TAIWAN – Táiwān - 台灣

Turistit Taiwanissa

Hello from Taiwan!

Seuraava Aasian trippi suuntautui Taiwaniin. Tällä kertaa matkassa oli mukana osa perheestä ja olen varma, että askelmittarin lukemat Aasian matkan jälkeen eivät jättäneet ketään kylmäksi. Taiwan on siis saari, joka tunnetaan myös nimellä Formosa elikkäs kaunis. Matkan kohteena oli pääkaupunki Taipei, mutta päivien kuluessa keksimme vierailla saaren eteläpuolella maailman seitsemänneksi nopeimmalla junalla eli Taiwan HSR tågetilla. 

Sää ei suosinut edellisellä viikolla Hong Kongin turistikierroksilla eikä Taipeissakaan pitänyt kaivaa aurinkolaseja esiin...kosteusprosentti oli kylläkin kohdillaan sateettominakin päivinä. Kokonaisuutena reissu oli hyvin opettavainen ja vahvisti taas kerran näkemystä Aasian monenlaisista alueista. Myös hymy oli herkässä niin meillä kuin paikallisilla paljon useammin kuin Hong Kongin keskustassa. Jo lentokoneesta ulos astuessamme paikallinen kolmen koululaisen ryhmä toivotteli meille hyvää Taiwanin reissua. Sain myös kokeilla kiinan taitojani ensimmäistä kertaa Hong Kongin ulkopuolella! Letkeetä.

Taiwan tourists

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

DAY 1

The next destination in Asia was Taiwan. We took the plane from HK to Taipei with my family with EVA air and the reason I mention this is because I’ve never seen a complete entertainment system and that fancy of a meal in economy class on a flight that has lasts 1hr 30min. Maybe this plane with the route was exceptional but I enjoyed it!

Waffles

Our camp (hotel) for this journey was very close to Taipei 101 and already when we were getting closer to the city you could see the tower dominating the skyline. It is way taller than the other buildings downtown. It was good that we had the hotel next to a MRT stop since it’s quite convenient to travel in Taipei with the octopus style card as well! What was cool about the line next to us was that it used some kind rubber tires to roll and this made the journey really smooth.

Taipei Public transportation

101 reaching the clouds

The other thing that I noticed the first night was that a very popular bar amongst the exchange students in HK had it’s Taipei version underneath our hotel. What a coincidence. Can’t get rid of Carnagies?!? Since we were craving for a night snack the evening came to an end with a quick visit to the closest night market. We found some cool shaped waffles (probably meant for kids) and tried the ones shaped as a motorcycle, a pig and a chicken. Good start for a vacation! The thing you also expect of a vacation is a good night sleep…this didn’t really work the first night since some people had decided to have a karaoke party or something close to a rave on the same floor with us.

Carnegies Taipei

DAY 2

Tourist day - 101

Even though the night wasn’t the best one we woke up ready to explore the ‘’must see’’ tourist stuff in Taipei. The forecast for the second day was pretty good and motivated us to do as much as possible. The thing is though that when you explore Asian monuments etc. it means A LOT of steps. Be prepared to walk. You can take a taxi (quite affordable) that stops closer to the sights but you can’t avoid a mild work out even with that option. Our own tour included some of the monuments downtown, The 101, The national palace museum, downtown shopping area and another night market more far away from downtown (Shihlin night market). Taipei was not as crowded as Hong Kong but there were more people than I expected for example on the MRT stations.

Family up in 101

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall gate

I haven’t probably defined the term ‘’night market’’ here too much. Yes, it is a market that is held during the late hours. On top of this a very distinctive part of these markets is bargaining items (clothes, shoes etc.), food, games and an unimaginable amount of different kind of snacks. It can be quite fun especially when you enter the market with the right attitude. Taipei night markets weren’t too aggressive as far as it comes to the people who sell but you had to have some bargaining skills to get a good price. The food section also provides some excitement for everyone. Sometimes it’s like lottery…you never know what you get.

