There is a saying that people go to Taiwan to see the winter rain.  It sure looked to be true when we arrived at Taipei on a late December night.  Having always thought of Taiwan to be somewhat balmy due to its location, I was somewhat glad that I took my medium jacket instead of a light one.  The rain had apparently lessened off from earlier in the day, but we could still feel the cold and wind as we stepped outside the airport terminal.  And our local guide was bundled well enough for Boston.

We had decided to go to Taiwan after hearing that my sister was planning to go over for a few days during her Christmas break in Hong Kong.  Jessica and I thought that we could also head over with them.  The original thinking was that we were to go on the same package tour from Hong Kong as the one my sister would be on.  But after returning back to China, we found out that Jessica could only get a visa into Taiwan traveling with a China Tour group and not as an individual tourist.   Thus, we try to see if we could find one that matched up with my sister’s tour.  The best we could find is a tour with the same dates and decided to give that a shot and to see if we could meet up somehow.

Our trip had begun with a late evening flight from Hangzhou to Taipei.  With the typical delay, it was past 11PM by the time we landed at Taoyuan airport in Taipei.  One thing that we didn’t anticipate was the long immigration line.  It took almost an hour for us to clear immigration and well past midnight by the time our group gathered the baggage, exchanged money and headed out of the airport to our hotel for the night.   This is my first return to Taipei in more than 38 years.

On the short bus ride to the hotel, our guide gave out some preliminary background on the city and also our itinerary for our visit.   For our 3 nights in the city, we would be spending in 3 different hotels in various parts of the city.  (By contrast, my sister would be staying in the Grand Hyatt in the center of town for all three nights.)  Our first night was at a hotel by the airport, Hotel Orchard Park.  It’s a reasonable new hotel; but nothing fancy.  While the room was simply outfitted, it was big and clean, with a decent size bathroom. One negative is slow and bad WiFi connection.  These days of mobile devices, WiFi connection has become almost an imperative thing.

 

The next morning, we headed out to our first sightseeing destination:  Yehliu Geopark. Located on a cape at the northeastern end of the Taiwan Island, Yehliu has landscape eroded by seawater, creating numerous rocks in the shape of mushrooms, candle, ginger, chessboards, etc.  There were many interesting rock formations in the park, and on a windswept and rainy day, the area actually had a serene feel to it.  Despite the weather, the place was still packed with tourists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After leaving Yehliu, we head into the city and first went to lunch at a local restaurant that seems to cater to tour groups from China and Hong Kong.   All the tables in the restaurant were filled with tourist groups, serving the same set of dishes at every table; a set course of non-descript 8 or so dishes.  Would have much preferred if we were just dropped off food court or market instead.

But our next destination is one of the main reasons we came to Taipei:  The National Palace Museum.  This is a museum that holds many of the artifacts that used to be in the Forbidden City Palace in China.  The museum has numerous galleries that probably would take someone two days to browse through it all.  And that is just the items on display; much more artifacts are in storage.   With our schedule stop of 3 hours, we were able to tour just a few of the galleries.  For the first two hours, we had a guided tour through a few of the key galleries and then an hour to wander by ourselves.   Some of the more unique pieces we saw were a multicolor stone shaped like a piece of meat and carvings of the finest ivories and gemstones.  During the royal court of ancient China, many artists were able to maintain a good life by producing artworks for the court.

There were also many porcelain pieces, furniture, household & personal items and bronze works covering many thousand years of Chinese history.  For me, it was like finally able to see the real thing of all the pieces that I saw on Taiwan’s stamps when I was a kid.  During our own hour of wandering, we also had a chance to see many paintings and calligraphy pieces.

The three hours wasn’t nearly enough time to see everything we want to see, but it was still a nice visit.  Our next two destinations were the typical shopping stops on package tours.  The first was a watch store that sells not the top tier brands like Rolex and Omega, but the next tier, such as Longene and Tag Heuer.   There was a short introduction and then we were ushered into the showroom.  We had an hour to ‘shop’, but we pretty much saw everything in about 15 minutes.  And taking a cue from Casinos, the exit to the showroom was not marked.  We have to ask to find our way out.  Once outside, we decided to walk around the area.  About a block from the showroom we saw an interesting small temple.  What’s interesting about the temple is that it appears to be something that was left untouched from a previous era as the area around it was built up with modern structures.  After taking some pictures, we continued onward for another block but didn’t see anything else interesting.  When we doubled back to wait for the bus we saw a food stall vendor selling local pancakes and milk tea in the parking lot across the street doing brisk business.  We decided to try some.  It was much better than the lunch we had and just hit the right spot for an afternoon break.

