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Published: October 9th 2012
My job's benefits are pretty good, especially where vacations are concerned. Like public school teachers in the US, I get off all the public holidays, and some of them give me long weekends. Chuseok, one of the most important holidays in the Korean calendar, was a three-day weekend this year, but we had another holiday on the Wednesday, so my school principal used a 'discretionary' holiday to allow the teachers a 5-day weekend. I was originally going to go back to Japan, but I'm happy that I decided to pay more for a plane ticket to Taiwan. Two other friends decided to come, but we all had different arriving and departing flights.
We stayed in the north, near Taipei, the whole time. It would have been easy enough to take more ambitious day trips because the country is pretty small, but once there, we decided to stick around Taipei. If I go back, I would definitely like to see Taroko Gorge and some of the southern cities and beaches.
First, I have to say I loved (what I saw of) Taiwan. The general atmosphere reminded me of Japan, which I also liked a lot. The architecture was closer to
Japanese than to Korean architecture. The buildings were generally not just concrete rectangles, but made of bricks, and many residents had plants outside on small balconies. There were also some areas which looked like Spanish colonial buildings. Generally there were a lot of plants and trees throughout the city, a big contrast from Daegu.
Another thing I loved about Taiwan was the European/North American food available—we went for brunch every morning, and each time it was delicious. I can't really get brunch that delicious in Daegu, so it was wonderful. We also went to a bakery for breakfast one morning. The bread was really different from most Asian bread I've had. Like European bread, it had texture, and it pulled apart beautifully. Also, tea (one of my faves) is really popular in Taiwan. Apparently Taiwan is where bubble tea (with taro balls) was invented, but there is tea of all kinds everywhere! I'm also drooling remembering the fruit. It was a bit expensive, but there was a great variety available, of bananas, mangoes, pineapple, and lots of fruits I didn't even know. There were stands at which we could select any fruit/veg and then they made juice for us,
Above the Subway
Between Taipei and Zhongshan Stationsfor about $2. (Most prices were the same or a bit cheaper than Korea).
Interactions with Taiwanese people were also generally pleasant. Sometimes I caught someone staring at me, but it was mostly a curious look, not gawking. In conversations, people seemed to be in a good mood and smiled a lot. Random people seemed happy to help us, despite us not knowing any Mandarin (the most common language) beyond “Hello” and “Thank you”. I had been worried about a language barrier, but Taiwanese people tended to try to use English, and most of their English was decent. Sometimes people didn’t speak English, so then they would go to the trouble of finding someone nearby who did speak English to help us. We got on a bus on a day trip, and unexpectedly had to transfer, so the bus driver made some middle-school girls lead us to the next bus stop.
It was difficult not to compare Taiwan and Korea, since my two friends and I live there, and there are strong historical similarities between the two countries (long-term influence from China and shorter-term Japanese presence). We all felt that Taiwanese people were much more willing to use
Taipei Milk King
We stopped there a lot English than Koreans. This was evidenced yet again, when, at the Incheon International Airport (the busiest airport in Korea, right next to Seoul, the capital), I went to buy my bus ticket back to Daegu after arriving back in Korea. Clearly, I’m not Korean, and I was in an international airport. But the woman said to me in Korean, “Where are you going?”. I answered “Daegu”, and she went on to say the price and time of the bus in Korean. I did understand her, since I’ve lived here a while now, but most non-Koreans would have had no idea. She made absolutely no effort to speak English—I honestly don’t think she would have switched to English even if I seemed to not understand. I’ve been to a number of countries now, in Asia, North America, Africa, and Europe, and Korea is the only one in which I was at a very busy tourist place and yet the workers refused to speak English. It’s strange to me that Koreans tend to learn English intensively to pass exams and get jobs, but very little attempt is made to use it in real communication. (I do understand that I’m in their country,
and I don’t expect the average Korean to speak to me in English, but at the airport, come on!)
Anyways, back to Taiwan. Before visiting, I expected that Taiwan would be a bustling Asian metropolis like Tokyo or Seoul, and I assumed that I’d want to leave quickly because I’m not fond of busy, big cities. This may have been due to their mid-Autumn holiday coinciding with ours, but the city was way more relaxed than I expected. Taipei was actually pretty small. The subway had 4-6 subway lines, depending on how you count them, but it wouldn’t take longer than 30 minutes to go from the city center to the ends of the lines. People were very orderly, waiting in lines for the subway. If someone bumped into us, they more often than not said “Excuse me” or “Sorry” in English. There was also no jostling for the subway door, a change we had to adapt to, being used to more aggressive behavior in Korean subways.
In the city, we went to a lot of the touristy landmarks. One of the most recommended things to do in Taiwan is visit night markets. We ended up visiting the
Ningxia Night Market and the Shilin Night Market. I preferred the Ningxia Night Market. It was pretty small, but most of the stalls had appetizing-looking food, and it was crowded with locals. The Shilin Night Market was pretty big, but the main food section was an underground food court area. There were also a lot of locals there, but there were also more non-Taiwanese people.
I also think we had better food at Ningxia Night Market, but my experience at Shilin was marred by an unexpected bad surprise. At every market, we’d noticed a (*sorry) dirty-butt smell. Finally, a friend suggested it was from animal intestines, which made sense. It wasn’t, as we discovered after we bit into our “spicy” tofu on a stick. No, no, no—the smell was fermented tofu, or “smelly tofu”. I love tofu. I’ve become a habitual eater/cooker of it in Korea. I can’t believe they could do something to make it taste so horrible. Ughhhhh it was such a disappointment. Put diplomatically, it’s not for me. A note about the night markets, because of the crowds: be very careful about your valuables. Not only in the markets, but everywhere in the city, I saw
Safely Riding Scooters
Everyone wears a helmet Taiwanese people keeping a good hold on their bags. I’m guessing pickpocketing is fairly common, or they are just being careful.
