A Week in Taiwan

Hi everyone!

Though I have just a short time with a million things to before I leave Korea, I wanted to take a few minutes to write about my most recent adventure: a week in Taiwan. I took advantage of my seven official days of summer vacation to zip to the tiny island just off the coast of China. Coincidentally, one of my good friends Katie had wanted to go to Taiwan as well, so somehow it magically all came together and we were lucky enough to meet in Taipei on our first night there and spend the vacation together, with a bonus visit from her parents.

Initially, I'm not really sure why I wanted to go to Taiwan in the first place, as I didn't know anything about it. But, that made it fun because I had no agenda or expectations for the trip, which made for a really great place to discover, explore, and experience. Katie ended up being the one to make a rough itinerary for us, as she had some friends who had been there before, so we loosely based our plans on their travels. 

After finishing camp (Gina teacher no more) and spending a fun weekend with my friends in Seoul, I flew out on Sunday morning, for a quick hour and a half flight. After the transit to the city from the airport and dropping my bags at the hostel, I was off to start exploring Taipei. 

My first stop was the National History Museum, which boasted a nice collection of Chinese artifacts and art. If your history is a little fuzzy, all you need to know right now about Taiwan is that even though many Taiwanese have shared Chinese ancestors, modern day Taiwan identifies itself as a vey different people, based on the past few hundred years of separatism, with waves of migration to Taiwan from the mainland in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. They do not call themselves Chinese, as many of them and their parents, even grandparents were born in China. However, their history beyond a few generations does originate with China, which is why a great collection of Chinese art was brought to Taiwan during the Chinese civil war, for fear that it would be destroyed by the Communist Chinese. 

Taipei Botanical Gardens

My walk through the city in the late afternoon sunshine to get to the museum was really interesting, and I felt like I encountered different types of buildings and architecture every corner I turned. The streets were typical wide lanes with sidewalks, but the most disconcerting thing I noticed was not being able to read any of the signs, something I haven't experienced since I went to Japan last year. 

After the museum and a walk through the botanical gardens to get back and meet Katie, I spent some time enjoying the sunset in the 2-28 Memorial Park, dedicated to the memory of the hundreds of innocent civilians killed in a massacre that began with a protest against martial law in 1947, right after Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist government takeover. A beautiful monument to a sad event, though the innocent didn't die in vain, as martial law was finally lifted in 1987 by President Chiang Ching Kuo, the son of Chiang Kai-Shek.  

Next up was a reunion with Katie, my future travel buddy for the week, who was bouncing in from a week in the Philippines with her family. (Lucky girl, eh?) After the hugs and chatting we headed back to the hostel to get a good night's sleep for our exploring day.

The next day was packed full of walking and touring the city. We hit up the impressive Chaing Kai Shek memorial, followed by a walk through the historical district and a visit to Longshan Temple. Katie and I agreed that it was one of the most beautiful temples we have ever seen. Taiwanese temples are incredibly ornate and intricate, with amazing attention paid to fine detail and embellishments. Somehow we stumbled right into the middle of a Buddhist holiday, so there were tons of people paying their respects and giving offerings of sweet smelling flowers, fresh fruit, and incense. It was a really cool experience to be a part of, we definitely got lucky with our timing! 

Dragons guarding the temple.

Next up was the National Palace Museum, which contained the best Chinese art in the world, due to the Nationalist government moving everything to Taiwan during to war for safekeeping...then they just never brought it back. Which gave us a great opportunity to be dazzled by the beautiful jade carvings, parchment paintings, calligraphy, bronze works, and much more. No pictures, unfortunately. 

Our last stop for the day was the Shilin Night Market, the biggest in the country. A night market, present in nearly every city in Taiwan, is basically just a street market, but, you guessed it, at night. The lights, the smells, the people, and the stalls combined made for a really fun night of wandering an sampling some of the food. A good end to a busy day. 

The next days we had hoped to go hiking at Taroko Gorge, a famous hiking trail a few hours from Taipei, but unfortunately all access points were blocked due to some heavy storms the week before. Instead we decided to try a local hiking trail, on what was called 'The Four Beasts' mountain. That meant that the Elephant, Lion, Tiger, and Panther trails made up our afternoon, and we ended up hiking on almost all of them, farther than we had anticipated.