Our next stop was the Duty Free mall in town.  Bus loads after bus loads of tourists were dropped off at the place, which had all the typical name brand as well as local specialty shops.  Our tour guide gave us a pseudo boarding card that we could use at the register to get our tax-free stuff.   Jessica checked out prices of some of the branded items there; while some weren’t bad and with a few selective sale items being a good bargain, she didn’t find anything that was a must buy.  However, we did end up picking up a few boxes of local teas and food items at the place.

Before dropping us off at the hotel, we were taken to another local restaurant for dinner.  Wished they had skipped the group dinner and just took us to the hotel instead.  The dinner turned out very much like the lunch fare.  Jessica and I purposefully didn’t eat too much as we had plan to go out in the evening to try some local night market food.

Our hotel that night was The Grand Hotel, located up the Yuanshan on the northern part of Taipei.  The hotel was built in the Fifties to ensure that foreign dignitaries have a 5-Star modern accommodation to go.  One can say that this is the original high-end hotel built after the war.  It is built in a classic Palace like style.  Interior has wide hallway and rooms would offer a perfect view of the city.  The hotel is laid out in a rectangular shape and wide enough such that the hotel is able to place two rows of interior rooms with no windows (the “standard” room).  And those were the rooms our tour group ended up having.  These rooms

were relatively small (although I have smaller rooms in Europe and Hong Kong), just enough for a desk and two twin beds.  It lacked some amenities offer in the larger rooms like a room safe.  But the bathroom was surprisingly large, relative to the overall room size.  The hotel website listed these rooms are designed to provide “comfort and an unforgettable stay”.   I have to say our stay in the room was unforgettable, but probably not what the hotel had in mind.  The bright spot was that we weren’t going to stay in the room for much more than just sleeping for that night.

 

After putting our stuff away, we took a taxi and head out to the one of the renowned night market of the city not far from the hotel:  Shilin Night Market.  It was still drizzling a bit when arrived at the place around 8:30PM, but it was full of people.  We started walking around and finally found the food court area full of individual stalls offering various kinds of local food.   Most of the vendors have no seating; most people just eat standing on the side or as they wandered around.  Eager to get started, we first sampled the fried chicken steak.  There was a line of twenty people waiting when we got to one of the more popular stall.  For 45 TWD (equivalent to about $1.5), we got a small plate size chicken piece that not only was good but almost filled up both of us right there.  Just as we were finishing up the chicken, we got in line to get some bake potatoes.  We end up ordering the deluxe piece with seafood topping that turned out not as good as we had hoped.  But not to be discouraged, we went and picked up some Japanese style Fried Fish Ball next, which turned out to be very good.

Taking a bit of a break, we picked up some milk tea and walked around a bit.  This is an area with many shops and is a renowned tourist shopping area.  Yet, our focus this night was only on the food.  Next, we waited in line for the next batch of red bean filled waffle cakes.  As good as they tasted, it was just as interesting to see how they made it.  Similar to making egg ball waffles, the cook would pour dough into individual cupcake size mold on a large round hot steel plate.  After a bit, the filling would be placed inside half of the mold.  After a few more minutes, the cook would pull out the cakes without the filling and put it onto the ones without the filling to make a cake.

Next we grabbed some roasted beef and some bread.  I was tempted by the beef noodle and dumplings, but was quite full by that time.  It was around 10PM, and wedecided to head back to the hotel to our windowless room.

 

The next day, Christmas Eve, was to be our ‘free day’.  After breakfast at the hotel, which might have been the best meal with the tour we had the entire trip, we dropped our luggage off with the tour lead and head out to the city on our own around 9:30AM.  We were going to meet up with my sister in the late afternoon at Taipei 101, so we plan to do some site seeing and shopping on our own before then.  I had a more ambitious plan, but as it turned out, we didn’t go out of a few blocks of Taipei 101.

