Dana's Travelogue Nov ‘18 A Week In Taiwan

Dana's Travelogue Nov ‘18 A Week In Taiwan

So last Febuary when our friends Sunny and Brian said “Do you guys want to tourist around Taiwan with us in November?” We said sure!(like it's tough to get us to go somewhere 😉) It's not every day you get to go see someplace new with someone who's family lives there and who also speaks the language. Evidently the last time they went it was to introduce Brian to the family there and they didn't get to tourist quite as much as they'd like. Well her younger sister is now doing the same with her new husband so Sunny and Brian have some family events to attend Thanksgiving week. For this week though, we have a full schedule of sightseeing and excursions in and out of Taipei. Both of us are feeling a bit torn away as we are deep in our current projects. Not to mention we'd only been home from the Memphis to New Orleans trip for 10 days! I've been busy getting the new massage business launched after buying out my partner of 10 years as well as working the upcoming Chinese New Year's shrimp sales season. Kim has been working really hard on the house and getting prepped for the tax season around the corner.

I haven't had the time or patience to sit and watch movies with constant lists of calls to make and umpteen continuous loads of massage sheets ever present. Well there's nothing much else to do on a 13.5 hour flight so “Ant Man&The Wasp”, “Mission Impossible:Fallout” and “Skyscraper” got watched. I've listened to entire albums by Ray Charles, Diana Krall, Rolling Stones, Jimmy Hendrix and Sam Smith. I've written this and played silly phone games, cleaned out my email inbox and there are still 3 hrs and 45 minutes left! I guess I should nap, that may pass some time, one would hope. Oh well no luck for me...Kim's super power is the ability to sleep anytime, anywhere for as long as he decides...the rest of us mortals will just be super tired when we arrive.

I watched “The spy who dumped me” and caught a 20 or 30 min nap only which meant I was pretty spaced out for the remainder of the evening.

We disembarked the plane, walked towards immigration and met up with Sunny and Brian. The four of us made our way through and to the hotel via the train/underground system. After checking in and dropping bags, we went to dinner at the original Din Tai Fung. One of the specialty food items popular here is Xiao long bao...soup dumplings, which we definitely had along with some spicy shrimp dumplings, truffle dumplings and a few plates of vegetables.

When flying to Asia you lose a day so we got on the flight on Monday middle of the day and get off Tues evening. We do get the day back when we go home though.

Wednesday Nov 14 A day of eating and sightseeing our way around Taipei.

Special breakfast adventure to try salty soymilk and this breakfast sandwich made from bread cooked tandoori oven style and filled with a scrambled egg and a Chinese donut(you tiao), which is crunchy but not sweet.

After that I voted for the Elephant Mountain trail before it got too hot. It was stairs all the way up so my calves definitely got a workout.

Next touristic destination was Taipei 101, up until recently it was the tallest building in the world. We went up to the observation floor on 88! The special and impressive elevator takes you all the way up in 45 seconds! I was fascinated by the giant “Damper” which keeps the building from swaying in the wind or moving as much in an earthquake. I geeked out on the displays of how it works and enjoyed the high up view as well.

Lunch consisted of two Taiwan specialities, beef noodle soup and mango shaved snow\ice.

After a brief lie-down, necessary because of jetlag and the crazy hike up and down Elephant Mountain, we headed across town to Sunny's aunt's jewelry store. They fed us treats until everyone had arrived and then we all headed out to Hot Pot for dinner. The place we went was fantastic. Each person has their own pot and there's a big bowl with vegetables and some proteins ready to cook. They then brought out trays of meats and seafood so you could customize your soup and use it like a fondue pot to cook what you wanted.

