MADE IN TAWIAN

Just got back from four days in Taipei and my official verdict is… I liked it!

There were a few drawbacks but some really unexpected highlights. I will start with the downside. Sunday we decide to go to beach and of course it was the only day it was cloudy and rainy, so NO BEACH. We did a little research and decided to take a train about 90 minutes north of Taipei to a little hot springs town. We found this great hotel there with a very helpful manager, Oliver. He put us in a very nice room, private mineral bathtub, plush queen beds and Japanese style sitting room all for about $60 bucks. This also included access to the roof top grotto style mineral pool and since there were no other guests at the hotel we got the pool all to our selves. Oliver even took the liberty of putting on a full on photo shoot for us. He set up his tripod and went to town taking pictures of us splashing around. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up on the cover of hotels next brochure or a billboard somewhere in Taiwan.

Oliver even arranged for us to get Oriental massages in our room. I think my masseuse use to have a job as a torturer because I spent about 75% of the time clenching my teeth and trying not to cry. I think my body is still bruised and it feels like all the toxins were literally kneaded out of my body. I know what a sad life I lead when my biggest bureden is a painful massage.

But my other minor conflict in Taiwan was the food. I was very excited to try all these great Buddhist vegetarian buffets I'd been reading about but no such luck. I ate more American fast food chains in four days then I have in the past year. But one night we went to this popular night market, where I fortunately ran into some fellow Seoul teachers. Including one the spoke Chinese that made finding some authentic food a little easier. Once I got over the sight and smell of pig ear soup and rancid meat, I tried some local food. I tried a decent oyster dumpling pancake thing and some of the fresh fruits that reminded of Thailand. I wasn’t daring enough to try the famous Taiwanese stinky tofu. Its fermented tofu and it smells god awful, so I passed. The other smell I couldn’t stand was these tea soaked eggs they had in every 7-11 (in Asia that means every 200 feet) they looked like rotten black eggs soaking in sewer water.


Enough about the downside because it doesn’t really even come close to out weighing the good. Best part of the whole trip was arriving late to the airport and getting bumped up to business class. All of us looked like we had just won the lottery when they told us they had to move us to business class at the cost of our vegetarian meals. I finally see what all the fuse it about up there. We got to stretch our feet, sip champagne and browse our personal TV’s all the way to Taiwan. I only wish our hostel was half as nice.

The rest of the weekend was filled with sight seeing, temples, monuments and Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper in the world. I also got ride on the fastest elevator in the world, 88 floors in 36 seconds. And no weekend would be complete without some clubbing. Saturday night some locals directed us to check out a club called Luxy. The club was crowded and the Dj was quite impressive. I can’t remember the last time I chose the hip-hop room over my favorite dance electro scene but I actually had a great time getting down to the rap especially when they played California love.