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!