Taipei 101 was the tallest building in the world for a few years.  Located at the south end of the city near the City Hall and Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, it has become one of the must see places of the city.  When we got there, just before 10AM, none of the shops were open.  We walked around a bit and decided to stash some of our stuff in one of the lockers to lighten our load.   We then walked out decided to see if there were anything else open in the area.   But nothing else was open, the nearby mall and shops all seem to open at 11AM.   After circling around a bit we head back to Taipei 101 for a restroom break.   Coming out of the restroom, we saw the sign for the tower’s observation deck.   We decided to go up to see if we could get in.

The advantage of early arrival is that the line can be much shorter.  Even though the outside observation deck would not be opened that day (which would have been better for pictures), we paid the NTW 400 ticket price (each) and went up supposedly the world’s fastest elevator to the enclosed observation deck on the 88^th floor.  Despite the overcast day, we were able to see nice view of the city, and we were able to get some pictures through the windows as well.   There is just some unexplained exuberance of being up so high and getting a bird’s eye view of a city, whether it is on the Space Needle, Sears Tower, Eiffel Tower, etc.  It gives people a very different perspective than they get on the ground level.

On our way out of the observation area on the floor below, we walked through a gallery of fine coral art, with the obligatory shop selling the coral art and jewelry right there before reaching the elevator for ride down.  But one good thing about this place is that there is free WiFi available.  So while Jessica was doing some browsing I was clearing out my emails and download.   Jessica ended up picking up a piece of reasonably inexpensive coral pearl there.  The coral jewelry is a specialty of Taiwan as it is one of the few places where coral used for gems is available.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being Christmas, there were sales in all the stores as we browsed the mall after we came back down from the observation deck.  Jessica picked up a few items and even I picked up a couple of Brooks Brother shirts.  As we weren’t hungry, we decided to go to the other malls in the area.  While Jessica went shopping, I sat and catch up with my reading on the iPad.  By around 2:30PM, Jessica was done with her shopping and we were ready to grab a bite.  There were a café and a Gordon Biersch Restaurant on the floor we were shopping.  But it turns out one doesn’t have an opening until 6:30PM and the other was all booked up for the day.  So we headed down to the food court at the basement of the mall.   It was pretty crowded even at that hour, but one advantage of a food court is that Jessica and I can pick our own vendor.  I end up getting the traditional Taiwan Beef Noodle Bowl, and Jessica picking up a set lunch menu with claypot chicken.

After finished eating, we walked around the plaza area outside the malls.  There were outdoor shows at several spots and lots of promotional tents as well.   It was festive, but a different kind of festive one would find in the US on Christmas Eve.  We then looked around electronic shops in the area for an iPhone.   After not seeing anything, we remembered there was an Apple shop at Taipei 101 near where we boarded the elevator to the observation deck.  We headed back to take a look.

Like all stores in Hong Kong and Taiwan at the time, it did not have the new 4S in stock, but they did have the unlock iPhone 4.  We decided to pick one up-for Jessica, who phone was ready to retire.

We then went downstairs to meet up with my sister, brother in law and nephew.  They just got back from their tour for the day.   After dropping our stuff at my sister’s room at the Grand Hyatt, located just next door to Taipei 101, we went over to Din Tai Fung, a renowned Taiwan restaurant for their Xiao Long Bao (a water dumpling).   It’s more a curiosity for us more than anything, since we have been to its franchisees in other locations; we just want to see what the “original” is like.  The question for us was which one to go to.   To make it easy for us, we decided to go to the one at Taipei 101.  A big crowd waited at the restaurant.  We took our numbers and end up waiting about 30 minutes for our seats.   While we waited, we were given a menu form to which we can select what we want before we are seated.  The other thing the restaurant did was to have separate set of waiting numbers for different size tables instead of one set for everyone, ie one set for up to 4, one for 5-7, and one for 8 plus.   This makes it easier for people to see how many people are really ahead of them for the table they want.

The restaurant’s menu is fairly similar in all locales, with about 75-80% being the same and the other 25% tailored to local tastes or local availability.  We end up picking our typical favorites Xiao Long Bao, Noodles and Won Tons plus some local vegetables and fish that we saw the first time here.  Even though the portion of each dish wasn’t huge, we were all full by the time we finished.

