Taipei Part 1

This installment will be in two parts so that I can take a writing break but you can still read. 

From March 11-14 a group of exchange guys and I took a trip to Taipei. Most of us were on slightly different flights getting there, but my choice of flight was perfect. The time made it so I missed no class, but still arrived on Thursday evening. I also found my new favorite airline, EVA air. For the 1.5 hour flight we got a meal, entertainment center, and free drinks of any type. And it wasn’t terribly expensive either.

Upon arrival to Taiwan we got the very warming welcome of “Federal legisislation requires that we announce that smuggling of drugs or weapons into Taiwan carries an automatic sentence of capital punishment.” I knew I should have left the heroin and rocket launchers in Hong Kong!

Immigration, as always was simple, and then we went and bought bus tickets from the Airport to our hostel. Taipei’s international airport isn’t actually in Taipei it is in a nearby city of Taoyuan which is about 45 minutes away by bus. This bus would have been fine, except they didn’t announce stops and we ended up taking it too far and had to take a taxi to our hostel.  The taxi drive was interesting because the driver drove us through some very narrow alleys with things such as bicyles and cars making the alley even skinnier, but eventually we made it to our hostel.

Taipei is well known for its clubs so after getting settled we headed out to explore. The club we wanted to go to was in the base of Taipei 101, which is currently the second tallest building in the world (soon to be surpassed in Shanghai). It was very foggy so the top of Taipei 101 was not visible at all. The original club we were going to told us they were closed for a private event, which was disappointing (they might have just turned us away because we had no girls), so we went to another club. This one was interesting mostly because they had censored music, which is odd in a nightclub but oh well.

Waiting Line

Something that was nice though in this club and it was also apparent in daily life in Taipei was the well organized way people go about their lifes. People lined up to get drinks at the bar rather than a mad fight for counter space. In Taipei’s equivalent of the MTR (the MRT) people also line up and actually wait for people to get off the train before boarding, it was so nice. They also are very good on escalators of not blocking the walking half of the escalator, much better than Hong Kong or the US.

After the flight, I was a little tired so I didn’t stay out too late, and eventually me and most of the other people headed back to our hostel and went to bed in preperation for an early wake up to explore the city of Taipei.

Sun Yat Sen

Guard (Blogger won't let me rotate)

The next morning we woke up relatively early and headed out for Taipei 101 which was a 15 minute walk from our hostel. When we got there though it was pretty cloudy so we decided to wait for another day and instead headed for the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall. Dr. Yat Sen was the leader of the the revolution against the imperial rulers in 1911 and founder of the Republic of China. The hall was pretty cool, it was mostly a history museum, but also included a giant statue of Dr. Yat Sen that was guarded. We got to watch a changing of the guards ceremony as well, it was pretty similar to the one at the Tomb on the Unknown soldier in DC, slightly less regimented though.

Bit of a history break here. In 1911 Dr. Sun Yat Sen led a revolution against the Qing Dynasty of Imperial China. The newly formed Republic of China existed until 1949 when the Chinese Communist Party overthrew the government (the ROC allowing them to exist caused this, which is why the CCP does not allow other political parties).  The leader of the ROC , Chiang Kai-Shek, and some of his followers along with most of the cultural relics of China fled to the island of Taiwan. Now the People’s Republic of China ruled by the CCP is in power in China. The official stance of the government of Taiwan is that they still have power over all of mainland China because the CCP didn’t take over following the rules. The CCP thinks that the ROC is an illegitimate government. Because of China’s position and power in the UN and world politics their stance on this keeps Taiwan from being recognized as a legitimate country. Taiwan is not a member of the UN, and China will cut relations with any country that does recognize Taiwan. This leads to signs  in China such as in Shanghai’s airport there is a line for International travelers and a line for Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan travelers.

Ok back to the day. The next destination was the Chiang Kai-Shek  Memorial. The entire park is very cool and an interesting modern feeling to traditional Chinese architecture.  Sadly it had been raining for most of the afternoon so the memorial area was not as scenic as it might be sometimes.

CKS Memorial

After the memorial we ate at an excellent Hot Pot restaurant. It was all you can eat restaurant that was excellent. It had hotpot and ice cream and soda and lots of good food, seafood and other meats.  Worth every penny!

After dinner we headed back to the hostel and then got ready to go to a club called LUXY. LUXY is a very popular club in Taipei and is world renowned from what I have been told. They have three dance floors and bars stage performances by a group of girls who probably never have to buy their own drinks. The bars were very cool with lots of cool lasers and lights. The first room once getting into the club was also very cool. It was a room full of lasers very similar to a Bond movie. After being at the club for awhile some of us headed back to the hostel, while others stayed much later.

Saturday, those of us who didn’t stay later at the club woke up and headed back to Taipei 101 for a second try. The sky seemed clearer so we bought our tickets for the elevator, the fastest elevator in the world. When we were purchasing the tickets they warned us that the view was not very good, what we were surprised of though was when we got to the top it wasn’t that there wasn’t a very good view it was that there was NO view.  We could see absolutely nothing, which was very disappointing. We did get to see the giant Harmonic Dampener that keeps the building from falling down.

View  from the top

Dampener

After coming back down from the observatory we met back up with the rest of our group and headed to the National Palace Museum using the MRT. This museum has most of the best Chinese artifacts in the world that the ROC took from the mainland on their retreat. It wasn’t all that incredibly exciting to me because it was mostly just better versions of many artifacts I had already seen in Beijing, but still cool.

After the Palace we went to an outdoor spa that is heated by the active volcanoes in Taiwan. They had different levels of heat but I mostly stuck to the lowest level of hot. Something that was odd was that when we wanted to wash the sulfur smelling water off of us we had to take a very cold shower. We were in a place with 90 degree celcius water available but the tap water was unheated, very strange. No pictures were allowed so you can just imagine lots of old people sitting in a giant hot tub made of stone.

After the spa we headed to a Longshan Temple where I got to try practicing Buddhist worship. I sacrificed some Pringles and burned some incense while wishing for good fortune.

Afterwards we took a taxi to Shilin night market. It was crazy. Multiple blocks of stores full of absolutely everything. Food, Trinkets, Cats and Dogs, Shirts, plus restaurants and carnival games. I bought a glass statue that was made right in front of me. It was very cool. It glows in the dark as well.  It is the best market I have been to so far.

Puppies

The night ended with us taking the MRT back to our hostel and then some of us went to a different club, but I was tired and not wanting to pay an expensive cover fee so did not join.