One morning, we attempted to walk from our hostel near Taipei Station to the Longshan Temple, but it ended up being further than the map made it appear. In the end, we got a taxi there. The temple was pretty crowded because it was a holiday, and people had come to worship. They burned incense and prayed. Buddhism seems much more popular in Taiwan than it is in Korea. There were also a lot of monks outside the temple accepting donations, which I’ve never seen in Korea. It was interesting to see yet another style of Buddhist temple. The main decoration for Taiwanese temples seems to be intricate statue-work on the roofs.
From the temple area, we walked to a famous shopping area called Ximending. In tourist books, it was called the “Harajuku (famous shopping area in Tokyo) of Taipei”. I normally don’t really care about shopping, but I preferred it to every shopping area I’ve been to in Asia, including Harajuku, which seemed a bit seedy to me. They had more of a diversity of styles
compared to Korean shopping (which has either super-girly/frilly clothes or tomboyish sporty clothes and oversized t-shirts), and the prices were decent. There were also a lot of restaurants nearby, if you’re looking for somewhere unique to eat.
We also visited Taipei 101, with 101 floors, one evening. We went inside, but it was really crowded, and so we decided we didn’t care that much about going up to the observation area. The building is nice-looking, but it doesn’t seem that tall when you’re near it. Nearby (Zhongxiao-Fuxing) was the area that was recommended to us to go out. However, after wandering around a bit, we couldn’t find much going on. We did find a few bars, but Taipei (at least compared to everywhere in Korea) was pretty strange in that there didn’t seem to be many bars around.
One day, I stopped over on my own to see the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall just before sunset. The area in general had kind of “Asian-classical” architecture. The memorial hall was surrounded by gardens, but I ran inside the museum (in the hall) because I only had a half-hour before it closed (6pm when I was there). Most things were
translated into English. It was interesting, but I didn’t have much background knowledge, so a lot was over my head. I still want to read up on the guy. A good afternoon activity would be a picnic in the park and then a visit to the museum.
Taipei was pleasant in general, but my favorite parts of Taiwan were our three day trips. The place I absolutely wanted to go to before arriving was a mountain town that overlooks the coast, called Jiufen. It was about an hour east of Taipei by bus. I’d seen a few blogs with beautiful pictures of a covered market street there. On our way to that street, we ran into a Korean tour group, and they about had heart attacks when the three of us blondish women started talking to them in Korean hahaha. Actually, the market street was a let-down, because it was overrun with tourists and the shops were geared towards them. In that market area, there were, however, a lot of tea shops. We went to one for tea and a snack. The host directed us to the roof, about 4 stories up. We had it all to ourselves, so
we drank tea with a beautiful view of the coast. After that was the best part. We took a walk through town, away from the market. The other tourists disappeared a block past the market street. They missed the best part of the town. The streets were curved and narrow. Everywhere there were little plants growing on the walls, and you could turn a corner and suddenly see the coast again. It was probably my favorite part of the trip.
We took another day trip up the Maokong Gondola, which is actually a cable car. It’s technically in Taipei, but the mountainous outskirts. Maokong is known for growing tea, so it was also an eating and drinking trip (to be fair, actually, the entire Taiwan trip was one extended meal). Far away you can see the top of Taipei 101. It was a nice trip. At one restaurant, we got tea, and the server showed us how to brew the tea and drink it. The restaurants up there have delicious-looking banquet-style food. They all have extra fees per person/per teapot, but it’s worth it for the view. We ended up hiking down/up to the next gondola station after lunch
to work some of it off. One member of our group had some trouble with the hill, but as we neared the home stretch it became worth it. Our Australian friend, at the front, suddenly ran back to us, yelling, “MONKEYS!” at the top of her lungs. Her yells (unsurprisingly, and to my dismay) disturbed them, but the other two of us did get to see two medium-sized brownish figures in the tree before they jumped further into the bush. It was pretty exciting. I wish we’d gotten to see them for longer though.
The last day trip was to the Beitou Hot Springs, which is also technically in Taipei, but at the end of one of the subway lines (you can go to Beitou Station, or the springs are all closer to Xinbeitou Station—it’s walkable). Actually, I’d heard that the town wasn’t that nice, but I was impressed. We had planned on just going to the very cheap public springs, but when we arrived, one session was just ending. We would have had to wait an hour, so we just walked to one of the many hotels to use theirs. All of the hotels there have springs—some have
more group-style baths (similar to jimjilbang), and most have rooms to rent and use the bath privately. We went to one that had a smallish outdoor area that was co-ed (you need to remember your bathing suit!) for about $10, but we had it all to ourselves until near the end. It smelled like sulfur, but it was nice to relax on the last day of our trip before flying back to Korea. And, like most things that smell or taste bad in Asia, there was probably some special healing property to it.
Overall, I really enjoyed Taiwan. It probably helped that on our last night, we happened upon a foreign bar running a salsa night. I can see myself living there. If I return to teach in Asia, it would be my first choice, although we didn’t see or meet many English teachers there. We’ll see . . .
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Kathy Oxenreiter
non-member comment
Taiwan does seem like a wonderful city to visit
So glad you had the nice long weekend to enjoy it and that you took the time to take lots of photos and write about it so we can share your joy, thank you!