Taipei
The observant reader may have noticed that I skipped a couple of days in my last blog entry, that is because I’m trying to group my accounts in a manner that seems sensible, and grouping by city seems to be a good way of doing things right now. So, I’ll discuss what I did before I left for Tainan and then I’ll wrap up my entries about Taiwan by talking about what I did after Tainan.
Before Tainan (5/15 - 5/16)
Much to my enjoyment I was told upon waking up that we were going to help Andy’s aunt shoot a commercial for an invention that she had created in her free time – a bike that could attach to a wheelchair and thus help issues with transporting wheelchair bound dependents. I had never filmed a commercial before, but had a blast talking with the camera man and helping in the small facilities in which I was able. We recorded one section outside of Andy’s grandparents apartment, and another in the park a bicycle ride away from their apartment. We had an admittedly interesting time trying to stage an effective platform from which to highlight the various ingenuities of Andy’s aunt’s design.
After we were done filming, Andy and I headed towards the city center to meet up with Hsuia-Sheng. We walked around for awhile, talking, and eventually made it to some large store which we perused for awhile. We parted ways while Andy and I went to Taipei 101.
The view wasn’t as great as I was hoping for, (especially since the windows didn’t seem to have been cleaned for the past couple of weeks), but the city did look quite resplendent from that height. We eventually made our way down from the tower and met back up with Hsuia-Sheng, going to a night market and enjoying the local street food of Taiwan.
The next morning, all of Andy’s family and I biked around NTU’s campus, which both Andy’s mom and his grandfather had attended. Apparently it is the premiere university in Taiwan and bestowed both his mother and grandfather with corresponding esteem. The NTU campus was great, and we actually were privy to a small college performance being put on by a small school group. Then we had a really extraordinary lunch at a restaurant on campus. There were all sorts of food with varying tastes but equitable deliciousness. After lunch, we biked around the campus with Andy’s cousin, Tzu-Ning and his aunt with them highlighting various aspects of the beautiful campus.
After getting some delicious ice-cream, Tzu-Ning headed back off to her classes at a nearby college, and Andy’s Aunt escorted us to a huge electronic sales outlet, where I was able to snag a RGB-strip for about $2. It was pretty wild, there was a definite plethora of various electrical gizmos and gadgets abounding in this 5-6 story building.
Later, Andy and I made our way to the Chang-Kai-Sek memorial hall and were educated about the Taiwanese leader and saw some pretty magnificent architecture. We eventually returned to Andy’s grandparent’s house.
While there, I learned how to play Chinese Chess, which is really rather interesting. It resembles normal chess in many respects, except it enforces some more restrictions on the movements of the king and there are a few extra pieces, like the cannon, which has to shoot over one piece to make an attack. This led to me having to create an entirely new strategy. After a couple of early and lucky wins against Andy we started having some great games, with him usually taking the lead. In addition to the amazing new chess-like game, I was taught a sort of 5-player euchre game, which we all enjoyed heartily.
For dinner, Andy, his aunt, and I all went to a nearby beef noodle restaurant for an especially delicious bowl of beef noodles and my first attempt at eating pig intestines. They had a very distinctly rich taste and were actually quite tasty after you got over the reality of what you were eating.
After Tainan (5/20 - 5/22)
After getting back from Tainan, Andy and I encountered some rain the next day. Not letting it deter us from enjoying this incredible city we took some public transport to the Taiwanese National Palace Museum to get a good look at some Taiwanese and Chinese national treasures.
The next day, Andy’s aunt got the brilliant idea to go for a bike ride to the beautiful river delta at Tamsui. It was a beautiful ride and the delta offered some splendid views. Once we got to the ocean, we sat down and ate some delicious sandwhiches that we had gotten earlier that morning. On the way back, we stopped at a fort overlooking the river and had a good look around and inside. Afterwards, we stopped by the beach and had an enjoyable walk. And upon passing by a juice stand, Andy’s aunt got us some sweet plum juice, and I have to admit that it was the only thing that I didn’t like eating or drinking during the entire trip; it was just too sweet.
Later that night, we went to dinner with Andy’s mom’s side of the family. Everyone was very friendly and they had some very excited conversations in Chinese with people taking turns talking with me in English. It was a great time and the food was delicious. It was the first time that I had grilled meat in a restaurant. It was a great time and everything tasted amazing. They also had a sort of rice gluten pastry that we grilled, causing it to puff up. We then dipped it in some sauce and powder. It was amazing! I had gotten quite used to dinner tables with a lot of conversation that I didn’t understand. And, I felt like the exposure to so much Mandarin, was atleast helping me on a subconscious level to parse the complex language. We had a great time and after spending some more time with his family we headed back to Andy’s grandparents.
During our last day, we had to run a few errands, but after a brief bit of work we had the chance to finish up the video that we had shot a couple days before. Much to my enjoyment, I was able to narrate the video and had a great laugh doing it (a few weeks later, I saw the video and was surprised at how well it had turned out).
And after a great day, we went to dinner with Andy’s dad’s side of the family which included Andy’s aunt, the grandparents that we had been staying with, Tzu-Ning and Andy’s uncle that had picked us up at the train station. We had a lovely Taiwanese meal and took great pleasure talking amongst ourselves. Afterwards, we retired to Andy’s grandparents house and played cards until Andy and I had to reluctantly get some sleep before our early flight the next day.
I thoroughly enjoyed my entire time in Taiwan which was made exponentially better by the kindness of Andy’s family, and I’d thoroughly recommend to visit Taiwan if you have a chance. Although, you probably won’t enjoy yourself as much as I did, since I got to spend my time with Taiwan’s kindest and most amazing hosts.