Ever had this?

DAY 3

On the 3^rd day we decided to rest in the morning since the rave party was finally over on floor 4. After charging our batteries we headed to Beitou Hot springs that is about a 30 minute MRT ride from downtown. The last line to the springs has some special elements inside the train. This was the most creative subway train I’ve ever taken. The hot springs are a famous tourist sight and a well-known destination for Asian people to go on a vacation. The Beitou Hot Springs have a public section that is very very affordable to go and take a bath in. We decided to take a hike up the hill and visit a hot spring resort. This wasn’t a rip off either and we spent a good 3 hours with great views and 9 different hot spring pools! I haven’t used a flower bath rope before this either…

Beitou 

Steam

Cool design on the MRT train

In the evening we decided to try Japanese style teppanyaki food. The restaurants in Taipei are great and the city is known for its cuisine. A good thing is that this great food doesn’t cost too much either! Another thing on day 3 evening was a taxi ride to Miramar. We couldn’t ignore the neon giant glowing in Taipei, which is more known by the name Miramar Ferris wheel. Didn’t take a ride on it since there isn’t a shortage of high buildings in HK but it looked quite impressive at night.

The Neon giant

Teppanyaki

DAY 4

The weather had not been the greatest during the first days and we decided that there has to be at least one sunny day during our trip to Taiwan. That is why we spent Day 4 chilling in the Longshan temple area, sat some some time with the tea master and made plans to go down south on day 5. The temple area is great if you want to see some Taiwanese architecture. The ‘’snake alley’’ night market is also right next to it. We liked the Japanese teppanyaki so much that during the evening it was time to try another activity packed dinner meaning Japanese BBQ. This was quite a dinner since communication was mainly done with sign language. Everything worked out very well but the waiter apologized or said sorry more than 50 times for us…I wish I had known how to say that it’s all right that they can’t speak English in Chinese. Btw the Mandarin used in Taiwan is very ‘’correct’’ you could say and easier to understand than in most places where it’s spoken.

Colourful temples in Taiwan

DAY 5

The morning started with a quick taxi ride to Taipei Main Railway Station. From here we took the Taiwan High Speed Railway to Tainan City. The train reaches a top speed of 300km/h and I thought the trip down south was impressive. This is actually one of the things you should do in Taiwan.

Once arriving to Tainan (1,87 million inhabitants) we headed to the coast. There was a very good bus connection from the HSR station but it took a little more time than we thought and I must say at times I had no clue where we were. We didn’t really plan every step of this part of the trip and by doing so got into very interesting situations.

THSR

Speedin

However after 40 minutes of sitting we got into an area called Anping district. Anping is a small but fun place that has a couple tourist attractions. It has also some great shrimp dishes and apparently many school kids doing ‘’projects’’. This is a very common way to get a good picture with some western people. What happens is that some school kids come up to you and say that they have to take a picture with you for a school project and ask a question which in this case was ‘’why did you choose this building to have coffee?’’. I think this is sometimes quite fun but some blonde hair girls  especially going to Mainland China might disagree (You become a celebrity in small cities there immediately).

Sitting at another cafeteria also had a surprise element to it. A Swedish family sat next to us there and they told that their high school aged daughter is in Tainan City for an exchange. She wanted to learn Chinese. That is quite an extraordinary place to do your High School exchange. Impressive!

Tainan shrimp!

Chilling in Tainan

Anping treehouse

Anping had this really cool treehouse that used to be a warehouse of a company. Time has passed since it has been in use and a Banyan tree has taken over the building. This creates an interesting mix.

Anping treehouse

This trip covered a large part of Taiwan. The only thing that we I really wanted to do was Taroko national park that is supposed to be really nice. The weather in that area just wasn’t right for that type of a trip. Taiwan will be remembered as a place with great food and happy locals. There were more funny moments and misunderstandings than normally here there as well. Have to mention though that once we were taking off the plane the sun began to shine from a clear sky in Taipei as well…haha. 

Hotel reception - Check Out