10 things we liked about Taiwan

Ok, our travelogue about Taiwan's done.  So what else do we have to say about the country?  I guess we really enjoyed the trip and intend to go back again.  Why?  Cos there's lots of things to like about the place:

1. The people: Taiwanese really are nice people.  In general, most of those we met were willing to give us directions, and some even went out of their way to help us.  For example, the lady at the shop selling beef jerky went after us on her scooter as we left our map at the shop, and even drove around to help us check where to buy our instant noodles!  Or the nice couple selling desserts at the night market, who helped us to call for a cab, upon us just inquiring about how much it would cost for us to take a cab back to our hotel.

2. Everyone stands on the right hand side of the escalator, and leaves the left side clear for those in a rush.  Also, everyone doesn't rush to get into the train, and lets the disembarking passengers alight first.  Its something you never see in Singapore...

3. You are guaranteed a seat on the bus or train if you are seen carrying a baby.  Everywhere we went, people (even an old lady!) gave up their seats for us.

4. The toilets are generally pretty clean (even the public rest stops and coffeeshop toilets), compared to those you see in Malaysia (and even those in some places in Singapore!).  Also, many places have family toilets, which are really useful...

Baby J demonstrating the use of the child seat in the family toilet (That's the child-sized bowl by the way!)

5. Taiwanese seem to love dogs.  They bring them everywhere, even to the temple, and dress them up in clothes!

6. There's always little spots of art and beauty everywhere, that spring up to surprise you at every turn:

Artwork spotted from a student-exchange programme

7. Shopkeepers don't pull a long face if you browse in your shop and not buy anything, but ask you to "Come again!" with a smile.  Try that in Singapore, and you tend to get a sulky-faced shopkeeper who will just ignore you when you leave!

8. I (not so much hubby) loved the wide range of sweet treats and desserts you could get everywhere: Bubble tea, taro balls, frozen strawberries, mochi... yum yum yum!  Its no wonder I put on 2 kg after the trip!

9. The scenery here is amazing: From the wildness of Taroko Gorge, to the serene beauty of Sun Moon Lake, or even the long drives along the coast!

Sunset along the highway...

10. The Taiwanese are way more eco-friendly in terms of their recycling efforts.  For example, Tao Yuan airport in Taipei using only recycled paper products (for toilet paper, paper towels etc), and everywhere you go, you get recycling bins that encourage you to sort your trash.  Residents in apartments are also supposed to sort their trash.  Over in Singapore, all we have are huge yellow bins in the housing estates that ask you to discard your paper, metal, glass containers all together, and that results in people treating the bins as trash cans (we see all sorts of things when we dispose our recyclables, including half-filled drink cans, and general rubbish that should have gone in the dustbin instead!).

But of course, we had our pet peeves with the place as well:

1. Driving here was a challenge: Firstly, we had to drive on the right side instead of the left side of the road, which took a little getting used to.  Secondly, the drivers here are pretty aggressive (and some even carry bats in their cars for protection against road rage!).  Thirdly, you never know what's going to happen!  (We witnessed one person driving on the pavement, one road "fight" among 3 large trucks, and countless of drivers changing lanes without signalling...)

2. Sneaky cabbies that overcharge you.  We had one encounter with a cabbie that refused to run the meter and overcharged us (at least going by our estimates).  We learnt that we should always ask around (at the hotel, or any shopkeeper) to get an estimate for the cab fare, and to insist on being charged by the meter.  Also, the safest way to get a cab (and probably a reliable driver) would be to call for one (phone bookings are also free!).

Ah well... Since our likes outweigh the dislikes, we are most definitely considering another visit there!

Taiwan Translated: 3 days in Taipei

Yesterday, Junior J (since he's now a toddler, we can't keep referring to him as "baby"!) took 2.5 hours to fall asleep for his 2nd nap.  Within that period of time, he managed to:

1. Gnaw at our bedhead and gouge out a little piece of wood (which I had to take out of his mouth, which earned me tooth marks all over my fingers).

2. Find out that falling backwards on the bed from a standing position was fun.  It gets even more fun if the Mama has to scramble out of the way each time.

3. Practice standing up without support repeatedly.

4. Crawl and disturb the sleeping post-call Papa by sitting on him, stealing his spectacles and patting him on the face and tummy.

