front. Then, when your number is called, your order is taken directly to the kitchen as you are seated, and dishes come out almost immediately. It’s amazing.
Way too many soup dumplings later, we made our way over to 西門町 Ximending, which is basically the East Asian version of Pearl Street: a larger walking mall packed with at least ten times as many people. Fun fact: the internet likens it to Harujuku or Shibuya (major shopping districts in Tokyo). We didn’t actually buy anything, but mostly just enjoyed our last afternoon in Taiwan. For dinner, we joined others at the hostel in making hot pot. Unfortunately, the stock they chose was some sort of seafood something, and most of the ingredients they chose were fish cakes and imitation crab-type things, so it definitely wasn’t my favorite hot pot, but it was fine since I was so full after our very filling lunch.
The following morning, we began the trip back to Korea, and made it back to Gwangju by 11 pm without too much trouble.
Monday it was back to work and routine, which will continue for a while. I had a ton of fun in Taiwan, and I must say, it was super nice being able to actually understand people for a change. It’s fun challenging myself here, but I do miss being able to communicate with people—ask for directions if I’m lost, help if I don’t understand, recommendations…. oh man, I totally underestimate that ability when I’m home or in China. Hopefully I will find myself back in Taiwan sooner rather than later, though. I had forgotten how much I love the people and environment there.
Anyways, sorry for the super long post, and kudos to anyone who has made it this far ^_^
Until next time!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.369s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 8; qc: 46; dbt: 0.3163s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.2mb
Judy
non-member comment
Din tai fung
Terry will probably tell you this too but we discovered Din Tai Fung in Shanghai. Delicious! We've eaten there in Hong Kong, Seattle & I think Terry has eaten at one in southern California. Shanghai was my favorite. It's in an historic group of buildings in the old international district. Enjoy!