During my Buddha’s Birthday holiday this past May, I took a
trip to Taipei, Taiwan. I think it was my favorite of all of my weekend trips
I’ve taken since moving to Asia. I was immediately struck by how kind people in
Taiwan are compared to people in Korea (generalization…). Everyone is so smiley
and friendly. It was a much needed escape from Seoul.
The morning I left Seoul was an especially hectic morning.
Seoul has two major airports (neither of which are actually in Seoul.. I think
its weird that airports do this… ‘Let’s refer to this as DC’s airport but let’s
put it in Virginia’…). The one I prefer to fly in and out of is Incheon, but
there is also Gimpo. This particular morning, I was flying out of Gimpo for the
first time but Natalie, my friend from college, who was staying with Kevin and
I the week before, was flying out of Incheon on the same morning. I escorted
Natalie to Incheon bright and early in order to pay for a large suitcase full
of winter clothes that she was taking back to America for me. I said goodbye to
Natalie and got back on the train to go to Gimpo. (I really don’t understand
why people would ever spend W20,000, ~$18, on taking a bus to the airport when
its so much cheaper and equally as convenient to take the metro!)
I stand by my loyalty to Incheon. A loyalty I think is completely biased to the fact that I know exactly where I'm going and am very familiar with Incheon. Gimpo is not beautiful, its not exciting, and I did not feel riveted to be there. (Incheon 1, Gimpo 0).
I got to my gate smoothly and soon I was in the air. This was going to be a very long travel day, as I had to fly into Shanghai for an 8 hour layover before my final flight to Taiwan.
Descending into Shanghai expectation (Google Image)
Descending into Shanghai reality
The Chinese smog struggle is real.
Apartments, apartments, apartments....
The Layover.
When I landed in Shanghai, I followed the masses of people through immigration. What I did not realize is that I should have stayed in the terminal area because trying to go through immigration as an American without a tourist visa is a pain in the ass as well as a red-flag to Immigration officers. I learned this lesson after being passed around to 3 different officers and being questioned about my itinerary and when I was leaving China.
"In 8 hours"
*speaks Chinese to officer* "When do you leave?"
"In 8 hours"
*more Chinese* "Where are you going?"
"Taipei"
*speaks Chinese* "When do you leave?"
"In 8 hours"
They eventually gave me my massive PERMITTED TO STAY UNTIL stamp and I made my way to a restaurant where I could get some food, plug in my computer, and make the most of my layover.
Absolutely DELICIOUS ginger beef in the restaurant I set up camp at.
The restaurant I was eating at was on the second floor and overlooked one of the entrance/exits below. While I was eating, I heard some loud screams and saw the huuuuuuge crowd of people beneath me running towards me. Shortly after taking note of my nearest exits and formulating my most effective escape route, I saw the flashes of cameras and noticed that the crowd wasn't running away from something, but towards it. I'm assuming a celebrity was the cause of this commotion. A majority of the crowd dispersed but I was able to make a video of the remaining few who just did not give up their dream of meeting this celebrity. Why do people act like that? Nobody wants to hear your horrifying fangirl screams at an airport.
After finishing my meal I started to feel awkward that I was just taking up space at this restaurant for such a long time to I moved to some seats on the bottom floor next to a window so I could see whatever I could of forbidden China. I quickly moved after seeing a police officer going around to the foreign-looking people and asking for identification. Back to the restaurant I went!
I ordered a lot more wine and enjoyed Season 1 of 1600 Penn. Great show. Very funny. Not happy it got cancelled.
China has really strict internet regulations that I knew about but did not really prepare for prior to this 8 hour layover of death. The only entertainment I was left with was movies and shows I had already downloaded and watched.
Eventually the time came for me to pack up and head to my gate. I still had leftovers from the wine that I pre-ordered (I felt annoying continuing to ask for more wine, and judged, so I figured it was in everyones best interest if I just ordered 3 mini plastic bottles upon sitting at my booth). I left my restaurant home and made my way towards security before promptly realizing that I needed to find a bathroom to quickly drink my last bottle of wine.. because sometimes you order more wine than you need and you're in Asia and its expensive so you can't waste it by letting immigration throw it away.
I received my boarding pass and began to notice something. I had heard rumors about this contraption, but never thought I would experience it.
I think I'm on the Hello Kitty plane....
I am fairly certain I'm about to be on a Hello Kitty plane...
No no no no no no........
