Formosa Stylez
I was 16 when I first begrudgingly arrived in Taipei. I say begrudgingly because my parents and their friends basically enrolled the 4 of us (myself, my sister, and our friends Tim and Charlotte) in a free Taiwanese government run summer camp. Supposedly we were to learn Mandarin and about Chinese/Taiwanese culture. I know, to a 16 year old it sounded terrible. After arriving on the plane we were greeted by Taipei’s airport, by far the worst I had ever been to in my spoiled childhood. The taxi ride to the camp residence was equally disappointing; I had never seen so many crappy scooters in my life, and none of the car drivers were following the road rules I was used to in Canada (4 lanes on the highway here meant you could fit 7 cars across). In addition, Taipei back then in 1995 looked like a big dump compared to the 2 other Asian metropolis’s I had been to, HK and Tokyo. However, 2 months later I left to return home, having just experienced the best summer of my life.
Lots of our friends back in Vancouver are Taiwanese. Lots of our friends back in Vancouver are from Hong Kong (or are descendants of those from HK, like me). Thus there’s always been a friendly feud over which place is better; naturally I’m on HK’s side so I always poke fun at Taiwan. But in all honesty (and no I’m not just saying this because my girlfriend is Taiwanese) Taiwan is pretty awesome. I liked it here so much after the first time I came that I returned to do the summer camp offered for university students (again paid for by the Taiwanese government and aptly nicknamed “Loveboat”). On both of those summer camps I toured around the island, and since Di had never done that even though this is her native country (tsk tsk), we decided to brave the roads and go for a ride.
After we had our fun in Taipei our friend Aven, who went to UBC with us and is Di’s god brother, lent us his car to check out the sights. Our first stop was Hualien, a city about 3 hours south of Taipei on the Eastern Coast of the Island. We checked into a fantastic BnB (more on that in the next blog entry) that DI’s best friend Ting-Ting had booked. Early the next morning, Ting-Ting (her English name is Jen, but I personally like her Chinese name Ting-Ting way more) flew in from Taipei to meet up with us, and we went river tracing. This entails putting on a wetsuit, a lifejacket, and a helmet and walking up the Shapodang river and then back down (see above pic). Most of the companies who do this are run by the minority aboriginal population, who descend from peoples more related to the Polynesians than the majority Han Chinese in Taiwan. The river was beautiful, cool, and extremely clean, and there were ample waterfalls and cliffs for you to jump from with deep pools to land in. The 3 of us had a ton of fun. River tracing here is actually very popular, and there were at least a hundred people doing what we were doing that day. Most were local Taiwanese from the big city which resulted in a lot entertainment for me. The faces and accompanying shrieks of a large number of the girls as they peered over the ledges of the cliffs they were supposed to jump off of were priceless. The corresponding loud encouragement from all the guys in unison (really cheesy, corny and not cool by our standards, though definitely warm-hearted) was almost as comical. Though I hate to stereotype, bravery and athleticism seemed to be missing in the majority of the female participants. However, Di and Ting-Ting were not the norm and had no problem tackling every jump, the tallest of which was 12 metres. All the local guys were momentarily dumbfounded at these 2 girls who were more courageous than a lot of them. Great job ladies!
The next day we drove 15 minutes out of Hualien to Taiwan’s top tourist destination, Taroko Gorge. It is an absolutely beautiful park with great hiking, beautiful rivers, and lush green vegetation covering its numerous mountains. We went for a hike and hung out on the banks of the Shakadang river for the day. Next time I come back hopefully I’ll stay in the park and not in town as it really is a serene and stunning place. Unfortunately Ting-Ting had to go back to Taipei that evening so we dropped her off at the Hualien airport and continued or journey south.
The next town we arrived at was Taitung. Again we found a fantastic BnB and explored for a couple of days. What we found was good food, really nice people, and a chill laid back vibe. Half an hour away from Taitung is the Chihpen hot springs, so that evening after dinner Di and I made our way out there. Of the many resorts at the springs we chose the Hotel Royal Chihpen (BnB recommendation) and at about 6 CAD dollars per person to use the facilities I thought it was a steal. We spent most of the night just soaking in the numerous hot-spring tubs in the spa-like pool area. Pretty relaxing.
