Most of the time in Taiwan was spent with family, spending time with relatives, getting to know them better and see how they live and meet relatives that I never had the chance to meet previously. I was surprised at how comfortable I felt there, even if the culture is very different what I experienced growing up, but I guess that's family for you.
To say that the trip was a life-changing experience makes it sound like it was a super-huge deal and while it definitely had a big impact on my life, as I said, it just felt so comfortable that I don't think a huge definition of what the trip meant to me seems right. It confirmed to me that if able, people should travel and see as much of the world as possible. Be exposed to different experiences, people, cultures, sights, sounds, smells, etc. I also think it's so important for people to learn about their roots. You have the chance to understand your family and even yourself. I can't even put into world how much of an impact this trip made and how much I hope to use this experience in my career and life.
Anyway, onto Taipei:
I had my first teppanyaki experience. It wasn't a very dramatic version, but I did enjoy the banter and watching the action. The food, of course tasted amazing.
I had to go to the Taipei Zoo to see the pandas. I thought that I was being smart by arriving as soon as they opened to beat the
crowds. I think it was actually worse because there was a bottleneck of groups arriving at the same time and everyone rushed to get a timed ticket and the constant stream of people entering the panda area made the experience very rushed and not as enjoyable as I would have
liked. Kids were still in school so I was surrounded by school groups, but it was kind of nice to see them out and about. As I said, the panda exhibit was incredibly busy and we weren't allowed to stand and watch the pandas in action, we had to keep moving along, which was terribly annoying. I'd never experienced anything like that at a zoo before. I like that in one of the pictures, there's a visitor who's dressed up as a panda with a panda hat.
Each toilet had a curious sign, and I just happened to take a picture of this particular one. I only read basic Chinese characters, so I don't know exactly what this sign is saying, but the English is very bizarre. Is it encouraging a bowel movement, telling me I have the option of doing so? What's the deal?
School children everywhere. A little rambunctious in certain exhibits, definitely not using their indoor voices, but in other ways very well behaved. It was a hot, hot, hot day and groups were taking advantage of any shady area that they could find.
I thought that this was kinda interesting. A sign that said how many people were in the zoo area. I'm not really sure how they figured that out though. It wasn't a turnstile situation on the way in, more like an open doorway that groups of people could enter at the same time. Same thing for leaving the zoo. I really don't know how they could have kept track of the number of visitors.
The metro in Taipei was quite nice. It seemed quite orderly with people
waiting in a line in designated areas. Some of the stations looked extremely well-kept and many stations had attendants watching for safety and making sure that people were in the trains before they signaled to close the door. I guess these plastic gates were for additional safety, and not all stations had them.
A couple shots of the National Theatre and Concert Hall. I loved the bright, bold colours and the stereotypical architecture of the building. Beautiful.
The National Theatre and Concert Hall are opposite to each other in a big square and are identical to each other. At the end of the square is the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, which was equally as imposing and magnificent. It's the building you see next. 
This is the view from the top of the stairs at the CKS Memorial Hall. You can see the National Theatre on the left and the National Concert Hall on the right.
There are two guards in the CKS Memorial Hall. On the hour, there is a changing of the guards, which is quite the display. In addition to the marching back and forth similar to most of the other changing of the guards that I've seen, there's as also a display with spinning of rifles and tossing
them in the air and neat tricks. It goes on for a pretty good length of time and I would highly recommend going to watch the changing of the guards if you get a chance. This picture also gives you an idea of just how large the statue is in the hall and in this picutre, the guard looks tiny!I thought the roof of the hall was very beautiful.
This is Taipei 101. A massive shopping mall at the base, office space on certain floors and a change for tourists to ride up to the
top and get a panoramic view of the city below. It was a very hazy day, and I was disappointed that I couldn't see the CKS Memorial Hall and other buildings that I'd
seen earlier walking around the city. You can see the there is a lot of green in the city and surrounding areas and you can compare this to the view from the KL Tower here.Taipei 101 boasts the speed of its elevator. Someone who cares can tell me if this is fast or not, because it doesn't seem to have much of an effect on me.
I went to visit Chungshan Hall. The smell was quite strong. You know, the rotten egg smell. The hall is built over a volcanic crater and there are hot springs nearby as well. It was neat to see the old pictures of the hall and this
room is where they did lots of votes. Something interesting about the chairs is that the legs can be adjusted for height so that although the ground is slanted, you don't feel like you're going to fall off the chair.
The ceiling of one of the hallways in the hall was painted with bright colours. The designs and colours used reminded me of the Peranakan stuff that I saw in Singapore.
