So Thursday, instead of going to class, we all hopped on a flight to Taiwan. The HK airport is the best airport I’ve ever been in. So much to do and everything’s so efficient. The flight was alright, over before I even got bored. We land in Taiwan and it’s sweltering heat just as back in Hong Kong but the air just felt different. Little did we know that was because a typhoon was coming.
We didn’t have much time that first day since we didn’t get settled until early evening, so we decided to just check out a night market and a bar. We thought about Karaoke, but the only ones we found were all you can eat buffet dinners and the karaoke room for 4 hours at time. We would have had to go while famished in order to get our money’s worth. So we just wandered the night market and looked around for a bar to hang out in and relax. Turns out the area we were in was a special school zone so there were no bars and no drinking outside allowed. We were told this right as Logan was drinking a Tall Boy, so he had to chug it right then. We eventually got out of the special district and found a nice “Irish” Pub. It had a dart board and fairly cheap drinks, so a good time was had by all.Woke up early the next day to get a head start on fitting everything in before the typhoon came. Went to the Chaing Kai Shek Memorial Hall
and it was deserted (like almost everything we saw that day), Martyr’s Shrine for the changing of the guard, National Palace Museum, and Taipei 101 for the view.Chaing Kai Shek Memorial was a wide open courtyard with gardens and a couple large structures – one housing the large memorial statue and the below ground museum. His statue was so happy, not the typical stoic pose that I’ve seen in memorials before. Below the main hall is a museum that houses his old belongings of note - anything from his old Cadalliac cars to his porch seat. His body used to be housed here too, but earlier this year his body was moved to an older town. I think it was moved since the Taiwan feelings towards Chaing Kai Shek have soured a bit since he held power.
Then we headed to the Martyr’s Shrine, and luckily caught the changing of the guard. It was my group of CUHK exchange kids (US, Canada, Australia, Germany) and everyone else there was Japanese. The Martyr’s Shrine was built for all the men who died while fighting for the Republic of China, either against the PRC or against the Japanese invasion that occurred later. For every fallen soldier there is a plaque of wood on the wall. There are at least 2 structures where every inch of wall space was taken up by these plaques.
The guards are not to move and guard both the main gate and the gate of the largest building within the field. The changing of the guard ceremony itself took almost 20 minutes. After the main guards were changed, in their walk back to the largest building, they did an impressive gun/drill demonstration. It was really neat, especially since we could be right up next to them. Then they changed the back guards and they did a gun/drill show again! As soon as the changing of the guards ended, all the Japanese tourists headed on to their buses and there were seriously less than 10 people there. It was nice to go to a tourist place and have it be deserted.We went to the National Palace Museum as the last day trip stop. We had 2 hours from when we got there to when we it was closing, so we had to be really efficient. We ran through there – lots of Chinese porcelain and intricate jade and ivory work. Last stop of the day was Taipei 101 and while it was still a bit rainy, we had an amazing view of the city. Taipei 101 may not be the tallest building in the world anymore, but it still has the fastest elevator in the world! To go up 90 flights took less than 45 seconds!
The rest of the trip wasn’t as eventful as this first day, thanks to the typhoon. A lot of hanging out in the hostel and watching movies and Asian television. At night we would brave out into the weather and spend some time in the bars. A lot of places were either closed or deserted, but we found one that we liked and went to the few nights we were there. The best night was Saturday. Walked there during a lull in the storm to grab dinner and drinks. After eating, we decide we’ll just hang out and drink until another lull so we can walk back. More than 5 hours and NT$10,000 later, we cave and grab a cab back to the hostel. That night was just epic on so many levels.
The typhoon passed in time for us to check out the hot springs on our last day, which was very relaxing and totally worth the US$1.25.
Photos: Guy at a night market burning a candle in his ear, the group (minus me) in front of Chaing Kai Shek Memorial, the changing of the guard, Me in front of the National Palace Museum, Taipei 101. More are on facebook, of course.Upcoming blog posts: Day trips to Big Buddha, Disneyland, Victoria Peak, and Causeway Bay. I’m also leaving for the Philippines on Thursday, so hopefully I don’t get rained out there too and have some good stories to tell.
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