The next day we drove to Kenting at the southern tip of the island. There is definitely a more resort like feel to this town, with surf, diving and nightlife in abundance. Though the beaches and the water may lack the staggering beauty of nearby SE Asian islands, it still is pretty nonetheless and there were tons of tourists here enjoying themselves. We serendipitously rolled into town the one night of the year they have this big festival where teams of men try to climb an extremely tall wooden pole to grab a red ribbon near the top. They do this by stacking on each other’s shoulders and there’s a big safety net to catch them if they fall. Oh and I forgot to mention, the pole is covered in grease. It was fun to watch, and fun to get into the excitement of the huge crowd even though I couldn’t understand a word anyone was saying. That’s because the southerners speak a different dialect of Chinese (from the Fujian province of China) that is unintelligible to my Cantonese/Mandarin understanding ears.
The following morning we first drove up to the town of Neipu to meet up with Di’s grandparents, who could easily compete with mine for being the cutest grandparents ever. Her 84 year old grandpa insisted on driving us to the restaurant to eat lunch in his Honda civic, and her hilarious 82 year old grandma ordered us a feast. When we were about to leave, a tropical rainstorm descended upon the town. Di’s grandpa, who literally can still move as fast as a ninja, ran out to the car to drive it to the front of the restaurant to pick us up. However her grandma was unwilling to walk the 4 steps it would take in the downpour to enter the car. So we watched as ninja grandpa was trying to convince reluctant grandma for about 10 minutes to walk while he was holding a big rainbow coloured umbrella. Super cute. Luckily the rain slowed and she got in, and we were able to make it back to their house where freshly cut fruit was waiting. After leaving them we drove 20 minutes to Di’s dad’s office where he was working at in Pingtung. He’s a well-known architect and just outside of Kenting he’s got a massive hotel that’s currently being built. Anyways, we had some more fruit and coffee with him and a great little visit. Our friend Mike (who also works in Pingtung) then met up with us at the office and he led the way to his house, 30 minutes away in Kaohsiung, where his wife Claire and daughter Kaitlin were waiting. It was great to see him as we all went to school together in Vancouver. He took us out for dinner where I watched him interact with his wife and daughter, occasionally in disbelief. Why? Because it was Mike, a guy we partied hard with as students, now a loving and devoted father and husband. Good job bud!
After crashing at Mike’s for the night, we took off to Taichung for one last stop where we had a meal with Di’s high school friend Flora. We had a good time catching up with her and hearing about her transition back to a Taiwanese life from a Canadian one. After dinner with her we returned to Taipei, having spent 6 days driving around much of the island from the eastern coast to the southern tip, back up north along the western coast.
A lot of things on this road trip have changed since I first did it in 1995. Firstly, the highways themselves are fantastic; smoothly paved and quite wide with clearly marked signs. 15 years ago, they were death traps on the verge of collapsing into the ocean. Kaohsiung and Taichung have completely transformed, with both actually being very nice, especially Kaohsiung. I remember Taichung as being a scary place (I saw a woman yelling and angrily waving a machete at another person) where I would have never considered living. Today it’s been redeveloped and Flora’s neighbourhood is extremely new and pleasant. There were tons of mountain bikers on the highways of the east coast, and with the road fixtures and the stunning coastline it’s easy to understand why. Though the infrastructure has improved greatly, the people haven’t changed. They are still as friendly and as warm as I can remember (minus machete lady). Coming back to Taiwan and driving around the island reminds me a lot of why that summer was up until that point, and maybe even up until today, the best summer of my life. This island will always hold a special place in my heart. Did I just write those words? The corniness of the local guys on the river tracing trip must really be rubbing off on me to finish with a sentence like that.
Taipei – I love this city!
