Taipei

We made it! Tired, but in one piece. A bus ride to the main station, a short metro ride to the station nearest our accommodation, then a short walk to the accommodation. Dinner, shower, bed. Our room was windowless and as a result we slept until 1330 on Saturday. There goes half a day, but when your body says sleep, you sleep.

We were staying in an area called Datong, one of the oldest parts of Taipei, and also one of the more dilapidated looking areas. But is has a bit of character and is close to the main station so makes getting the metro/underground and trains out of town easy. There are also two large malls underground attached to the station.

We visited the Longshan Temple, timing that visit well, as not long after we got there they started up some sort of ritualistic chanting. It was a cool sound. The street market was next, where we had dumplings fresh out of the pot. The sounds and smells of Taiwan are not what we are used to in New Zealand. Although the ‘working girls’ in one of the smaller lanes were reminiscent of parts of Auckland (not that we make a habit of spending time in those areas, but we do know of them).

The decision was made to have a look at Taipei 101, formerly the tallest building in the world (still one of the top ten). After a metro ride we found ourselves in a very different Taipei. Wide boulevard-like streets, expensive looking sculptures, wealthier looking people (judging by the cars and clothing), and very flash malls. We wandered into the Taipei 101 and up to the 5^th floor where you buy tickets to go to the observation deck. It was very busy; long queues (and waiting times once you had a ticket), and loud.

We decided it was a)too expensive and b)too hazy outside to bother with. Instead we walked to another tall building, the Nan Shan Plaza, and rode the lift up to the 47^th floor to see if we could see a view from there. There was an expensive-looking restaurant but they very kindly allowed us in to have a quick look out the window in the bar area. It was facing away from Taipei 101 but had a good view of the mountains around Taipei. That was our day pretty much.

Sunday was a bit longer as we set an alarm to make sure we didn’t spend too much time in bed. We rode the metro to the zoo then rode the Maokong Gondola. The Gondola is 4.3 kilometres long, goes up and down, and makes a right-hand turn before ultimately ending up in the mountains at Maokong village, at about 275 metres above sea level. Its highest point is just over 299m. Our car had a glass floor just to add to the fun of what at times felt like the world’s slowest roller coaster. Once up at Maokong we wandered around, looking at the view back to the city (very hazy) and ended up at a temple, where we had a free tea and chatted to a local gentleman who is employed by a German company which exports milling machines to Taiwan. He had visited Germany and New Zealand. We wandered a bit more, before riding the gondola back down. Once back in town we spent some time trying to figure out where to get the train the next day from. We finally cracked it. Yay, much easier to do this when not burdened with backpacks.

Later on we walked down to the riverside park. This is a nice place, just a pity about the state of the river. There were people cycling and walking, and I even saw one guy roller blading. They also had several areas set up for entertainment, mostly consisting of karaoke as far as we could tell. There seemed to be a competition to see who could drown out the neighbouring setup.

Taipei didn’t really appeal to us, I guess we were just tired. It was a little overwhelming to drop into such a big busy, noisy, and polluted city. We will be back there to get a flight to Vietnam so we can give it another go. My throat got sore by Saturday afternoon too, which I blame on the pollution.

We did like the various bits of sculpture and other street art scattered around.

Streetart just around the corner 🙂

 

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If anyone has any questions about travelling in Taiwan, feel free to contact us at thekiwiandthekraut@gmail.com