Here's my problem with Asia... In my opinion, the cute-sy stuff gets real old real quick and I no longer find it funny. I am a grown woman flying in a plane with a cartoon cat on it.
I decided to embrace the plane made for 3 year olds and document as much as possible.
Hello Kitty safety regulations.
Hello Kitty headphones.
Hello Kitty pillow.
Hello Kitty utensils.
And it case you hadn't had enough.....
Hello Kitty carrots.
Taipei, May 3rd
My Hello Kitty headache and I eventually landed in Taipei that evening. I gathered my belongings and went to the taxi line.
When it was my turn to get in a taxi, I gave my printed itinerary with the address to my hotel to the man managing the line. He gave it to the cab driver.. who then gave it back. A man behind me took a turn trying to read the address. The thing about being someplace that uses a different alphabet is that 1) Not everybody can read your alphabet so even if its written out, it might still mean nothing because 2) there are such subtle pronunciation differences in a language that some alphabets just might not be able to express.
I eventually got into the cab and the driver used his phone to call my hotel. While it was ringing, he looked back at me and said "It's ok! Don't worry!" Sweetest guy ever. After talking to the front desk at my hotel, he knew where he was going and told me "No problem! Don't worry! First time in Taiwan?" I told him that it was and with a big smile he looked back at me and said "Welcome!"
I arrived at my hotel, got settled in, and immediately fell asleep. Ready for all of my future Taiwan adventures.
Taipei, May 4th
I like to do all of my major sight seeing on my first day of vacation because I can get it finished and while I'm out and around, I see things that I know I want to come back to on later days. The itinerary for Sunday was visiting the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, Longshan Temple and Taipei 101.
I was staying in an awesome location right in the middle of the city so most of the sights I wanted to see were only a few stops away. I made my way to the memorial first.
-__-
The memorial area is surrounded by these white and blue gates. Inside are the National Theatre, Memorial Hall, and Concert Hall.
Taken at the top of the stairs to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall
The ceiling in the memorial
Back outside, this time in front of the National Theatre
There were some dancers rehearsing on the steps of the National Theatre while I was walking around.
National Theatre
Concert Hall
Entrance Gate
Concert Hall, Gate, National Theatre
After walking around the memorial for about an hour or so, I got into a cab and went to Longshan Temple.
Longshan Temple was absolutely beautiful. It's a temple for not only Buddhist worshipers, but Taoists and Confucianists as well. I love the idea of different believers worshiping in the same space.
***** I think its really important to be as respectful as possible in places of worship especially when photographing. I've made it a personal goal of mine to be as inconspicuous and behind-the-scenes as possible in order to not interrupt people that are in these places to pray. I can't stand it when I see Westerners/anyone taking pictures of people praying like these people are here putting on a show for them. Imagine tourists coming into your church and taking pictures of you as you praise. This is especially obnoxious when they go out of their way for a good picture and are so disruptive to what the people are here to do. I stood behind those who came to pray and waited patiently for an opening to view inside of the various temple buildings in order to take these pictures, as to not cut in front of people who were here for a purpose greater than taking pictures. All of the following pictures were taken with my silent camera app (Korean iphones, which is what I use, don't have the option to turn off the shutter sound, or camera noise, when taking pictures or videos. I use 'SecureCamera' whenever I want to not disrupt those around me).******
Lots of bikes outside of the temple.
Offerings for sale.
The entrance gate.
A beautiful dragon fountain to the left of the temple.
Panoramic view from in front of the dragon fountain. On the left is the Temple and on the right is the entrance gate.
A waterfall on the right.
View from next to the waterfall.
Gorgeous.
Hanging lanterns
Entering the temple.
Trashcans for incense.
Inside the temple, people were tossing wooden oracles that were used to answer 'yes' or 'no' questions. You can hear them dropping in this video...
A table for laying offerings.
One last picture of the gate.
Obligatory selfie in my cab after realizing I didn't get any pictures inside of the temple.
After leaving Longshan temple and looking at the clock, realizing I still had so much precious daylight to burn, I decided to head to Taipei 101, formerly the tallest building in the world before Burj Khalifa in Dubai took its place in 2010. I'm not particularly impressed by tall structures (I feel like all major cities look the same from above) but I am impressed by record-setters. I wasn't going to visit Taipei 101, but one of the best things about seeing all of your touristy things on the first day of your vacation is that you end up with tons of time to do lots of other things. When I saw that I still had lots of time on Sunday, I decided to check it out.