Ni hao ma? That’s ‘how are you?’ in Mandarin. Hope you guys are all doing well. We are in my home country Taiwan! It feels very nice to be back at my second home, especially having been on the road for exactly 6 months now. Yes, 6 months, can you believe it? We are halfway through our trip already. Besides enjoying the comforts of being at home and seeing my family, I am also having a blast hanging out with my 1.5 year old niece. Excuse me if I sound like a proud parent, but she’s so smart and adorable. Even Eug can’t stop smiling and laughing whenever she’s around. She looks like a mini version of my brother but much girlier. She seems to have a great talent in always finding new ways to amuse you. And she’s able to order Eug around by just pointing her fingers here and there. I definitely need to learn from her.
We did the usual Taipei must-dos, like eat xiao long bao (soup dumplings) at Din Tai Fung; walk around Taipei 101 and Sogo area; and of course karaoke and hang out with friends. But since we had more time than the typical 5-7 day visits before we decided to check out some tourist attractions in the nearby suburbs such as Jiu Fen and Yilan, and drive around the entire island to visit other cities that I never got to visit before.
My god brother Aven took us to Jiu Fen, a small area on top of a short mountain overlooking the Pacific Ocean and surrounding small islands. The narrow paths of the ‘Old Streets’ (picture above) have not changed since Aven was there 5 years ago, and from the looks of it, Eug can guarantee that it hasn’t changed since 30 years ago. But that’s exactly the point. Besides the endless food vendors, most people come to Jiu Fen to drink tea. Most of the tea shops have an ocean view and you can make tea the right way (which is the long way) before drinking it. We did exactly that, and it was quite interesting. We bought a small bag of ‘Jin Shuen’ tea leaves, and that came with unlimited hot water and a complete tea set. Our friendly young tea waiter showed us how to make tea for the first time. He skilfully poured the hot water all over the tea set to clean and rinse the set (I said skilfully because later when Eug and Aven tried to do the same thing, the hot water spilled everywhere), then proceeded to make the tea. He then rested the small teapot on the edge of the set and made circles around the set a few times to signify ‘Welcome’. He used the first pour as the smell-test by pouring the tea into the slender and taller tea cup for us to hold and roll between our palms and then smell. It was very very hot. And finally we were able to drink our freshly brewed tea from the regular small tea cups. It was very relaxing to chill in the mountain and enjoy the flavourful Taiwan grown tea.
We also did a day trip to Yilan, a city about half an hour away to the east of Taipei. This is where our friends in Taipei go surfing. We found a nice stretch of black sand beach and saw a handful of locals taking surfing lessons or just surfing on their own. It was surprising to see so many of my peeps surfing. As we watched them for a bit, I was quite proud of both those who caught every wave and those who caught none yet never stopped trying. Maybe it’s because they were opposing the stereotype of Chinese people not doing many sports. Bravo to my fellow country mates!
Another highlight was going to see Boyz II Men concert. Thanks to Jen (my best friend since elementary school) who got us the concert tickets. They were awesome! Eug wasn’t used to people sitting down at concerts and tried to set an example by standing up, dancing and screaming on top of his lungs. It kind of worked. Boyz II Men said they love Taipei!
Taipei is much more relaxed compared to Hong Kong. And people seem to be smiling more here too. They are also way more willing to help when you need help. Hong Kong may offer everything you can possibly want but Taipei has that charm that you have no choice but to fall in love with. As much as Eug makes fun of Taiwan, he does like it enough that he came to ‘love boat’ (a Taiwan government program for overseas Chinese youths to learn Mandarin and Taiwan culture) twice when he was still in school, that’s two full summers. Since he couldn’t get his Hong Kong ID, he will try to be Taiwanese to get a Tai Bao Cheng (Taiwan ID) to make it easier to visit China. Stay tuned for Eug becoming Taiwanese. One faux pas is to ask Taiwanese if they are blue or green (kind of like asking Americans if they’re Democrat or Republican). It will lead to a passionate and endless political conversation without them answering your first question. That’s because the Taiwanese love Taiwan and really care about her, and to be honest, so do we. We love Taiwan! Peace Peace!
Hong Kong – I Love This City!
Since the first time I touched down at the old Hong Kong airport as I child, I have been fascinated by this place. The question is why? After thinking about it during our past 9 days here, I’ve tried to come up with some answers for myself.