 The hike was really fun, and it was in a tropical climate so I got to share my space with huge bugs, lizards, beautiful butterflies, and palm trees! Every so often there would be a break in the trees and we'd say hi to Taipei 101, one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world. We basically hiked straight  up right away, then gradually worked our way to the peak as we edged around the city, from south to east. It was a great way to spend an afternoon and to see a different view of Taipei. We had absolutely no idea where we were when we finally reached the bottom, but with some luck we wandered into a nearby neighborhood, found a bus stop, and hopped on to get to the nearest subway station. 

From there it was back to our new home, the luxurious Golden Palace Hotel, to get ready for the evening. How did we end up in a hotel? By coincidence, it turned out Katie's dad had some business to do in Taipei on the same day as when we were there. With some last minute arrangements, he and Katie's mom flew in from nearby Hong Kong (where they headed to for business after the Philippines, before returning home to South Africa) to meet us for dinner and see us before we left Taipei the next day. It worked out perfectly! After getting ready we met up with her parents and had a wonderful dinner together. It was fun to finally meet them, and we felt so spoiled to get to stay in a nice hotel for the night - thanks Mom and Dad McAlery! 

The next day, after saying goodbye at breakfast, we zipped down to the train station to catch our train to Zouying, before transferring to a bus to get to Kenting, our beach destination. I was curious to see more of Taiwan, and I discovered the landscape, at least the part we were traveling in, looked pretty similar to Korea. Taiwan is pretty small, about 250 by 40 miles, and over half of it is covered with low, rolling green hills. The train and bus ride revealed a largely agrarian countryside, with cultivated fields in between the towns and an occasional city. 

We were both really looking forward to relaxing and laying on the beach, as it was our first vacation from work since February. Armed with sunscreen, sunglasses, books, and music for the beach, (sidenote: despite my immaculate over preparedness for my trip, I somehow managed to forget my swimsuit...good thing Katie had an extra!) we showed up in Kenting...and experienced the worst weather of the trip. We must have lucked out too much in the beginning of the trip, because the two full days that we had planned to do nothing but lay out for were nothing but gray skies and rain. Fail.

But, we are two positive and well minded girls, so we decided that since we still had two days of vacation left, we would just have to make the most of it. And we did.

The first rainy day we both agree was a blessing in disguise, since we ended doing one of the coolest things of the trip: we spent the day at the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium. Now, I've been to Sea World and saw Shamu do his thing, and I had a great time with Mom at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, but this place blew them both out of the water (excuse the pun, even though I definitely said that on purpose.) The aquarium was fantastic, with all sorts of displays and exhibits on Taiwan's marine life and coral reefs, and then another section about the waters of the world. Each of the three main exhibits showcased a special display: first up was the giant whale shark, then we admired two adorable beluga whales swimming around us, and finally we watched the penguins waddle and splash around. The aquarium was a six hours well spent on a rainy day, and we finished it off with a nice diner at a restaurant on the beach. 

For our final beach day we decided to stake it out at a beachside cafe, suits on and towels at the ready in case the sun peeped out, but was a no go. Despite the rain we basically simulated everything we would have done on the beach while sitting at the cafe, so we read, listened to music, chatted, and even indulged in some beach drinks. Throw some lunch, dinner, and coffee on our tab and we became the cafe's best customers of the day. We even got some snacks on the house. Right at the end of the day we went for a venture in the ocean, so we can at least say we swam in Taiwanese waters!  

And just like that, our vacation came to an end. Since we had splurged on high speed rail tickets for the train journey there, we took the 5 hour slow train back to Taipei, arriving just in time to drop off our bags, dress up a bit, and go out for a final dinner...in Taipei 101. Katie's dad's business partner, Molly, had graciously offered to take us out since we missed her the first time in Taipei. We had a fantastic meal of Taiwanese dumplings, (very similar to dim sum) and spent a fun evening getting to know Molly and her husband Michael. What a great way to end our trip.

After a 14 hour travel day, I'm now back in Korea, getting ready for my final week of saying goodbyes, seeing my kids one last time, and packing up to move out of my apartment and begin the next step of my journey: the journey home. I'll do one final update before I leave Korea, and will be continuing to write on my blog. Until then, I hope you all have a wonderful week.