Needless to say, I was exhausted when he finally conceded defeat and fell asleep (after falling face flat on one of his nesting barrels and crying like crazy), and didn't have any energy to blog!  So just to conclude our Taiwan travelogue (do I hear sighs of relief here?)...

We spent the last 3 days of our trip in Taipei, and travelled around using public transport (the bus and the metro).  We didn't manage to visit all the places on our list (and hubby kindly choose those places that I wanted to go instead of those he preferred), but we did enjoy ourselves pretty much.

First up on our list was a visit to the National Palace Museum (Gugong Bowuyuan), which houses the best collection of Chinese art in the world.  Photography wasn't allowed (Hubby was relieved he didn't have to drag me away from each exhibit while fiddling with shutter and aperture settings!), so we spent half a day just admiring all the artwork, ranging from ancient bronze vessels, to intricately carved ivory pieces and elaborately painted porcelain bowls.  (Look out for the concentric ivory balls, which consists of 17 balls one inside the other, all carved from a single piece of ivory... Its nothing short of amazing!)

I am baby, hear me roar!

We had lunch at the restaurant at the museum, and discovered to our delight, that their set meals were not expensive (NT $150 for mains, a drink and decent soup that didn't come out of a can).  They served pretty good beef noodles there too.  We also stopped at the tea house inside the museum to give baby J some crawl time, and had some floral tea.

View from the tea-house

Then it was off to the king of all night markets: Shilin Night Market.  All the food stalls are located within a massive complex and there's a dizzying array of food available, from the usual Taiwanese snacks, to teppanyaki (which looked very yummy, but we were too full to try that!).  However, we were rather sick of the usual night market food (like Taiwanese sausages), and opted to try the cuttlefish soup, which was pretty good.  Two other interesting things we tried were the "Love jade ice" (Aiyubing), which consisted of jelly floating in a lime-based syrup, as well as white bittergourd juice (It was blended with carrot and honey, so it wasn't too bitter, but hubby absolutely refused to try it!).  Perhaps we had our fill of night markets, but we didn't really enjoy this one at all, possibly because the hawkers here tend to be pushier in getting customers (You could blame it on the stiff competition since many stalls sell the same things!).

Strawberries frozen in syrup... another common street snack!

We headed to the Su Ho Paper Museum (Shuhuo Jinian Zhi Bowuguan) on the morning of the second day.  The museum's an interesting place to bring kids, as there are exhibits showing all sorts of information on paper and paper-making, as well as stations allowing you to test out the various properties of paper.  Also, you can try your hand at making paper, which was pretty fun (but the water containing the paper pulp was freezing!).  The museum sells various paper products ranging from alarm clocks made with recycled paper, to paper-making kits (which comes with the deckle and paper pulp).

Armed with some paper products, we headed to Din Tai Fung for lunch.  This restaurant (which was the original Din Tai Fung) puts all its Singapore branches to shame: Their food is done just right (the hot and sour soup is not overly sour, which tends to be the case in many Chinese restaurants here), and their service is good even though the place is packed during lunch time (their waitresses can speak Japanese as well, and they have one waitress dedicated to just topping up everyone's tea).  Though the place does not look as classy as those in Singapore (it looks like a coffeeshop and is pretty cramped), I'd choose the Taipei one over the Singapore ones any day!

We then visited Longshan temple (Longshan Si).  One feature of this temple that stood out amongst the others was the crowd.  The place was bustling with tourists and school children, and a long queue flanked both sides of the sidewalk outside the temple that could rival those made by fans queuing up to get tickets for their pop-star's concert.  A check with the information counter inside the temple revealed that there was going to be a lantern lighting festival in two days time, so those outside were actually queuing outside for that!

The day ended with us having dinner at Snake Alley (Huaxijie Yeshi), which, as the name suggests had shops with all sorts of snakes that were used to prepare all sorts of dishes and drinks.  We fled from all the shopkeepers trying to entice us to take a look (and perhaps a bite) at the snakes, and went to Tainan Tan-tsu-mien.  The place looked like a usual seafood restaurant from the front, as there are bubbling tanks filled with all sorts of fish and crustaceans, but enter the place and you'll be greeted by very European decor, complete with oil paintings and chandeliers!  Distinctly odd especially since its located in Snake Alley, but the food was pretty good (but it was expensive though!).