First there are the obvious; this place is a shopper’s paradise. There is something for everyone, and no matter what time of day it is here the consumers are always on the prowl, dangerously keeping you in the shopping vibe. I’ve been the victim of Hong Kong’s shopping culture many a time, buying things from the likes of Marc Jacobs and Shanghai Tang and returning home, never to wear them. We haven’t really shopped at all for the past 5 months but we willingly succumbed here.
This place is also a foodie’s paradise. I admit I am partial to Cantonese cuisine as that’s what I was raised on, and no where does it better than HK. This is my favourite place to enjoy the bounty of the sea, as the seafood is as fresh as it gets. We had a meal in Sai Kung where we were picking our live shrimp, fish, shellfish and a bunch of other things that I don’t know the English name for right from the tanks out in front of the restaurant. A few minutes later they were on the table, piping hot, uniquely prepared, and absolutely delicious. All over the streets you can find great noodles, BBQs, congees, the list is endless. And that’s just the Cantonese offerings. There are also fantastic options from all other regions of China and the world. We had a wicked steak dinner of imported Wagyu beef at a steakhouse in Central. We also had a couple great Japanese meals, and if time allowed I’m sure I could have added every great cuisine to that list of tasty meals available in HK. A lot of the big New York, Paris and Tokyo chefs have opened restaurants here, and it’s no secret why. Oh and two more words: Dim Sum. Nuff said.
In my opinion Hong Kong also has the most beautiful high rise skyline in the world. Nowhere is this more noticeable than when you’re at the Peak looking down, or on the ferry in Victoria harbour looking at the Hong Kong side buildings. The modern architecture is stunning here, and every time we come back there are new design gems somewhere to be found. This time it was The Upper House on top of the Marriot hotel. The contemporariness of the design and architecture is part of the reason this city feels really international in comparison to other neighbouring cities (like Taipei haha).
Ok those were the easy ones that can apply to everyone. Now for the ones that are more personal to me.
My parents roamed these streets as children and youths, and my mom especially really enjoyed her time here. My grandparents on my mother’s side also love this city. From my childhood to present day they would tell stories about their life in HK. All the stories were of happy times and good experiences, so that must have rubbed off on me somehow.
During my university years I spent at least a couple weeks every summer here, and some of the best times I’ve ever had were during those summers. There were first the days of Manhattan and ING when we would go on Thursday nights to try to get the girls to get us free drinks (Ladies could drink free on Thursdays). Then the days of raving took over in the late 90s, and yes they were awesome. In the early 2000s everyone started to have high paying jobs and everyone worked around Central, so our Lan Kwai Fong (the nightlife district) days really hit their full stride at this time. We always hung out in LKF since my first year of university in 1997, but we were students with student budgets. By 2001 and on, most of my friends here were young investment bankers on top of the world, which translated into a lot of fun in the clubs of LKF. I will also include the quintessential karaoke nights in Causeway bay into the night life mix as well. Yes I admit it, though I wasn’t much of a singer, the right mix of nostalgic songs and drunk friends made for great evenings (which usually morphed into mornings). My tribute to that would be our above picture. For those in the know, Di and I are singing the Jacky Cheung and Regine duet “In Love With You”. I am also trying to re-rock the middle part hairstyle for this pic.
We were here for 9 days because we had to apply for our China and Indian Visas, and the Indian Visa took 8 days. During the past 9 days we have pretty much met up with a different group of friends every night. It’s great to return to a city where you still have a lot of good friends, most of whom are from Vancouver and/or went to UBC with me. Those university days were fun for everyone, but it’s pretty hard to not have fun as a student, especially when the bulk of us were lucky enough to travel halfway around the world during our summers just to play. Now that everyone is kind of “grown up” my friends that moved here are all succeeding. And when I use that term succeeding I don’t only mean in a professional manner, most have great personal lives as well and are very happy people. Coming to a place where everyone made it really ups your opinion of that city.