It's meant to resemble a bamboo shoot.
At the base of the structure is a department store.
Tickets to the peak.
Taipei 101 water bottles
This thing is amazing to me. It's called a damper and its purpose is to off-set the weight of the building in the event of an earthquake or typhoon, which are common in Taiwan.
Near the damper there were TV screens playing a video of the damper during a typhoon in July 2013. The damper always stays in the center as the building rocks back and fourth from the wind.
The building's mascots are the Damper Babies. Love.
There was a large deep sea coral exhibit on the top floor.
Taken in the bathroom on the top floor. Makes you wonder what happened to require a sign.
The loooooong line to go back downstairs. I swore to myself this would be the last time I go to the top floor of a tall building like this. The lines are such a buzz-kill.
But first, let me take a selfie... BUM BUM BUMBUMBUM
One of the things on my to-do list was to eat at a restaurant called Din Tai Fung that I had seen featured on Anthony Bourdain's The Layover show. He was in Taipei for about a day and highly recommended this restaurant. They're famous for Xiao Long Bao, or soup dumplings (dumplings with liquid soup inside of them) and he raved about how great they were. I knew I had to eat them and after some research, I found that there was a restaurant on the bottom floor of Taipei 101. It was a 60 minute wait to be seated, but SO WORTH IT! Best meal of my life, hands down...
Cooks in the open kitchen making dumplings.
An info card with the proper way to eat the dumplings, as well as instructions about the recommended soy sauce, vinegar, ginger ratio.
I ordered 5 crab dumplings and 1 truffle dumpling.
I also ordered Beef Noodle Soup, a famous Taiwanese dish. I really don't know which part of the meal was my favorite. Everything was SO GOOD!!!!!
Exiting the building. Notice Spiderman hanging off the side in the bottom left, advertising the release of his new movie.
One last look.
I headed back to my hotel after a long first day and decided to take a walk around the neighborhood my hotel was in. There were some cool shops in the back alleys.
My hotel is in the building on the left.
Taipei Station right outside of the hotel's front door.
Horrifying mannequins
I LOVE SOCK SHOPPING IN ASIA!!!!!
Endless bikes...
I went back to my room and freshened up. I wanted to visit one of the famous Keelung Night Market outside of Taipei that evening (also recommended by Anthony Bourdain) and I needed a break from all of the walking. Around dinner time, I headed across the street into the big train station. I bought my $3 round trip train ticket and headed to my platform.
The 40 minute train ride was almost empty the entire way.
I had a bit of a hard time locating the market once I arrived at my station. I kept walking in circles around this marina.
Bowie Lions Club shout out.
After wandering around for what felt like an ETERNITY but was probably only like an hour, I found the market! I was so happy. I was starving by this point and I knew it was approaching the time for the market to be closing down. It ended up being nice because it wasn't as crowded as I was expecting. The market had food, shopping, and games. It was a really nice evening of wandering.
I was on a hunt for what Anthony Bourdain and his guest ate at this market. A burrito-esque wrap filled with veggies and crushed peanuts as well as the dish his Taiwanese friend/tour-guide recommended which was an oyster omelet. The oyster omelet is a dish that his friend said he always missed when he leaves Taiwan and was also one of the most recommended dishes to try when I was researching what to eat in Taipei.
I was starving and too hungry to keep looking for my peanut burrito so I went to this woman's cart and got a similar wrap with pork and veggies. Then to my surprise she sprinkled peanuts on top. My burrito found me <3
Next mission: Oyster omelet
I needed some bubble tea as well, since Taiwan is where it originated and I love me some bubble tea. Here's my dinner picture: Oolong Bubble Tea and my peanut veggie burrito.
And the oyster omelet. It was basically oysters, eggs, and some veggies mixed together with some oyster sauce on top. Really yummy! Such a great (and extremely cheap) meal!
This is the temple that the night market is centered around.
Such an awesome night out. Totally worth the time spent wandering around until I found the market.
On the train ride back, I did the math to see how much money I spent that evening on food and my train ticket. A great night out of the city all for the price of $6.69
I slept really well that night after a day full of sight-seeing and endless walking. The next morning I was planning on spending my day shopping and visiting the famous National Palace Museum.
Taipei, May 4th
That morning, I researched how to get to my destinations as well as the best places to get souvenirs. After doing some reading and asking around, I was told that the metro station right outside of my hotel actually had some pretty great shops inside of it, perfect for getting souvenirs.
