After my 34 hours of flights, I took a bus into the city from the airport and then took the metro to the hostel I had booked for Taipei, the Eight Elephants, which is tucked away in an hard to find alley near a central metro stop, it's presence made apparent only by eight small paper elephants dancing on the front door. I took a thoroughly refreshing shower before meeting some of the other travelers staying at the hostel. I went with an English guy a few years older than I to a nearby night market to explore and have a bite to eat before sinking into my bunk for a deliciously long night's sleep.
In the morning, I took the metro to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, which was a monument and a museum to the life of Chiang Kai Shek, one of the founders of the good ol' Republic of China. It was an interesting museum that romanticized the Nationalists and their eventual inhabiting of Taiwan, complete with gift shop replete with all your needed Chiang Kai Shek and Sun Yatsen paraphernalia. From there, I went to meet up with Annie, a Taiwanese friend that I met during the IMUSE conference in the summer. She treated me to a lunch with a friend of hers at a famous restaurant that has now spread around the world, Din Tai Fung. After a tasty lunch, we went through wandering, lively side streets to a cafe for dessert.
I think it was the side streets that really entranced me with Taipei. The asphalt and concrete buildings were dark black and charcoal gray from the on-and-off raining of the past days, and pots with small trees and plants joined hanging vines in giving the streets a green, natural aura. Those were streets that I would happily walk through for years.
After lunch and dessert, we went with another of Annie's friend to a bookstore where I discovered that Taiwan not only continues to use traditional Chinese characters, but also prints books from the right to left and top to bottom. After Annie left to study for final exams (Annie is a Dentistry student and had the written portion of her root canal class just a few days later - she had already performed the lab portion where she performed the surgery on teeth that she had to obtain herself from dentistry clinics around Taipei. That was just a fun tidbit by which I was surprised and intrigued), I went back to the hostel and went with some other travelers to a night market for dinner. On returning to the hostel, I played a rousing game of Taboo with two English gentlemen, an English and a Taiwanese lady, and a group of Singaporean recent graduates. As it was an American game, I had a bit of a leg up, but the Taiwanese woman knew some references to American culture that I certainly didn't know.
It was a lot of fun, and in the midst of it I picked up a nick-name that I had once held at summer camp in 4th grade: Harry Potter. This set us on the task of finding all the characters from the books in our hostel. It being a small hostel, we only got a few checked off, among them being all the Weasleys, being played by a Taiwanese woman who had red-tinted hair, Hagrid, being played by an Englishman who had earned the moniker a few years before when he had long, untamed hair with a matching beard, and Cho Chang, being played by an Australian guy who pulled it off expertly. We are still accepting applications for all those interested.
The next day, Thursday the 10th for those of you who keep track of these things, I went to the National Palace Museum, where I saw the tiny portion of their huge collection of Chinese art and artifacts that were on display, from intricate jade figurines to carvings made out of peach and plum pits. Later, I met up with Isabel, a friend from William & Mary whose dad works for the State Department, depositing them in Switzerland when I visited my sister (and then Isabel) in Germany (and then Switzerland), and now in Taipei, where I have had the fortune of visiting her yet again. We went to Taipei 101, an immense skyscraper that towers above the rest of Taipei. After a failed attempt to avoid paying to go to the top by going to a Starbucks on a higher floor (it was closed), we decided the cloudy day wouldn't make much of a view anyway, and went to the food court in the basement for dinner.
On Friday, confronted with beautiful sunny weather for the first time during my stay, I headed to Danshui, a town at the very tip of the Taipei subway line that offered beautiful scenery and a seaside view. The town was full of mostly Taiwanese tourists, and seemed part-carnival/part-old town. It was lovely weather for walking, so I spent the day walking down the boardwalk by the water and stopping periodically to eat and read. I caught a beautiful sunset from Danshui before hurrying back to the subway to meet Isabel for dinner and bananagrams at her house. I returned to the hostel and met some new faces and continued to get to know old ones.
At one point in Danshui, a plane flew low overhead on its way to the airport, and for some reason I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if, right then, China decided to militarily assert its right to govern Taiwan. It would be terribly sad. To see the city full of lively energy become one full of deadly terror. I can't imagine the feeling of living in the wrathful shadow of the People's Republic of China. The future takes one more step toward dreadful uncertainty. It would be terrible.
Saturday brought adventures in rain-swept mountain towns as I went with a few other guests at the hostel to Jiufen, a mountain town that the town is Spirited Away is based on. We enjoyed lots of delicious food and saw beautiful sights almost completely veiled by rain and mist. We endured the soaking rain (which my new boots heroically battled and vanquished, and which my shitty umbrella heroically battled and did not) and biting cold (in the eyes of certain inadequately prepared travelers), and found ourselves in classic shops such as Condom World and a variety shop kind of like Goodwill that was ideal for pictures. I came back to the hostel damp and a little cold, but happy. We ate at a nearby restaurant, the Drunken Monkey, where I tried some sweet pineapple beer, and then played some Taboo and talked.
That brings us to the adventures of today, Sunday. This morning, Paul, an Englishman staying at the hostel, and I decided to plunge into the bookstores of Taipei in search of the newest and final book of the Wheel of Time series, which was released a few weeks ago (only in hardcover, a fact that has brought the book about 200 1-star reviews on Amazon) and, as it turned out, only in the US (and maybe Europe). This left us with no choice but to wait or to get the e-book illegally. We also got some interesting doughnut flavors, including a sour plum-flavored rice doughnut (not recommended).
Tomorrow I will leave to go to Hualien for two days before heading back to Taipei for my flight to Beijing. From there, only time will tell.
National Palace Museum
Baby in one hand, bubble-gun in the other
Kids playing at Danshui
A man and his dog (dogs are very popular in Taiwan - many wear sweaters, some wear shoes, and some are even carted around in dog strollers)
Temple at Danshui
A building from the former Spanish fort then Dutch fort then British consulate then tourist site in Danshui
The sun, the mountain, the river, the port, and the ocean
Sun setting at Danshui
Enjoying the last bits of sunshine of the day
Everyone is out to see the sunset
Tourists hiding under umbrellas as they walk through the old street of Jiufen
What photogenic food we have! Photographically enjoying what we called "terrible bowls of taro balls" (for alliteration rather than commenting on the taste) before enjoying them orally
Not the kind of place you would expect to see this sort of shop
A beautiful and mysterious town obscured by rain and mist
Our attempts to get a photo of ourselves with the scenery was easily thwarted by the weather
Looking cool at a tea house in Jiufen
Our favorite national heroes! Sun Yatsen, Chiang Kai Shek, and... Mao Zedong?
We all got dressed up and looking good at the variety shop in Jiufen
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