Farewell Taiwan

Our last couple of days were spent in Taipei. We trekked out on the double ten day, October 10, the Taiwan National Day. It commemorates an uprising in 1911, overthrowing the Chinese emperor. We staked out a spot an hour early and waited. The big hubbub began with some fighter jets zooming over head, then the ladies in green, twirling toy rifles. This was clearly a different style of military parade than those trotted out in North Korea. I like this type.

The giant crate of beer was one of the highlights. It was a lot of fun, in a nutty Mardi Gras style, lots of marching girls and inflatables, rubber rifles, flags and giant fruit. The policemen who lined the way were less than intimidating. Armed with water bottles, three quarters of them were wearing glasses and looked like they would collapse from exhaustion filling in a form. When the jets flew over, they seemed a bit startled, gawking upwards like everybody else. It’s kind of reassuring. They clearly weren’t expecting any trouble.

At the end of the parade, the streets were back to normal quick smart and the empty tiered seating outside the National Building looked deserted and sad.



Sight seeing in exotic locations can take its toll and the smart traveller takes every opportunity to rest. Ledges, milk crates, doorsteps, train passenger’s laps or even bollards, like the one below, are all available to the sharp eyed walker. Refreshed, it is amazing how the sights, sounds and smells of cosmopolitan cities sharpen. The aware trekker should also stay alert to stroke symptoms, such as slurred speech or staring vacantly into the distance.



Two of my travelling companions. I know because I have one of those hats too.



After the parade, we scooted across town on the metro to our lunch venue, recommended by William. It is his favourite noodle joint in Taipei. In a classy part of town, it is down an alley and, like most restaurants, no fuss. Eating seems to be a “let’s get in and out as quickly as possible” affair, speedy service, tasty hot food, no unnecessary extras, cheap. Once again, the food was marvellous. To quote someone: “how good is Taiwan?”



Back across town, holiday time, the city near our hotel was splitting at the seams with people. Holy Dooley! It is like The Royal Easter Show without the cake decorating, wood chopping, sheep and cattle judging, smash up derby cars, fruit displays, Ferris wheel, ghost train and replacing the smell of the livestock with the smell of things mysterious and a little creepy.

Our last day. Sob.

Not wanting to waste a day, Taipei 101 was the target. It has been described as stacked noodle boxes and was once the world’s tallest building and on our final day, everyone in Taipei wanted to go to the top. The queue to get into the lift was ludicrous, so we thought we would give the trip a miss. However, a lovely lady told us that there was a special queue jumping policy for “non locals.” Noice. We ploughed forward, feeling rather special, only to join another queue as long as a very long, winding thing with lots of legs and arms and smartphones. Having already paid, we bit down and slowly, slowly crept forward until we were in the supersonic lift. The lights go down. Space aged, Jetson lights come on flashing like tiny suns and the silent cage rises. Ears pop, just as the calm voice reminds you to swallow to equalise the pressure. Then you are there.

It is good. Very high and good. 



Nice shot of Sarah. 

The thing below is not a persimmon with a thyroid problem, it is a “Tuned Mass Damper.” It stops the building swaying in strong winds and is built into most of these super tall structures today. This is the only one available for public viewing. 



We went to the “Creative Park” where lots of creative commercial enterprises were happening. We had a nice little snack there, with the best coffee of my whole trip, although I must say the standard of the coffee has been tip top. No Aussie coffee whinging here.



And so it brings us to now....At the hotel waiting for our transfer to the airport to arrive. It has been a cracker of a holiday. I reckon I speak for all of us in saying I would thoroughly recommend Taiwan to anyone. It is beautiful, people are lovely, plenty to see, food outstanding, good beer. There is not really a wine culture that we could find, but it is made up for with the coffee/tea culture. Prices are reasonable, without being cheap and it is tourist friendly without being tourist tacky, if you get my meaning dear Blog reader who has read this far, despite everything.

One of the highlights personally was on the train back to Taipei from Juifen. Michele was travelling between the carriages (see below).

Every thirty seconds the door opened revealing shock faced Michele, then it closed, shutting her off. Unable to work out why this was happening, her face got more and more bewildered with each new “reveal” On this side of the door the sign translates as “want to see western tourist standing on door sensor? Here she comes..”









There were some humorous signs in Taiwan.








PS (from Michele)- Having booked an extra night so we didn’t have to wander the streets until 8pm, Nick and I made a last minute dash to Longshan Temple - built in the 1700s to honour both Buddhist & Taoist deities. A 15 minute walk in the wrong direction caused our final day step count to expand. 

All refreshed after the luxury of keeping our room we headed off to the airport for our trip home.

I loved that we got to spend this wonderful two weeks together as a family.