Prawn mantis, served on distinctly European porcelain.  Hmm...

The last day in Taipei was spent doing all our last minute shopping.  As we wanted to get some goodies for our friends and family, we trooped down to Dihua Street (Dihuajie).  This long street has countless of chinese medicinal shops selling all sorts of dried goods (we bought dried osmanthus from one of them), as well as fabric shops and other shops selling all manner of products.  For those not inclined to shopping, this street also has Taipei's best preserved historic architecture.  Our star find of the day, however, was the shop selling beef jerky (I forgot the name, but its at 311 Dihuajie), as we had hunted unsuccessfully for that for the whole trip and had failed to find one that wasn't too chewy.  We also managed to buy our Taiwanese beef instant noodles from a wholesaler there.  So lugging a box of beef jerky, a box of instant noodles and a pretty heavy baby, we ended up at the market, where the 3rd floor was just filled with fabric shops selling all types of fabrics.  Hubby allows me to go nuts shopping for fabric for awhile, and we then trudge back to our hotel laden with all our purchases (needless to say, we busted our luggage weight limit!).

Just one last note: If you're looking for a cheap place to stay when in Taipei, Lilai Hotel's probably the place to go.  We chose the place for its excellent location, as its was a 5 minute walk to the metro, and near various places of interest such as Ximending.  The rooms are pretty big given the price you pay for them, but the decor is really tacky (ours had mirrors above the bed head and all sorts of moldings that made the room look like something from a Asian horror movie set).  Oh, and don't throw toilet paper into the toilet bowl.  I missed the sign the first time I used the toilet, and found out about it the hard way!

Taiwan Translated: 2 days around Taichung

We ended up splurging on our hotel stay in Taichung, and stayed at the Howard Prince Hotel for two nights (the service there is pretty good, and the breakfast buffet offers so much food, you'll be spoilt for choice!).  The hotel may be a little out of the way, but the room had pretty nice views of the sunrise:

The two days were spent exploring the area around Taichung.  We spent Day 11 taking the train from Taichung to Jiji, a place known for its bike paths.  However, as we had missed the morning train, we ended up going for lunch at a place recommended by the Lonely planet guidebook, at Shantung Dumplings & Beef Noodles (Shanddong Jiaoziguan Niurou Mianguan, 96 Gongyi Road).  The beef noodles were really good, and they also had beef rolls (Niurou juanbing) which were oh so yummy!

Then we headed back to catch our train...

Tickets and a train schedule, and off we go to Jiji!

Visitors to Jiji usually spend the afternoon renting a bike to explore the area, but we opted to go on foot instead.  Some points of interest included:

Trains, trains and more trains everywhere:

Banana egg rolls: These look just like love letters that you eat during Chinese New Year, but are extremely fragrant and yummy thanks to the banana they add to the mix.  They can be purchased in a little shop outside the train station.

Wu Chang Temple (Wuchang Gong): The 921 earthquake destroyed many buildings in the area (including the train station), and this temple wasn't spared.  However, the temple was left in a state of disrepair, which makes for good photographs if you are looking to snap some "ruins".

Finally, we ended the day by taking the train back to Taichung, and headed for the Chunghsiao night market (Zhongxiao Yeshi) for dinner.  The place has the best oyster mee sua we've tried so far, and there's also a dessert shop (near the start of the night market) selling large tang yuan (glutinous rice balls) with a smorgasbord of other sweet things floating inside the soup.

Sunset at Jiji train station

Day 12 was spent exploring the little town called "Deer Harbour" (Lugang), which has its own quaint characteristics:

Food: Apart from having the best oyster omelette we've tasted for our entire trip, this place also has some unique munchies with cute names like "shrimp monkeys", which were really good... Try out these goodies at the eateries near the Matsu temple.

Temples: 2 temples stand out amongst the whole plethora of temples here, namely, the Matsu temple (Tianhou Gong), and the Longshan temple (Longshan Si).  The Matsu temple has a Matsu statue said to have been brought there by a Qing Dynasty general, but we had difficulty locating it due to the hundreds of statues within the temple complex.  Longshan temple, on the other hand, is considered the best preserved Qing Dynasty temple in the whole of Taiwan, but had the most modern toilets, complete with automatic taps!

