Thursday
Yay! Going back to Taipei! How I love Taipei!
Upon my return, it's raining in Taipei. Really raining. For the first time here, I'm seeing what it can be like here, and supposedly is like here, most of the time, a very wet island.
But no matter, I have to go out. I have to buy new prescription sunglasses this evening, ironically, so I can get them by Sunday when I have to leave for Vietnam. I inadvertently left my sunglasses in a bathroom at the SOGO in Taichung. Oddly, I wasn't even sore about it. That's how relaxed traveling makes you. You stop making a big deal about what probably should be a big deal.
Anyway, this is a good place to lose one's prescription glasses. The Taiwanese are apparently inproportionately afflicted with poor vision. I went down to the neighborhood by the university because forums on the internet recommended that area and they were right. A dozen shops selling an amazing number of frames. I tried on about 20 frames from a selection of about 200 - and that was just the sunglass frames!! They had regular frames for days as well. It was kind of amazing. Over the course of a half hour I narrowed it down to four choices and I had the guy waiting on me take my picture so I could pick the best one more objectively. I had to use my translator to explain that I needed them right away, but it was no problem and they got the prescription off my regular glasses. And that was it. They cost a little more than I would have paid at home, but I was taken to believe from the girl at the hostel that I had picked out a very high end brand. Anyway, it was such a fun and unique experience that I didn't care, and Taipei was definitely the best place to buy a new pair of glasses. Ad what a great souvenir too, right. And of course, I will be absolutely paranoid for the rest of the trip about leaving my sunglasses behind anywhere. Yeesh!
Friday
Today, I traveled to the south east part of the city to take a ride on the cable car tram that goes up into the mountains. This was a recommend from my friend Joy who works at Banana Hostel where I am staying. It was definitely a great trip. The cable car ride alone was exhilirating! The car felt so high up over the forest and you think the ride has gone on for awhile when you get to the first tower and the cars go on the rails and make a sharp right TURN! It was so cool! Then it goes on up the mountain where it reaches another tower and turns again. You can get off at that tower, but I chose to stay on until the top. There are a lot of tea houses and temples up on the top of the mountain along with a lot of farmers. I wandered around and found a darling path through the fields. After seeing a small cemetary, an artistically installed irrigation pond, and a cute little garden mushroom seat, the fields opened up and there was the Taipei 101 tower in the distance. What a great surprise!
After I had lunch on the mountain and rode back down the cable car, my friend Vincent, whom I met in Doulan two weeks before, met up with me and showed me around Beitou and the northwest side of Taipei city. This was an unexpected surprise as I wasn't meant to meet up with him and Peggy until the following day. Vincent turned out to be a great tour guide. He not only showed me Beitou village, but he took me to the Art University campus, which had a great view of Taipei and some awesome sculptures, had me sample a couple of traditional foods, and pointed out things I would have missed, like one of the few original christian churches in Taiwan and a wonderful mural of art squares done by local artists. There's certainly nothing better than having a local show you around their country. I can see myself doing this for visitors in the future. It makes such a huge difference when you're traveling.
Saturday
I met Peggy and Vincent at a metro station on the north side of town this morning and they took me to another new neighborhood in Taipei. This was a popular place for young people to do Saturday breakfast. And it was popular - we spent 30 minutes just trying to find a parking spot! They wanted to introduce me to a typical Taiwanese breakfast dish that one particular restaurant did well. They described it as an egg sandwich, which to me made it sound like it would be an egg mcmufffin, but it turned out to be a chinese version of a breakfast burrito! When culinary worlds collide - it just blows my mind.
After breakfast, they took me to a traditional grocery store in Taipei so we could by some food for lunch in the park. They said it was one of the oldest groceries in Taipei. But this is not a grocery store like we think of it, but more of a farmer's market, where individual vendors sell food side by side along with a few mini restaurants mixed in. This is a traditional asian-style grocery market. Alongside the typical items like fruits and vegetables, meats and fish, we also saw so many unique foods that I would never eat, like meat jellies, strange looking shellfish, and, of course, mushrooms, of all shapes and sizes.
In the afternoon, we went to Yangmingshan National Park. What a beautiful place! Just north of Taipei, this mountainous region has wild and wooly hike and bike trails, geothermal waters to soak your feet in, and fields of lilies where one can buy for a big Sunday dinner. The lower section of the park was quite developed and landscaped with manicured paths and seating areas, gazebos, waterfalls, creeks, and gorgeous trees fashioned into a traditional Chinese garden. It was a wonderful, semi-rainy afternoon. We wandered through the lower section, ate our lunch and then we drove around through the mountains and saw the geothermals and took a short hike. It was like a dream.
In the evening, they took me to a whole in the wall restaurant that was recommended to them by one of their friends who knew the area. If you can call it a whole in the wall. It was out in the woods and in reality was a jumble of large tent canopies with tables and chairs underneath than an actual building. But wow! What amazing food. We ordered a smorgasbord of dishes by pointing to them on the display table and they were all delicious.
And if that wasn't enough, after they took me the coffee shop where Peggy works. She's a real coffee aficionado. She had taken a class to learn more about coffee and ended working at the coffee shop that her teacher owned. We visited the shop and had some amazing coffee and I got to see several different ways to brew coffee. It was so educational.
But I actually learned more about while I was there. Traditional Chinese tea. This was actually more interesting than the coffee. Turns out tea comes with two cups. A small shallow flat cup and a taller flute cup. The tea is poured into the taller cup. The shallow cup is placed on top and the cups are turned over. This creates a vacuum, so the tea stays in the tall cup. When you are ready, you pick up the taller cup and the tea falls into the shallow cup. You then smell the taller cup! The wonderful smell of the tea has been caught up in there. This is the first step in tasting the tea. Because the cups are so small, the tea will cool quickly so you can drink it right away, and there is so little in the cup that you will certainly finish drinking your cup of tea before it gets cold. That's my explanation for why Asian style teacups are so small. And why bigger is not always better.
The day with Peggy and Vincent was such a rich wonderful experience. I was so happy to have met them. They really introduced me to so many Taiwanese things and explained so much to me about life in Taiwan that I never would have learned on my own. It reinforced my belief that traveling where you know someone makes the whole experience that much more great and in-depth.
Final thoughts
Taiwan's word is special.
It is a very special place in the world and there are so many truly special places in it. The Taiwanese have really created an idyllic country. A place to be preserved. And somehow they've managed to keep their little island out of the traveling eyes of the western world. So few western travelers were there, that it was like I had found a secret, untouched place. Traveling there is easy and the people are incredibly friendly. If you're looking for a foreign world that's safe, beautiful and unique, Taiwan is the place. I can't recommend it enough, though I hesitate to recommend it at all because the more people who know about Taiwan, the more likely it is that the next time I go, it will be overrun with western tourists.
Oh well. So it goes.
And now, on to Vietnam... I'm afraid I'm not ready to go.
