What I'm say is, I've been busy. And sleepy. But also, in all honesty, the other day I was feeling frustrated because I don't wanna be that person who just talks all the time about their great trips. I just don't feel like I can bring them up a bunch without sounding all braggy or whatever. But then I realized - I can talk about it all I want on my blog! So here we go.
Lance needed to go to Computex for Aimpad again. (Computex is a big tech convention help in Taipei every year.) I acted as travel agent, figuring out tickets, hotel, transportation, etc. We lucked out and found direct flights from Chicago to Taipei for a good price. It was only after I had booked them that I realized - this was a Hello Kitty flight! As in, all things Hello Kitty themed. It was pretty awesome and odd all at once. Our boarding passes had Hello Kitty.
As did our plane.
And pillow.
And in-flight entertainment.
Even the barf bags!
And ear phones! And utensils! And all sorts of stuff. You get the idea.
Our flight left Chicago at 12:30am Saturday, June 2nd and arrived in Taipei 15ish hours later on Sunday, June 3rd at 4:30am. It was... grueling. It's hard to sleep on a plane. And to sit for that long. Especially in steerage, where we were. This is how we looked just before take off.
And this is in the Taipei airport at 5am. Granted, I had just washed my face and put on new make-up. Guys, 15 hours on a plane is SO LONG. But worth it. But SO LONG.
And here's some random savory congee (like a stew) I saw in a vending machine. Yum?
We were at the airport so early the train ticket vending machines weren't even open. I didn't even know that was a possibility? I try to plan my trips to cover every possibility, but sometimes You still run into snags. No matter, the train from the airport ran every 7 minutes, so it's not like we had to wait forever. Plus, it was super early in the morning and we couldn't check into our hotel until later that afternoon, so we had plenty of time to kill.
It was nice to be back on the MRT - it was like visiting an old friend! Seriously, though, public transportation in Taiwan? FANTASTIC. Clean, cheap, easy to use, all the good adjectives. I love the MRT!
So being in a foreign country is always eye opening. And Taiwan is very foreign. But this time around it didn't feel quite as foreign. It's hard to explain. But it felt good.
So I had read about this place called "The Soy Milk King" that was supposed to serve a really good traditional Taiwanese breakfast and was within walking distance of our hotel. (We dropped our luggage off there for the day.) But when we got to the King it was closed, even though the website said it would be open!! (Again, all you can do is plan and hope for the best.) But Randy, Lance's work associate and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet) would not be deterred and kept finding random people on the street and asking them where we should eat. We even met a guy who had been to Indiana on business. (What are the chances?!) They all recommended this place - I have no clue of the name, but here it is.
The line was about 30 minutes long, which is always a good sign.
We had no clue what to order, but at the last minute we found a menu with pictures. *phew!*
So you'd order and then go eat in this communal area, which was really crowded. We were very much the minority there - also a good sign.
So in Taiwan they like to stuff food with similar food. Like stuffing carbs with more carbs, or meat with more meat. The long brown thing is called a Chinese doughnut - just long fried bread, light and crispy and delish. It's stuffed into some thickish flat bread. You can have it with just that, but I also had scallion eggs added to mine, and it was a little piece of heaven.
In Taiwan they like to drink soy or rice milk in the morning, salted or sweet. I've had the salted soy milk - no thanks. So I decided to try the sweet rice milk. It has some sort of peanut sauce in it and was sweet and very rich. I could only finish about half the bowl. (Yeah, it doesn't come in a cup if you're not getting it to go.)
I also got a caramel filled bun - hard to see in the bag. It was... okay. And this whole meal for me? Less than $3. It's expensive to get to Taiwan, but super cheap once you're there!
So, I had a whole itinerary planned for that first day. I called it the "Jet Lag Tour", with the idea that we'd wander the city and keep ourselves busy to stave off the inevitable jet lag. It mostly worked, although by about 2pm we were pretty much zombies. Still, I got over the jet lag within a day or two, so I guess there's something to be said for basically staying up for 48 hours straight and then crashing...