A massage parlor with a reflexology map outside, spotted on my walk to the station.
Saw a lot of wig shops on that trip.. I wonder what that's about.
Once inside the station, I saw shop after shop selling the most beautiful trinkets. I spent a few hours looking for the perfect things to bring home.
There was so much jade. I got a few jade crosses from this particular store.
Another shop I visited specialized in items representing the 12 zodiac signs of the year.
I had to run back and forth from the cafe where I had wifi to the shop to figure out which ones to buy for people.
I finished my shopping and did some more wandering in my neighborhood before dropping off all of my new stuff in my room.
Me and my cousins have an agreement that they get candy from where ever I go. These were all purchased at the 7eleven near my hotel. Clockwise from the top: some mini skittles packets, some jasmine flavored dried plums, dried guava, gummy sugary french fry candy, and some more gummy sugary fruit candy.
I got back to the hotel to lay out everything and bask.
Later that day, I got into a cab and headed to the National Palace Museum. I learned about it in school and how top pro-democracy officials in China smuggled thousands of Chinese artifacts from the Palace Museum in China into Taipei to ensure Taipei's security from China, as well as protect the pieces themselves from being destroyed by the Chinese Civil War. I knew I wanted to visit this museum if I ever got the opportunity to go to Taiwan to see the collection that these people risked their lives to transport.
The drive was beautiful. Taipei is so much more mountainous and green than Seoul is, making it, in my opinion, a much more livable city.
Hello big jungle bug.
A castle preschool across the street from the museum
There were so many pretty birds that I saw on this trip. This is their national bird, the Taiwan Blue Magpie.
Entering the grounds to the museum.
So many palm trees <3
Men and women signs for the bathroom.
Being that it was a museum, I wasn't allowed to take any photos in the exhibits, but they were absolutely beautiful. I felt so lucky to finally be somewhere that I've wanted to visit since first learning about it.
I had lunch on the top floor of the museum.
I love how prominent peanuts are in Chinese and Taiwanese meals. This was a side dish of boiled peanuts soaked in anise and soy sauce. Peanuts become the texture of beans when they get soft from being boiled. So good! Wish we had these in Korea.
The second side dish I ordered was this bamboo shoot salad.
Some dessert and Taiwanese oolong tea.
Pork buns
Leaving to go back home.
I love the orange and teal together.
A far away view of the Grand Hotel, Taiwan's first 5 star hotel, built to accommodate foreign ambassadors.
That evening, I made plans to go out with my friend Itsuko who is currently in school in Taipei. I met Itsuko in France when we studied abroad in Cannes during the summer of 2011.
So clean and pretty at night!
Cab selpieeeeee
I met Itsuko outside of the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial station
I could not find the right exit anywhere so I wandered into a different exit and asked for directions. The security guy gave me this card for free entry through the station. We need these at home!
Itsuko and I had minced pork for dinner with plenty of other side dishes.
She brought us some Taiwanese beer in her purse lol
Mon amieee
After dinner we did some shopping at a nearby market. I fell in love with this dress.
But alas, I am not Asia-sized and nothing ever fits me :(
(I totally got stuck in this dress and she had to help me out of it).
I mentioned to Itsuko that I wanted to try some of the mango shaved ice I had heard so much about and she brought me here. She said they were well known for this type of dessert.
We got one with panna cotta on it.
HUGE!
After a few beers, it was still early and I had too much energy to go back to the hotel, even though I had a really early flight the next morning. We decided to go to this bar called Ounce that Itsuko said was one of her favorites.
Itsuko explained that this was kind of a secret bar that had a hidden entrance inside of this cafe. She told me to check out the bathroom which had one sided glass that you could see out of but no one could see into, when all of a sudden someone came out of the wall to come get us!
This bar had no menus. The bartenders just asked you questions and made custom drinks based on what you told them you liked in a drink. I told him that I like sweet drinks and he asked if I wanted it to be heavy on the liquor or heavy on the mixer, I told him make it STRONG but I didn't want to taste it. My drink is on the left and Itsuko's is on the right.
We also ordered a Mint Julep in honor of the Kentucky Derby that was happening that weekend.
It was such a fun night and so nice to see an old friend :) It was awesome being shown a side of Taipei that I never would have seen if I didn't have someone show me around.
I stayed out much later than I should have but I managed to get myself to the airport the next morning without a struggle.