Back to Taipei

The long trip back to Taipei was broken up with some little stop offs. Our esteemed guide, William, has an odd style. There is no lead up information when we stop off somewhere, apart from how long it will take to get there. So when we arrived at the Hakka Tea DIY Welcome sign no one had a clue, really, what we were doing there. Led to a table holding a bowl of nuts, herbs and grain, a little woman walked up with a big lump of wood and started to grind the ingredients in a bowl. Now, getting her drift, we all had a go. The result, when boiling water and something like rice bubbles was added, was like a toddler’s experiment in a mud pit. It is the Hakka people’s tea. The Hakka are the people who immigrated to Taiwan from a region of China. Their tea is famous. Hmmmm.

William applied the same hush hush approach to our next stop. On the itinerary, it said Indigo Dye. The place was mysterious. Set out like an old fashioned village, it was pretty cool, in a Shintaro sort of way with old timber bridges over a little creek, red lanterns and little cottages. 

Another little woman appeared took a piece of cloth, some sticks and rubber bands and started to clip and bind the cloth. A big vat of blue dye was the big clue. Then she showed one she had prepared earlier...a piece of blue dyed cloth with white patterns. Ah ha! We were going to make our own.

It was good fun. I wanted to do a Bluebags flag, but my skills were so limited, I was gonna be happy with anything I got.

Below is a photo of our finished products.

No prizes for picking the remedial student.

The drive today was the first time since we arrived in Taiwan, that the landscape was less than spectacular. In fact, it was pretty darn ugly for a couple of hours as we travelled through flat freeway terrain, past the city of Taichung. Smoggy and very built up, this little fella. The next surprise field trip was to the persimmon factory. In his inimitable style, the director said nothing about it except “persimmon factory” and he was right. We were soon in a place where there were lots of persimmons.

We had our photo taken in front of the persimmons.

Below is a photo of me looking back into the persimmon factory, reflecting on the experience. You will note the trays of persimmons, quite possibly recently picked, or else picked some time earlier. The juice on the floor near my feet is, almost certainly, persimmon juice.

Michele asked if they produced anything else but persimmons. The answer was no. 

We arrived at our hotel in Taipei and said goodbye to William. He had been excellent, actually. Although he didn’t have the confidence with his English to go into more depth with a lot of the content, he really looked after us and was a great guide. Doing Taiwan this way was brilliant, in fact it would have been very difficult to do it any other way, really. We were taken to so many places we would never have found on our own, he avoided the tourist traps and gave us an “authentic” experience. Good on ya Willy. Good on ya Michele. Good on ya, Core, the chief organiser.

Left to our own devices, we trudged off to Din Tai Fung. It had been given a huge build up, by absolutely everybody. A short wait, where we got to work out our order, was a bonus and then we were in, chopsticks and soup spoon in hand. The dumplings were excellent, but not my pick as the best of the trip, and the shrimp sticky plate was delicious. The mint tea kept coming and a little panic set in that we hadn’t ordered enough. We put the panic to rest, by grabbing the waitress and loading up a truckload more. When I came up for breath, I could hardly move. 



Our next day we dared the trains system and took off outside the metro. It was complicated, but not their fault, our fault. We finally reached Shifen where the little village has built up alongside the train tracks.



We made our own happiness lantern, where you write your wishes in colour coded categories, then it is cast to the skies as a mini hot air balloon. I had a sudden craving for those little Whittaker’s Almond Gold Bars they sell at IGA.



After seeing Taroko Gorge, the waterfall looked a little piddly, I’m afraid, but it was lovely country once again.

Then we took off to Juifen. After some confusion at the train station, we jumped in cab. Blow me down, if, after a short, tight drive up a mountainous road a vista of ocean, mountains and islands didn’t open up on our left hand side. It was spectacular. We climbed higher towards the old gold village of Juifen. This was a surprising highlight. The Juifen old town road is a tight little bugger, that runs through a million great little shops, selling really unusual merch and top food. Every now and then, a sensational view opened up between the shops. You are high on the side of a mountain above the Pacific Ocean, looking down a jagged coastline. Brilliant little spot.

This bloke below sold Michele and Nick a really cool ceramic flute, he could play it like nobody’s business. He did a neat Stairway to Heaven.








It had been a long day in the countryside and we were back on the metro system, heading home. The Taipei metro is the best I have been on. It is clean, efficient, quick and really simple to follow. Despite the unbelievable traffic, there is no aggro and politeness is built into the system. Lines where you queue really help and people jump in to assist you if you look confused. Makes me wonder about Sydney. Surely we were clever enough to put something like this together??

Oh, and another thing. Imagine a group of Asian tourists in Sydney, all wearing stupid gold caps with backpacks on a mini bus, holding up queues with inane questions asked in Chinese?? Bloody hell. Beautiful people here. Beautiful. The most beautiful people. Beautiful.



Below is the step by step instructions to the escape sling. Typhoons and earthquakes are realities here, but more frightening still is the escape sling.