Though the Middle East and Africa are amazing, I am extremely happy to be back in Asia. It’s nice to be in a metropolis where everything works, seemingly as efficiently as humanly possible in comparison to most of the places we’ve been. I feel like that old woman paying with a cheque at a grocery store when I use cash here to pay for something at a 7-11 as everyone just uses their instant-pay Octopus card. There’s also a definite entrepreneurial spirit in this city; a spirit that I haven’t felt anywhere else in our travels. Cities like Istanbul and Cairo have their unique versions of energy, but it’s definitely different than here. Also compared to our previous destinations, Hong Kong is refreshingly very secular. It’s nice not having to talk about religion after 4 months of having it in your face.
Being in unfamiliar cities for the past 5 months has made me really appreciate returning to a place where I don’t need a map, guide book, or translator. Apart from Calgary (my hometown) I can’t say I’ve visited a city as much as Hong Kong since 1996, the year I left home. This gave me the luxury of watching its evolution (albeit as an oft- returning tourist and not as a citizen) from the handover back to China to present day. Since then the city has had its downs, namely SARS and the financial crisis. However, it has recovered with more energy, spirit, and confidence than ever. It holds on to its heritage, yet is nimble enough to roll with the changes of the world and what’s coming in the future. Hong Kong is punching well above its weight (literally, look at how small this place is), and I’m loving the fact that it is.
I felt like I just wrote a junior high essay on the topic of why I love Hong Kong. Hope I passed.
Wine, Whales, and Whites (Great Whites, that is)
We decided to head out of Cape Town for a couple of days as the surrounding area has a lot to do and see. Our first stop was a little town called Hermanus, 122 km south of Cape Town reached by driving on a beautiful coastal road. Hermanus’ claim to fame is that it’s the world’s best land-based whale-watching destination. The southern right whales come every year between June and December from the Antarctic waters to calve in the warmer shallower waters off the coast here. The town was cute and there were plenty of restaurants with windows overlooking the bay so that you could whale watch. We found a great spot for lunch and we sat there, staring out into the water waiting for a whale to show up. Supposedly if we came a month later there would be over 50 whales in the bay, but being a little early we had to wait and stare. Sure enough, about an hour later, we could see water flying out of the sea in a V shape pattern, indicative of the blow holes of the southern right whales. After that, a whale would continually breach (launch out of the water and crash back into the sea with a huge splash) which was a truly amazing and powerful thing to watch. Another whale came right up to the shore to swim around and gracefully play in the kelp. I could only imagine what it would be like with 50 in the harbour, as watching 2 of them was already a really moving experience.
About 50 kilometres past Hermanus on the same coastal road is a town called Gaansbai. Though this town was not as picturesque, an experience of a lifetime was waiting for us there. A 20 minute boat ride from the Gaansbai coast lies “shark alley”, and Di and I were signed up to do some cage diving with great white sharks. We went with a company called White Shark Projects which is a conservation and ecotourism outfit. They were passionate in the saving of the sharks and before we hopped on the boat we were given the stats and issues with the dwindling shark population of the world. Their estimates are that the great whites would be extinct in 10-15 years if what’s going on out there continues. “What’s going on” was really embarrassing to Di and I, as we were the only tourists of Chinese origin in the group of 18. Sharks around the world are dying at alarming rates, pretty much all due to shark fin soup, a Chinese delicacy that I am extremely guilty of indulging in my whole life. After we were given the informative talk we took the boat out to a spot the captain thought would be favourable for finding sharks, and then chum was thrown into the water. Like whale watching, he said we would have to just hope sharks were in the area and we would have to wait. Di and I were in the first group to get into the freezing (about 12 degrees) water. We put on 7 mm wetsuits and dive masks and jumped into the cage which was just hanging off the side of the boat. Though it’s called shark diving you actually don’t get scuba gear as they found the bubbles were not conducive to the experience, so basically we would just wait in the cage with our heads above the water, and when they yelled “Down!” we were to drop ourselves underwater and hold our breath as a shark swam close by. They would lure the sharks around the boat with the chum, and then they would use a large tuna head tied to a piece of rope to draw the sharks close to the cage for us to see. Now the waiting in the water was not fun as the waves were quite choppy and as I said before the water was cold. In addition the visibility was only about 2-3 metres