A great view from the top floor of the hall:
Next tourist stop was the National Palace Museum. At all of these tourist stops, they have stamps that you can use as little souvenirs. I don't think that I'd used stamps in a long time. You know, the old-school, ink-pad, stamps. The museum wasn't as large as I was expecting (although it was quite large) and I enjoyed looking around (although much of it wasn't
super interesting to me), but there were a couple stand out artifacts. First, the Jadeite Cabbage with Insects and secondly, the Meat-shaped Stone. Actually, it was the meat-shaped stone which really caught my eye. It just looked so real! I was quite disappointed that there wasn't a copy of the painting: Along the River During the Qingming Festival. It was too much of a tease that they has a digital version of the painting on display telling you a little bit about the painting, but honestly, too much of tease. I wanted to see the real deal!
This is the Grand Hotel. It is quite grand. I was thinking of getting something at their bakery, but I didn't want the burden of carrying it around, so I decided against it. Next time. And I suppose next time, I could also try staying at this hotel and see just how fancy it is.
Another shot of the metro:
Okay, so I do love to eat. And I love dumplings. On a couple recommendations, and even after eating there in Singapore, I sought out a Din Tai Fung. Yum, yum, yum, yum, YUM! Soupy dumplings = tasty!
On the way to my first Taiwanese night market, I snap this shot of a massive intersection. Lots of young people out and about, going to the market and just being social beings. You can also see in this picture that this particular crosswalk is a scramble like we have here in the city at Yonge-Dundas. SCRAMBLE!
It may be touristy, but I had to go to the Shilin night market. It was the most amazing thing and I thoroughly enjoyed the experienced. It's just a huge grid of food vendors. It's neat to see, smell and taste.
I'm proud to say that I tried stinky tofu, and it was quite stinky. I didn't like it one bit. Apparently the fried version that I had is less stinky than the braised version, so I can't even imagine how bag it would be. The smell is absolutely atrocious. The taste was vaguely bearable, although unpleasant, but the smell, oh man.
This is a drink vendor who has bubble tea (brings me back to high-school) and also a drink that I don't know what it's called in English. It looks like jello and is made from rubbing grains in water. I swear, that's what you do. So you basically drink the jello - I guess you have to break up the piece a bit first. It's quite refreshing in the summer and has cooling properties.
This stall had the longest line, by far. It was a big slab of fried chicken. I'm sure that the food was good, but I think a large reason that people liked it was that it was good value for the money. It did look yummy.
The night market doesn't only have food. It's actually a huge area where streets and alleys have stalls set up selling anything and everything. Of course there was the stereotypical replicas and couterfeit as well and more food stalls, restaurant, stalls for clothing and knick-nacks. It was a huge area and I could have walked the market for hours. It would have been a good chance to people watch and even pick up some interesting souvenirs and definitely have a chance to practice my bartering. It was amusing to see
the stalls that would quickly disappear when the cops came around. They literally disappeared into the alleys and they would reappear out of thin air when the coast was clear. I didn't get a picture of it, but in some stalls, there was a set up with very small, one foot by one foot cubicles that vendors could rent out. I guess for someone who doesn't want to pay a lot of rent, it's the best situation, but it was funny to see such a set up - almost like an oversized vending machine.
Another adventure was out to Danshui where they have hot springs. There were hotels with springs in the rooms, public springs set up like public swimming pools and even the chance to wade in the public stream and get nice, smooth, skin. I had
the chance to go to a private spring/bath in a hotel and it was too hot for me! I do enjoy hot showers, but this was too much. I couldn't handle the heat and had to take breaks quite often. I could be a little bit of a prude, but I was a little thrown off by the fact that people bathed naked as well. The bath that I went to in Hungary had the option of bathing suits, and I'd say about half of the patrons were wearing bathing suits, but, anyway, it threw me off. The public bath that we walked by was bathing suit mandatory. Danshui was really popular for the Japanese, so these baths and many of the buildings have a Japanese character to them.
Okay, so scooters are everywhere! One of my first memories from Taiwan was driving to the teppanyaki dinner at night, where the sky is so dark, looking out the car window and seeing an army of scooters. I felt like I was in a sci-fi movie with an army of black-helmeted folk. I'd never seen anything like that before, and I wasn't scared of what I saw, but it had a weird impact.
I went back to the CKS Memorial and happened to catch the tail end of the lowering of the flag for the day. More rifle coolness and super exact marching. The children watching really enjoyed it, and I was intrigued at the number of people carrying Taiwanese flags.
Another night market. The reason I went to this specific night market was because I wanted to eat snake. Apparently they kill a live snake in front of you, rip off the skin - it's a pretty gruesome deal and then you've got your food. I did see tanks of snakes, but no one seemed to be buying
any nor was anyone eating any. I didn't want to be the only one doing it for fear that maybe it wasn't really a popular thing to do or maybe that the snakes weren't very good or something. Anyway, I didn't eat snake. I'm kinda disappointed, but I suppose there's always next time.
All the night markets are closed up during the day and other vendors come in and turn it into a farmer's market, which of course I love. You can see how temporary these stalls are. And of course I liked the dog just hanging out.
Love markets. Love markets. Ginger, ginger, ginger!!!
More jellies, and a narrow alleyway selling anything and everything.And on that happy note...that's Taipei!
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