Destination #3: Taipei & Taichung, Taiwan
Another long post by Adeline:
This destination was mostly about family and food. My mom's youngest brother lives in Taichung and until my early twenties I never really knew that I had family in Taiwan. Unfortunately, that's what happens when both your parents have about 8 siblings each and their families are scattered across the world. My family in Taiwan however, was no longer a mystery when my lovely cousin, Shein, came to study abroad in the U.S. in 2010. After hearing her tell me about her home in Taichung, and my own brother going abroad to Taiwan for over a year I was eager to see this place for myself! It was mostly how I imagined. Taipei is a bustling big city nestled in between cloud covered mountains. There's a mixture of old buildings, and shiny new skyscrapers. The streets are filled with swarms of motorcycles, old trucks, and flashy cars as well. Most importantly there's lots of great food.
We were welcomed to Taipei by my cousin and her boyfriend with an impressive show of Taiwanese dishes and a hugeeeeeeeee pile of delicious mango shaved ice. Cliffton doesn't ever crave ice cream, but together we eagerly devoured the pile of shaved ice that was almost as big as my head. While we were in Taipei we stayed at the W hotel and it definitely was part of the experience. This hotel was very hip and felt like a night club. It had dim lights, sexy club music playing in the elevators and lots of modern designs.
Our first day of sight-seeing we went to Taipei 101, and that was Cliffton's favorite activity the whole trip (even though he was very nervous with clammy hands)! The clouds floating by makes you feel like you're on top of the world. After that we went to the National Palace Museum. I loved the beautiful artifacts and artwork but Cliffton was super annoyed by the infamous Chinese tourists. I never realized there was a negative stereotype against Chinese tourists...but there is...and we experienced first hand the madness. It felt like at least a dozen tour groups descended on the National Palace museum and they all came in huge mobs led by a guide with a booming voice and carrying a flag. Cliffton and I spent most of our time strategically dodging "the flags". It was actually quite an amusing experience. The next day we started off with an amazing typical Taiwanese breakfast at Fu Hang Dou Jiang. My cousin met us there, and the line for this little stall is literally across the hall, down the stairs and wrapped around the building. I can't go without mentioning this was one of my favorite food items in Taiwan. It's soy milk, but with extra stuff in it. It's kind of salty...and has these fried dough bits and green onions in it. It sounds pretty odd from my description but it's honestly VERY delicious!
After our breakfast we visited Dan Shui (aka. Tamsui) a historical riverside college town at the recommendation of on of our friends. There's Tamsui Old street which has shops, and little hawker stalls with street food, and there's also an old fort called San Domingo which was originally occupied by the Spanish and changed hands many times (British, US, Japanese etc.) This historical site was interesting because the bottom of it looked like an old European inspired living space and had historical information posted nearby. But if you go upstairs, there is a strange "romantic love" display from more modern times. Cliffton and I scratched our heads at this and weren't sure what to make of it. Was the upstairs of this historic site transformed into this romantic display because it's a popular site for engagements? Or did they feel like they needed to increase the interest of this site for young people? We still don't know. Our time in Dan Shui was definitely well spent, and just gave us a peak into a historic Taiwanese town.
Midway through the week we made our way down to Taichung! My wonderful family continued our food tour through the country! Interesting story: before we left our hotel Cliffton found a gold ring in a chair in the lobby. He picked it up and gave it to me saying it looked like "fake" gold. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the signature design, a small diamond set in the rose gold, and a Cartier ingraving inside. I told Cliffton this, and we immediately turned it over to the hotel lost and found. Out of curiosity we looked this ring up and it was approximately a $2000 Cartier ring! I hope we made someone's day!
While in my family's hometown of Taichung, we went on a day trip to Ri Yue Tan (or Sun Moon Lake, because half of it looks like the sun and half of it looks like the moon?) We took a ferry across to the other side of the lake and ate their delicious tea eggs! We also had some local "mountain food" which consists of a lot of sea food (fish and shrimp) caught in the lake itself. We ended our trip with the best hot pot of our lives and the biggest night market in Taiwan: FengJia night market in Taichung (our first one was Raohe in Taipei). My cousin Peng took us to get some refreshing lemon tea (our favorite) and papaya milk tea (I think?). We also managed to find some Taiwanese fried chicken nuggets but were so stuffed we only managed to eat a couple bites.
Our Taiwan trip was filled with more funny stories and full stomaches than our other two destinations put together, but I definitely think Cliffton and I need to slow it down for the next leg of our trip. Can't go on gaining 2 kgs every week... Until next time! :)