A pair of dragons guard the doors to the front court, but unlike the usual symmetry seen in such temples, one points up to the sky, while the other points downwards to the earth.

Artisan culture: This town holds quite a few artists which specialize in various traditional arts (some which are dying out, it seems).  We visited a paper fan maker (Mr Chen's Fan Shop), and accidentally woke the man up (he was snoozing in one corner of his shop).  We also paid a trip to Wu Tun Hou Lantern Shop, where Mr Wu himself sat enthroned in his shop surrounded by his creations while his apprentice did the painting...

Other architectural oddities in Lugang included:
A half-sided well (Bantian Jin), which was the result of a rich family building a well inside their complex. Half of the well protruded outside the complex and the poor were given access to that half!  The well is located at the Old Market Street (Gushi Jie), which is worth a stroll through as well.

We also walked through an alley so narrow, that one had to walk in single file, which was named the Gentleman's lane...

As well as a lane built with many twists and turns to keep out the blustering wind (and bandits!), aptly known as the Nine Turns Lane (Jiuqu Xiang).  We took refuge there to hide from the strong winds that were blowing that day!

Taiwan Translated: Day 10 at Xitou

So our Taiwan travelogue continues: We spent the morning of Day 10 having breakfast with hubby's uncle and his family and strolling around the plum farm enjoying the beauty all around us:

Then it was down to the Xitou Forest Recreation Area (Xitou Senlin Youle Qu)...

We stopped along the way to drink (as well as purchase) tea, and the two little boys got to have some fun during that rest stop:

Shops in Xitou sell all sorts of bamboo products, and we enjoyed a very scrumptious lunch in one of the restaurants there, and tried among others: A cold chicken dish (very yummy!), a cold fern dish (this too was very good), bamboo shoots, as well as glutinous rice cooked in bamboo (what else!).  We also had fish soup, and the fish was really fresh. (They caught the fish from the tank at the front of the shop, and proceeded to hit it on the head with a bamboo stick in front of us...  That did dampen our appetites a little, but the fish soup really was good!)

With all that food sitting comfortably in our tummies, it was time for a walk.  We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the park.  Xitou supplies 40% of Taiwan's demand for bamboo, and the forest research station here cultivates more than one million tree shoots per annum for Taiwan's reforestation projects.  So if you like quiet walks among bamboo groves and tracts of cypresses, this probably is the place for you!

Taiwan Translated: Day 9 at Alishan

We got a wake-up call from the hotel staff at 0545 hrs in the morning, as we were supposed to take the van up the mountain to see the sunrise.  Baby J was extremely grumpy at being woken up by the telephone and got even grumpier when we piled on the layers for him until his hands were sticking out at his sides.  He then proceeded to sleep for the entire journey up the mountain, and missed the sunrise...  So was the sunrise worth waking up for, despite the zero degrees weather?  Take a look at the pictures, then you decide:

(The boy finally woke up after the sun had risen, and was less grumpy after that!)

We had lunch at a restaurant in the village, and ate the most sensible thing you could have during winter: Hot pot, this time with a yummy pumpkin soup base.  The restaurant (The great beauty of Richu or in Chinese, Richu you da mei) is worth a visit for their decent food, warm service, and charming decor.  The place was lovingly done up by the lady boss, and is full of all sorts of hand-painted pictures, lots of teddy bears and all sorts of lovely things.  Even the menus are handwritten!

The weather was gorgeous, so we went for a walk around the area which is full of old trees like cypresses as well as cherry trees (but those were bare).

We got to see various oddly shaped trees, and stop by to take a look at the 3-generation tree, which consists of a living tree, growing on the trunk of another tree, which grew from the trunk of another tree... Amazing!

After the walk, it was off through the mountains again to meet hubby's uncle and his family at a plum farm, where we were supposed to stay there for the night.  We got lost along the way, as we took a wrong turn, and ended up at another plum farm instead.  We ended up taking a short break, and our walk to the lav brought us through all the plum trees out in full bloom... The sun was setting, and it was picture perfect, but our camera battery gave out on us right at that very moment!  Sigh...

After the break, Baby J got grumpy again during the car ride, and proceeded to throw up all over me in the car, so by the time we reached the correct farm, both he and I are drenched in vomit and I am down to wearing only a sleeveless, vomit-soaked top in winter.  Sigh... the joys of parenthood!