Here's the inside of an MRT station. They are all SO CLEAN.
I showed Randy and Lance the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. Just as big as I remembered it!
And just as hot. Seriously, it gets hot and humid in Indiana, right? I don't love it, but I can handle it. But in Taiwan? I don't know, it's just... oppressive. SO HOT. SO HUMID. I don't know how or why it's worse, it just is. I suspect it's like this all over southeast Asia. Between the rain and the humidity you're just never truly dry. Ever.
Unless you're a local - they didn't seem affected by the heat at all!
The changing of the guard - only I didn't bother forcing myself through the crowd since I'd seen it before.
We were heading towards some temples when we stumbled upon the Taipei Farmer's market. It was pretty cool! Pretty much like any other farmer's market, only more exotic food.
There was some band playing for a festival nearby, so it was also pretty noisy.
We stopped at this Confucious temple, which was interesting. Pretty, but not as ornate or elaborate as Buddhist or Taoist temples. Much more simple.
Ficus trees grow so big in Taiwan. Actually, think of any tropical houseplant you can buy here in the states. In Taiwan they grown wild everywhere! It's just so lush and tropical.
Then we went to the Dalongdong Bao’an Buddhist temple. Much bigger, much more ornate.
It's just all so ornate and colorful. I love it.
The smell of incense was strong and everywhere. But I like it.
People would come, make offerings, genuflect at certain spots in the temple, and then chat and visit with others.
Every temple has a little spot where you can buy your offerings - fruit, incense, flowers, prayer papers, that sort of thing. Then you leave the offerings or burn them (the paper stuff at least).
So these temples are usually compounds - the temple in the middle, with a long building surrounding it on all sides. Lots of open porches and porticos. Very peaceful and beautiful.
Here's another part of the temple, where all the ancestor names are kept. (Pictures of that later on.) I felt a little weird taking pictures at certain parts of the temples because I didn't want to see disrespectful, but later in my trip I realized that no one really cared. (Although I never got comfortable enough to take pictures of people actually worshiping. They might not care, but I do!)
I really like paper lanterns. They're even cooler at night when they're lit up!
So we walked and wandered and walked and just about died. The last hour before we could check in was spent on a bench in a park across the street from the hotel. We were WASTED!! But we were finally able to check in.
This sign was out, explaining the air raid drill that was happening the next day. (Spoiler alert - we never heard the drill. Bummer.)
So we napped a bit that afternoon and then decided to hit a nearby night market for dinner. Night markets are THE BEST. I just love them! There's so much to see and hear and eat and... smell. Most smells are pleasant and yummy. But the stinky tofu? No. No way. SO STINKY.
There was a line for whatever this guy was cooking. It looked promising, so we decided to get some.
It took a while to cook. He'd put some oil and then some batter into these little cast iron holes, and as the batter cooked he'd turn it around, add some filling (like cabbage and I *think* squid) and then add more batter and spin it into little cooked balls.
So he put 6 balls into this little paper boat, then sprinkled them with some spices and a sauce, and then sprinkled shredded fried salmon on top. (Took me a few days to figure out what the salmon was - I recognized it at a store.) It was really good! The balls were crispy on the outside, creamy in the middle. We also remembered that night that night market food is always served at roughly volcanic temperature. The best thing to do is walk around with it for 10-15 minutes to let it cool. Sometimes we'd remember to do this, other times we were too hungry and would risk melting our tongues. It was always worth it.
I loved wandering the markets and looking at poorly worded or translated English.
Most people at the market spoke enough English for our transactions, or at least had a calculator nearby to show us how much we owed them. And everyone was always super friendly. Actually, pretty much anywhere in Taiwan people were super friendly!
I remember collapsing into bed that night, feeling so happy and grateful to have this chance to visit Taiwan again. It's such an amazing place!
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