when you were underwater. But when they yelled “down” and you tried to focus on that tuna head being pulled toward you, suddenly a large shark would emerge, jaws open ready to bite. That experience is completely indescribable, and no matter how many times you’ve seen it on the Discovery Channel it cannot compare. Having an apex predator literally an arm’s length away from you with its eyes looking at yours as it swims by is unbelievable. There were times in between shark sightings (after seeing how formidable they looked) when I would look at the extremely meek looking cage that was protecting us and think, “what the hell am I doing in here?” After 45 minutes in the water we got out so that others could get in, and watching the whole thing from the boat was to us equally as exciting. The sharks would breach as well like the whales, but they would do it with their jaws wide open trying to eat. Witnessing that definitely brought some different emotions (namely fear) when compared to watching the whales breach. As you can see from the picture above the sharks are right beside the boat, and following their dorsal fins as they slowly circle us with their silhouettes just underneath the water is absolutely spell binding. The captain said we had a very good day as we saw 7 different great whites, all ranging from about 3-4 metres in length. Unfortunately the even bigger ones are hard to spot now as a lot of them have been fished out. Watching these incredible predators was mind-blowing. They are beautiful, graceful, powerful, and terrorizingly (I’m pretty sure that’s not a word) awesome. Plus our oceans need them, so we’ve decided to not order any more shark fin soup, and I hope you’ll do the same. I also hope that that will be last time Di and I will ever run into them underwater.
Lastly we spent a few days in the wine country. The setting was stunning. Then again, when is wine country ever not stunning? We spent a few nights in the picturesque towns of Franschhoek and Stellenbosch, our bases for visiting the vineyards. South Africa is now the 9th largest producer of wine in the world, and the quality is outstanding. The signature grape here is called the pinotage (a cross between the pinot noir and cinsaut) and over the many days of tasting we really enjoyed this varietal. Though all the wineries were beautiful, our favourite was one owned by the golfer Ernie Els! Its location was as scenic as it gets, and his wines (named after himself) were the favourite of our trip. If you can, try to find a bottle of his Bordeaux blend. As with all other wine regions, amazing food usually goes hand in hand, and every meal we had here was fantastic. We were told that the highest rated restaurant in South Africa, and also consistently ranked as one of the top 50 in the world, was in Franschhoek, so we had to give it a try. It was called The Tasting Room and Chef Margot Janse gave Di and I one of the best fine dining experiences of our lives. We each had the tasting menu and every single item brought to the table was incredible. I’m usually not a huge fan of the flavoured foams and the dry-ice presentations but it really worked here. The quality was world class, yet the price was extremely reasonable (about 1/3 the price of places we ate it in Paris and New York). To emphasize my point, we had an excellent bottle of wine here and it cost us the equivalent of 30 USD, about the same price we paid for a glass of wine at Le Cinq in Paris.
As Di wrote previously, Cape Town is a remarkable place with a lot to offer. However we could have easily spent an extra week just outside of Cape Town as well. As a destination, South Africa is in my opinion under-rated. Everyone is concerned about safety and though there are these issues, we never felt really unsafe the whole time we were here (though Johannesburg is supposedly different and far more dangerous). Maybe it was low season, but the prices we were paying for food and accommodation were extremely affordable for the quality you got in return. Hopefully one day the social issues will resolve, because with that fixed, Cape Town and its surrounds would be one of the greatest travel regions around.
South Africa’s Mother City – Cape Town
We flew to Johannesburg (Jo’burg) from Dar Es Salaam and arrived at 11am. Then we waited for about 10 hours at the Jo’burg airport before flying to Cape Town. Why would we do that? Because we wanted to save $200. It seemed to make sense at the time to book the cheaper but later flight, but because Eug was feeling under the weather when we flew out of Dar, the 10 hour wait turned out to be more difficult than we anticipated. We tried for 2 standbys to get on the earlier flights, but both flights were full. Eug sucked it up and we finally made to Cape Town at 11pm. We were lucky to get a very good deal on this brand new serviced apartment hotel in the city, so we happily crashed in this comfortable modern one bedroom pad as soon as we checked in. Eug recovered quickly after just one day and did I mention there was a washing machine?! We found heaven again. Although this time heaven ruined our white t-shirts because we used super hot water to make sure we don’t have any more bed bugs Eug inherited from one of the hostels we stayed at earlier. Argh.