Thursday Nov 15th Hired Driver day out

Sunny's mom and sister joined us for our excursion day. Our driver picked us up and took us to the Shifen waterfall, Pingxi Old Street, Jiufen Market Street and Keelung Miaokou Night Market. I really enjoyed the waterfall and letting the lantern go as well as the shopping street in Jiufen where we tried about 7 different mochi type things, both sweet and savory.  The night market hadn't begun yet so we just meandered around a bit checked out the temple and then had our driver take us back to the Dandy Hotel at Daan Park. After a nap Sunny, Kim and I went to a nearby night market and met up with her mom and sister again. There we had street food dinner and got to try pan fried soup dumplings, gua bao (pork bun..much like a taco in the fluffy white bun bread, made with cilantro, ground peanut, pickled vegetables& slow cooked pork). Those were awesome! The stinky tofu...not so much!!😝

Shifen Waterfall

Pingxi Old Street

Jiufen Market Street

Keelung Miaokou Night Market.

Sunday Nov 18 Jade&Flower Market/ Shilin Night market

Learned an old meaning for a word that's not commonly used in that way anymore:

palmy
/ˈpɑːmi/Submit
adjective
1.(especially of a previous period) flourishing or successful.
"the palmy days of the 1970s"
synonyms:    happy, fortunate, glorious, prosperous, halcyon, golden, flourishing, successful, thriving, rosy, roaring, booming, triumphant

Here's a Google “slideshow” of our day:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/YVxf3mTAAodojqeg7

Brian was feeling poorly so we left him to get extra sleep and Sunny, Kim and I walked over to the weekend flower, jade and craft markets. Then we went to dim sum at Kao Chi YongKang which I thought was just as good as Din Tai Fung around the corner with 4x the line! Then Kim got his first bubble milk tea of the trip and I had a ‘bubble’ fresh grapefruit juice.

We spent a little time relaxing in the afternoon in preparation to go to the Shilin Night Market by getting lovely hour long footrubs! Met up with Angela and the 5 of us headed over to the night market. Lots of food stalls and knick knacks. Angela got little cartoon cord-clips, but she will use them on her stethoscope as she's a pediatrician. As tempted as I was, I know I won't use them, I have a tendency to hurriedly drop my corded headphones in my purse or center console of the car. Shaved snow for dessert to round out the fair food eating for the evening. I've've been having lots of vegetables at breakfast thankfully or I'd be feeling terrible about my nutritional intake this trip.

Monday Nov 19th Final day&flight home

Slow start and hotel checkout. Then off to get Sunny Hills Pineapple Cake. Classy place where you sit down and they give you a cup of tea and a single pineapple cake to try. They sell them in a fancy box of 10 or 16. We got 10...we will see how many make it off the 11+hr flight home tonight. 😜

Toured the Chiang Kai-shek memorial and then read up on the man. I found the controversy of his reign interesting. Found another soup dumpling place right near the memorial so we had a tasty light lunch as Sunny and Brian had family dinner plans. Now that Angela's new husband has arrived, they need to show him off to the family still living in Taiwan. This was actually the whole purpose of their visit, we were just lucky enough to tag along for a few days of sightseeing before their familial obligations began. It has been a fantastic time and Kim and I have already agreed that Taiwan will be high on our list to return to. Next time Toroko Gorge National Park and the Southern part of the island as well. Off to the airport to take our time-travel-flight. Depart Taiwan at 11:30pm Monday...fly for 11 hours and arrive SF at 6:30pm same day!

Huge Thanks to Sunny and Brian for inviting us and doing all the planning, scouting and research!  

Thanks Stephen for looking after LMQ(our house)while we are perpetually away.

Thanks to Marissa and Tanya for manning the shop and to Audrey for sending clients to keep them busy and Colfax Healing Massage going.

And I'm grateful to all of you for tagging along virtually and encouraging me to travel blog our ridiculous adventures around the globe!

Until next time…(spoiler) January =Cuba!

And here's a few random silly pics:

Our yo-yo cash cards that are quite handy for quick purchases and public transportation..and make a nice souvenir. They are also cuter than our Hong Kong Octopus cards!