Our trip to Taipei was thankfully uneventful. We met up in Narita Airport as planned and flew on to Taipei where we were met by C's colleague. I was able to sleep most of the Narita-Taipei leg, so C convinced me to wander around the area close to our hotel for a bit before going to bed. Surprisingly lively at 10 pm at night! We found an ATM, picked up some bottled water from a conveinence store and some wonderful friut from a street vendor. Delicious pineapple. I'm looking forward to more of that!
Yesterday was sightseeing, the primary focus being the National Palace Museum. Fascinating exhibits of artifacts from 6000 years of Chinese history. The only drawback was that half of Taipei seemed to be in the museum as well, making viewing of some of the rooms difficult. Next time we'll try to go on a weekday. We also wandered the nearby garden - quite lovely, but also quite busy. When I have time to download our photos I'll post one from there.
The heat was getting extreme by the time we were done wandering through the garden, and good food places were not in evidence in the immediate area. So we headed back into the main part of town, to Taipei 101 where C knew there was a large food court. Not just large- huge! Eventually we choose from the vast selection of yummy looking options and happily settled down to a late lunch of noodles. The rest of Taipei 101 is essentially just a really large mall, with a selection of stores you could find in Tokyo, Paris or New York. Not that interesting for us, except for the wonderful opportunity to people watch.
We've both been waking early, with the benefit of being able to get out for morning runs. Slow ones, as the morning temperature is still around 80F with high humidity. This morning we ran through a near-by park, Da'an. It was extremely busy at 6 am, with other runners, walkers and many, many people doing T'ai Chi as well as various forms of callisthenics. We came back through campus where we have discovered a park area with a pond featuring a remarkable selection of wildlife for being in the middle of a city. Birds, fish, turtles, dragonflies. And a little marmalade cat, lurking amid the bushes.
But today is our big day. Mei-Ru picks us up in about an hour. Time for some breakfast. I'll post more soon.
3 comments:
Sounds like a good first day in Taipei. The place really is a 24 hour city - especially the Gongguan area near your hotel.
Can't wait to hear more about your trip to pick up Hsiu-Wen.
Kevin
PS. See - the pineapple is good. ;-) Try the guava too. You won't find guava like that here in Seattle.
I am so excited for you! Can't wait to see Gotcha Day photos!
We got more pineapple and some great papaya, but haven't found any guava. Perhaps not in season? Too bad - when I had some in Indonesia it was great!
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