As we headed out of the still crowded restaurant and the mall, we decided to browse around town a bit.  Taiwan appears to be like Hong Kong in that people celebrate Christmas by gathering with others outside rather than in homes; whereas in the US, all shops would be closed by late afternoon on Christmas Eve.  But here, some shops may stay open later the normal on Christmas Eve.   We decided to head out to a famous local bookstore, which opens 24 hours a day, Eslite.  Yes, even in this digital age, some bookstores can still find a niche.

The store was far enough for us to take a taxi.  Since five of us couldn’t fit in one cab, my sister, brother-in-law and nephew took the first cab, and then Jessica and I got in the next one that came along.   The interesting part of this journey was that despite that Jessica and I departed at least 5 minutes later, we got there 5 minutes early.  And their fare turned out to be 30% more than what we paid as well.

Anyways, we spend about an hour plus at the bookstore.  It has a large offering of Chinese and English books and magazines.  It even had Baseball Digest, a magazine I wouldn’t be able to find in most bookstores in the US.   And of course it has a café as well.  My nephew and Jessica picked up some books.   It was around 9:30PM when we left the store and decided to walk around the block to see what we can find.   We ran into a store that specializes in Apple products.   Jessica picked up a case and a screen protector for the new iPhone.    We walked around the block some more and ran into a local bakery store that has one of Taiwan’s specialty snacks, the pineapple cake.  We bought a bunch to bring back home.  Feeling fulfilled, we decided to head back to my sister’s hotel to pick up our stuff to head over to our hotel.   Again, despite getting into a cab first, we end up arriving back about 5 minutes earlier than my sister at the hotel; although this time the fare differences were not as great.   Something that one just can’t explain.

After a bit unwinding in my sister’s room and gathering up our stuff, Jessica and I took a cab to our new hotel for the day, the third one on this trip.   The Fullon Hotel Sanyin is located in New Taipei City, beyond the northern end of Taipei proper.  It was a good 45 minutes of cab ride from the center of town to the hotel (but it only cost around NTW 900 (or US$30), which isn’t too bad.)

The hotel room was spacious if a bit spartan.   Before heading to bed, we begin figuring out how to put all the stuff we bought into our suitcases for our flight back home the next day.  It was almost 1AM before we went to sleep.  The next morning I got up a bit early around 7AM.  Wanting to take a walk to see where we were and see if I could find some contact lens solution for Jessica.  I discovered that we were located next to Taipei University, the main campus entrance not more than two blocks from our hotel.   It was fairly quiet on the streets in the few blocks I walked around.  Only activities seem to be around the couple of convenience stores that was open at the time.   (There was a new McDonalds that looks to be opening soon, but appear to be still under construction.)  But I was able to find the contact lens solution at the 7-Eleven.

The breakfast at the hotel was not inspirational, particularly for a Christmas Day.  But as we headed out on the bus, I hoping I would be able to find something better along the way.   I had thought we had stayed there so that we could see a couple of places near there before we departed for the airport in the early afternoon.  But instead, we started back on the highway to Taipei again.   Our first stop was a store that sold coral jewelry and art.   It was very similar to what we saw at Taipei 101 the previous day.   It did have some interesting pieces, including a model Ferrari made out of Coral that costs almost as much as the real thing.

Like some of the other tour members, we left the show room after about 30 minutes.  There wasn’t much around the area, but we did find a coffee shop nearby and picked up some tea, pastry and home fries, while we waited for the bus.  It wasn’t much but help fill some gaps from the breakfast.  While heading to our next stop, Jessica and I commented about all the campaign posters and signs that seem to be everywhere, something one doesn’t see in China.  Taiwan’s election was just around the corner to be held in early January.

Our next destination was a store that sold all kinds of specialty Taiwan ‘snack’ food.   Jessica and I bought a number of things we had not picked up yet, including beef & pork jerky, mochi cakes, dry pineapples, etc.  While we picked up a big bag, some of our fellow tour members were taking a couple of cases of the stuff back.

Before we were to head back to the airport, we stopped for lunch at another local restaurant.  This time we had at least somewhat of a Taiwan style meal:  Dumplings, Xiao Long Bao, Noodles, buns, etc.  Not great but better than then other meals we had with the tour.

As we waited for the bus outside the restaurant afterwards, we went to a nearby drink store to get another Taiwan specialty:  Milk Tea with pearls; a sort of a going away drink for us on the bus to the airport.   As we drove to the airport, we passed by several fields where people were playing baseball.   Somewhat a rare site, baseball games on Christmas Day.