Early next morning we got a call from Ken (our USAID friend in Tanzania)’s friend Raymond who invited us over for dinner that night. We were very pleasantly surprised as it was only our first day in a new country and we already had an invite! Raymond is a Mauritius born Chinese and he moved to Cape Town about 15 years ago. He has a beautiful family, amazing kids. They were all great hosts, and Raymond’s a fantastic cook. We ended up going to his house twice for dinner, the first time he made abalone with chicken and Chinese mushrooms (soooo good!), and the second time he had a Braai (South African barbeque). There was T-Bone steak, warthog sausages, pork chops, and delicious fish that melts in your mouth. They even had karaoke! Eug and I couldn’t be thankful enough for Raymond and his family’s generosity and hospitality. We had a really great time hanging out with them.
We spent the first two days walking around the city. Even though it’s winter here, the weather was just perfect. It’s like those sunny autumn days in Vancouver, the air crisp and the sun warm. We paid a very interesting visit to the District Six Museum. The host Noor who gave us a tour in the museum was born and raised in District Six himself before it was declared as a “white” area under the Group Areas Act in 1966. Noor personally experienced apartheid and told us the compelling story of his life. It was a tragic story but he was optimistic and uplifting. He showed us where he used to live on the map inside the museum and he showed us pictures of his house before it was bulldozed over. We also walked around Bo-Kaap, the Muslim quarter where there were brightly painted houses; Long street where we were told that during the World Cup, it was the most happening street with tons of people in the bars and restaurants; and the newly developed V&A Waterfront, where we watched the third Twilight (woo!) and Eug admitted it was the best of the three so far. That was pretty awesome.
There’s a mountain in the city called Table Mountain in the Table Mountain National Park. It’s called Table Mountain because the top of the mountain is flat. And the flat part is often covered by a dense white low cloud that locals call “the table cloth”. We could see this from the balcony of our 7th floor apartment behind the neighbouring buildings. We walked about an hour to Table Mountain from our apartment and we took a cable car up to the peak. There are also various routes you can take to hike up the mountain, but since we already hiked Kilimanjaro, we thought we would take it slow here. At 1088m at the peak, it’s the ultimate viewpoint over the city and it’s absolutely breathtaking.
We rented a Kia Picanto for the rest of our stay in Cape Town. It was not a very powerful car but it did its job of taking us around. It was Eug’s first time driving on the other side of the road, and also his first time shifting gears with his left hand. He did become really good at it after the first day, but it was funny to see the windshield wiper going up whenever he wanted to signal a turn, and almost immediately I’d hear a “sh*t”. We drove around the coast down to Boulders Beach to see the penguin colony. The penguins were really cute. They wobble around feebly like they are about to pk any minute. We drove south to Cape of Good Hope which is supposedly the most southern point of Africa but really it’s the most southwesterly point. We drove back up along the Atlantic coast and we couldn’t stop being wowed every five minutes by how beautiful the view was, especially on Chapman’s Peak Drive. We both agreed it’s probably the most beautiful road we’ve ever been on. We had to pull over a few times to fully absorb the scenery and take pictures. We also checked out Camps Bay, a wealthy residential area with an amazing sea view. There are a few nice restaurants there too. One of our guest house hosts recommended us to go to a steak house in the area, and it’s here that I had the best steak ever. And Eug had the biggest portion of ribs ever. We were both laughing when the ribs came, even the table next to us was laughing at the gi-normous sized dish. Though the next day we were both feeling the effect of meat overload.
Cape Town is an amazing city with a lot to offer. It’s got the mountain, the water, good food, really good wine, excellent choices of accommodation, and amazing nature and landscape. You can surf, hike, and see penguins all in one day. We are really enjoying this place so far.
fromwonderintowonder 
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