Taiwan Adventure Journal - Day 1!

Hello everyone!

Today is Jordan and my third day in Taiwan...it has been absolutely amazing!!

The first stage of our adventure was the plane ride to Asia! I must say that I was really nervous for it, because I get motion sickness easily and the more I fly, the more I dislike it :S But it was overall a pretty good flight! We stayed up, watched a few documentaries (well, I watched while Jordan snoozed hehe), ate lots of food, and watched more stuff. The plane ride was definitely more comfortable than my regular flights on Air Canada from Toronto to Vancouver and back.

We had a little kerfluffle after our landing in Hong Kong. It turns out that our flight from HK to Taipei was cancelled (noooo). The service people from Dragonair, the flight company we booked with, didn't explain why, but people told us that it was probably because there weren't enough people on the flight. So we ended up being very frustrated and tired, standing in front of the Dragonair service desk, trying to get a flight. We ended up getting a flight out of HK an hour and a half later than our original flight, which wasn't too too bad, and we got 2 meal vouchers out of it. So that marked our first meal in Asia!

My uncle and dad picked us up from the airport in Taiwan. It was pretty late (around 1 o'clock) by the time we met up with them. We basically checked into our hotel, got some stuff organized and went to bed. Our hotel is called the 'Friends Yo Tong Hotel' (友統大飯店), which is situated on the busiest road in Taipei. One amazing thing is that right beside us is a 24 hour conveyor belt sushi place, called Sushi Express! Om nom nom. That is actually where my dad took us the next day! We had some pretty funky, yummy stuff and each place cost approx $1 Canadian.

After our filling meal, my dad took us to Neihou (內湖區; northern Taipei district), where my uncle's house is. We visited my Grandma! She seems well, although she was a bit surprised at the fact that Jordan didn't know how to speak Mandarin. She kept asking us about it, and we had to remind her :P

After the visit, my dad and uncle took us to a nearby mountain in Neihou. We visited a temple called the Bishan Temple (碧山巖寺). It was magnificent; there were so many beautiful carvings and artwork around the temple. My uncle told us that many of the columns and statues in the temple were carved from one piece of rock, which is pretty amazing considering how much detail they had it in. The view was beautiful too - we can see the entire Taipei City from there, with Taipei 101 nestled amongst the tall, grey buildings. After the Bishan Temple, we continued down the mountain to another temple (Bishan Temple was actually one of the highest point on the mountains). It was a newer temple (about 10 years old I believe). It is called Ji Lung Temple (金龍寺). It's a Buddhist temple, and is much smaller but still very nice. My dad actually explain to Jordan and I the difference between some temples in Taiwan. We call Buddhist temples 'si' (寺), and Dao temples 'miao' (廟) or 'guan' 官'. So the few we have been to (Bishan and Jin Lung Temple), which are all Buddhist Temples. We are planning one going to one called Xingtian Temple (行天官), which is a Dao temple!

 The breathtaking landscape on our first sunny day in Taipei

 Foot of the temple square

 Intricate stonework carved pillars

Roof decor

Convert this to decimal lat/long and you can find it on google maps

Anyways, that was a bit of a sidetrack. After visiting the temples on the mountains, my dad and uncle took us to the park in Neihou called Dahou Park (大湖公園), literally translated to Big Lake Park!). Apparently, this is where my parents took my siblings and I, when we were wee little ones, to play. And my brother was such a bully back then, and like to poke fun at me. What traumatic times. The park itself it very big and beauutiful! There were many different types of exotic (well for us) trees. There are a couple of famous attraction points in the park itself. One of them is a beautiful white bridge situated in the lake. It was kind of funny, because this bridge is a famous thing in Neihou District, but when I asked my dad or my uncle the name of it, they both didn't know :P. There is also another bridge on the water called the 9 Bend Bridge, and it is named that because there are 9 bends and corners you had to take to get to the lookout area.

 "Moon Bridge"

"9 Bend Bridge"

Our next tourist stop was the ShiLing Nightmarket (士林夜市)! According to my uncle, it is the best nightmarket in Taipei. The first thing we did when we got there is eat, of course. Jordan and I have been given advice to avoid street food on the first few days in Asia, in order to save ourselves from some horrid things that could happen in our digestive system, but of course, we didn't care. And who could resist the smell of deep fried everythings, stinky tofu (ok, maybe the smell can be resisted) and seafood pancake? So that is what we ate. My uncle and dad ordered us so much food! We first had fried stinky tofu, then oyster omelete with squid soup, fried chicken steak, fried garlic sausage and buns stuffed with peanut butter and taro falvourings. My descriptions, especially in English, do not do the food justice. So you will have to come to Taiwan and try it for yourself. One thing that Jordan and I kept commenting on, aside from the food's deliciousness, was how much it cost. Tofu was a dollar CAD, soup a dollar CAD, omelete 2 dollars CAD - everything was so cheap. It was such a fun experience! The food was amazingly delicious, and the nightmarket was amazingly crowded, and the air amazingly smokey. As we continued our nightmarket adventure, I got a few specialty snacks from a small store, and Jordan made is first ever merchanise purchase - and MURSE! Don't tell him I said murse. He still calls it a manly satchel :P Oh, in addition to our awesome salty, greasy, fried foods, we also had some shave ice for dessert. We had a special variety, which was made from peanut butter and basically tasted like really tasty ice cream. Yum.

 Night market food!

 I honestly didn't know what it was at all, but sooo good!

 "Chicken fried steak"

My Asia bag! Pick-pockets beware!

That was the end of our first day in Taipei. We accomplished and saw so much! Please continue onto day two, if I had not bored and overwhelmed you with my tremendous amount of writing already :P