Booze, Loos and Views

Booze, Loos and Views
Taipei, Taiwan

Taipei, Taiwan

So here we are in Taiwan, another country to add to the list or is it… did you know that Taiwan is technically not a country in its own right and is actually known as the Republic of China, a title which is hated by many Taiwanese who wish to distinguish themselves from the Chinese Mainland.

After a thoroughly enjoyable time in South Korea we were feeling less daunted by Taiwan and were ready to explore. We were booked into a hostel called the Eight Elephants which was a great start to our stay. The Staff spoke perfect English and were so happy and helpful we instantly relaxed and just used the map they gave us to explore the area and plan our first few days in Taipei.

The first stop on our travels had to be Taipei 101, for a while it was the worlds tallest building until Burj Khalifa in Dubai stole the title in 2010. Not to be defeated Taipei 101 still holds the title of the worlds tallest and largest green building. It is the home to a multitude of offices, a huge shopping mall and of course the main reason for our visit a viewing platform on the top. There seems to be some debate as to why the tower is called 101, from it being the number of floors in the tower to it being 101 because if 100 is perfection this in one better.

Either way the views from the tower were pretty cool even on a slightly overcast day and the super damper in the tower which is a feat of super engineering to deal with the regular typhoon winds which it has to withstand. Sadly despite all the super engineering there was one major fail in the that huge outside viewing area is so sunken behind a wall that there are absolutely no photo opportunities which kind of defies the point if you ask me. Our ticket up the tower came with a handful of discount vouchers and never one to miss a bargain how could we refuse a buy one get one free mango beer?! We had no idea what it was, but it turned out to be Mango flavoured beer with a lump of mango sorbet floating in it and it was absolutely delicious, not something I would pay full price for, but a bargain at half price.

It took us a while to find our way out of the tower as they direct you through a shop which was pretty sad for us to see, a huge multiroom showroom just filled with jewellery and ornaments made from precious red coral and turtle shell. Eventually we made our way down into the shopping mall and were faced with hundreds of youngsters all with their cameras poised awaiting some celebrity. We tried to find out who or what but we were faced with just lots of blank scared faces. It seems all those English teachers in Taipei are doing a stellar job, not!

Our next location of the day was to be the Maokong Gondola, which is a cable car which is actually part of the metro system which provides great views over the city. About half way there on our metro route we saw a sign post saying it was closed due to bad weather so we about turned and headed to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial. A monument built between 1976 and 1980 in honour of Chiang Kai-Shek the former President of the Republic of China.

The Memorial Hall is octagonal, a shape that picks up the symbolism of the number eight, a number traditionally associated in Asia with abundance and good fortune. Two sets of white stairs, each with 89 steps to represent Chiang’s age at the time of his death, lead to the main entrance. The ground level of the memorial houses a library and museum documenting Chiang Kai-shek’s life and career and exhibits related to Republic of China-era Chinese history, and Taiwan’s history and development. The upper level contains the main hall, in which a large statue of Chiang Kai-shek is located, and where a guard mounting ceremony takes place in regular intervals.

Out in the courtyard the national Theatre and National Concert Hall set on either side of the memorial provide for a pretty cool symmetrical panorama. The square fast became a place to host public gatherings and having hosted many pro-democratic gatherings the plaza was named Liberty Square.

Eating for us is not often a blog worthy subject as cheap and cheerful is usual the agenda, however there is one place in Taiwan that it would be rude not the visit, and with Tim’s birthday money from Mum & Dad burning a hole in our wallet we made our way to the Toilet Restaurant. Yup, that is not a typo, this is a restaurant that is entirely toilet themed. The chairs are toilets the tables sinks and baths, the food is served in toilet shaped or related crockery and desert is a chocolate swirl of ice cream in a squat toilet shaped bowl. Surprisingly the food was actually better than we had expected for a novelty dinner this totally lived up to expectation. The one element that actually really shocked and disappointed me was that the actual toilet was a squat…… really in a restaurant full of toilets you can’t spare one for bathroom, sort it out Toilet Restaurant!!

One attraction that every blog suggested we visit was the famous Snake Alley Night Market (Huaxi Street Tourist Night Market), in a slightly less desirable area of the city with ladies of the night loitering on every street corner this night market is said to be a must see location for any tourist. With restaurants serving snake and snake blood it is not somewhere that we had any intention of dining but felt compelled to see the madness. This visit left me with a strange mix of disappointment and relief as whilst it was definitely a less desirable neighbourhood, there were just a couple of restaurants advertising snake (most of which had signs saying no photo’s) the glass cases in the front of these restaurants were mainly just filled with fake plastic snakes and there were no interesting characters trying to convince you to take a sip of snake blood. I guess that perhaps Taipei is moving on and the novelty value is no longer bringing people here, no doubt it will be a shiny new shopping mall with Mcdonalds and KFC in a few years time.

Taiwan being a part of the pacific ring of fire is notorious for earthquakes and volcanoes and the benefit that comes with this is a large selection of natural hot springs. Just a short train ride from Taipei are the Beitou Hot Springs so we had to pop along and see what they were like. These small hot springs were filled with locals simmering in the pools and sunning themselves on the rocks so paid our entrance fee put on our swimmers and hopped in. We were the only foreigners there and drew a few surprised looks and within about 2 minutes a combination of the red hot spring water and red hot sun got the better of us and we were back stood in the shade by the lockers. I was hot, but Tim was hotter, his heart racing and I was pretty concerned that he was about to faint, so after cooling down and having some water we tried again and within minutes Tim was on the verge of collapse. Eventually I managed to find a pool which was around 20 degrees and not the 40 degrees we had been in so we actually did manage to relax for a little while to absorb some of the sulphurous goodness from the pools. We finally admitted defeat and decided to get showered and changed and I gave Tim a dollar for the shower as I had seen a sign on the door of the mens showers. I was pretty surprised that my shower didn’t have a money box and had a nice relaxing cool shower, got dressed and waited for Tim. He eventually emerged from the shower, red faced, sweating and heart racing again. It turns out that you have to pay for a hot shower, ha ha ha. Lesson learned do not go to hot springs in the midday sun and definitely never pay for a shower!

After an afternoon cooling off in the air con at our hostel we decided to take on Elephant Mountain. A mountain in the middle of the city with amazing views around Taipei 101. It was only a 30 minute walk up the mountain but with the sun still shining it was still over 30 degrees and there was just no air. The climb was a real challenge; we would pretty much take 10 steps and have to stop for water. It was quite nice to see other people struggling more tha
n us, we got to one view point and nearly called it quits but we stuck with it and made it to the top. What a view and what perfect timing. The sun was just beginning to set so the colours were stunning and we stayed there until the city had turned black twinkling with the city lights. A fantastic way to end our last night in Taipei.

We were sad to leave the comfort of our lovely hostel and the ease and convenience that Taipei offered with an easy metro and good cheap food, but the rest of the country was calling.

The quickest and easiest way to travel around Taiwan is by train, but the booking system is so hard to navigate it was unreal so whilst I eventually managed to get trains on the days we needed to the places we wanted we never knew what type of train we were on, it could be a rugged local train or it could be a brand new high speed train.

Thankfully our luck was in and we were headed to Hualien by delicious high speed train.

Hualien here we come.