Taipei – Where to, Gumshoe?

Taipei/Singapore (Day 66): Heading South

May 5, 2016

Our three nights in Taipei went by really quickly. We were flying out later in the afternoon and going to Singapore. We woke up pretty late and took our time packing up. Mom went to get us breakfast and made us some milk tea (which was really yummy). She had to go out for lunch with some old friends, so Tim and I were on our own.

Before we knew it, it was already 1pm! Originally we thought we’d go for beef noodle, but the places we had in mind weren’t that close to the apartment. We decided to go back to Tonghua Street to go for a quick lunch at Formosa Chang’s and grab bubble tea for later. We headed out without checking the weather, a jacket, or an umbrella (Tim: foreshadowing). While we were walking we felt a couple of heavy rain drops and knew it was going to be a huge down pour. We quickly got undercover and into Formosa Chang’s for lunch.

We walked really quickly back to the apartment to try to stay as dry as possible. Luckily we were both wearing clothes that would dry quickly since everything else was packed. We got back to the apartment and did the final pack up and waited for Mom to get back from lunch before heading down to meet Uncle Albert.

As mentioned in my last post, I’m a sentimental person so it was sad leaving Taipei. It has become the closest place we had to a home this trip. We have had a lot of good memories here with family and friends, so when we said bye, I obviously cried (but tried to hide it as best as possible…). Tim is touched that I showed so much emotion to his Motherland.

The drive out to Taoyuan Airport is around an hour from the city. It’s extremely kind of Uncle Albert to drive us back and forth from the airport so many times this trip. They are building an airport train line out from Taipei Main Station to the airport, but it’s completion has been delayed quite a bit. Hopefully the next time we visit it will be done.

We were flying Singapore Airlines (both for the first time) and we left out of Terminal 2 of the International Terminal. This was the first time we have been to this terminal and it’s really nice. They had a good selection of luxury brands, Taiwanese souvenirs, and duty free shops. Comparing the prices of Longchamps back at Taoyuan and Incheon, they are about the same. If the USD was stronger (like it was a few months back), than Taoyuan would be cheaper since their prices are in NT.

I was looking forward to flying with Singapore Airlines since I’ve always heard good things about it and it’s consistently ranked one of the best airlines in the world. After my first flight with them, I would have to agree, it’s probably the best airline I’ve flown. The flight attendants were all very friendly (and pretty), they gave you a hot towel when you sat down to wipe your hands/face (and we were in economy), they came around with drinks (great drink selection) more than 5 times on a 4 hour flight and their meals were good (you get Haagen Daaz ice cream).

The movie selection was also great – they had over 150 movies (those are just the Hollywood movies) to watch, including some really recent releases. I ended up watching “The Intern” with Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro (I liked it!), 3 episodes of the “New Girl”, and Anthony Bourdain in Tanzania. There was no turbulence on this flight so it was more enjoyable than the flight a few days ago.

We finally landed at Singapore’s Changi Airport after what felt like a long flight. It was 10:20pm when we landed, we went through customs and headed for the SMRT to get us into the city. We packed an overnight day pack so we didn’t have to pick up our backpacks (they’re going straight to Melbourne) (Tim: fingers crossed).

We booked a hotel near the Chinatown SMRT stop through Expedia. It was $139 CAD a night and is in a relatively good location – about an 8 minute walk to a couple of the hawker food markets I wanted to go to. After a couple of transfers, it took us about 35 minutes to get to our hotel. We arrived at our hotel just before midnight. We checked in, washed up and relaxed. The hotel room is quite nice – clean, rainfall shower head, and a large bed.

Tomorrow we’ll have until about 7pm until we have to go back to Changi for our flight to Melbourne at 9:30pm.

Steps today: 8,000

Taipei (Day 65): Comfort Food

May 4, 2016

We spent a good chunk of the morning organizing our backpacks and giving items for Mom to bring back home for us. What a load off! My luggage feels like it’s 10 pounds lighter (Tim: probably because it is 10 pounds lighter). I caught up on my blog entries while Tim went to Yong He (our regular breakfast place) to get breakfast for everyone.

We didn’t end up leaving the apartment until just before 2pm. It was nice to be able to just hang around and fully relax and not feel like we had to see something or go somewhere. We didn’t have anything on our agenda since Mom was busy with her own plans. Since we’ve been in Taipei with her, she’s been non-stop busy meeting up with people who want to see her. The one thing that I wanted to have before leaving Taipei was bubble tea (a few times) and the gua bao (pork belly hamburger) we had in March.

Tim and I walked to Gongguan and cut diagonally through the National Taiwan University (NTU) campus along the way. It’s very hot here, about 32 degrees celsius with humidity. My back was sweaty the entire day since I was wearing a backpack and a cotton dress (it wasn’t pleasant). This is preparing us for hot weather to come during our SE Asia part of our trip in June.The pearl milk drink and the gua bao stand in Gongguan was highly recommended to us by Tim’s cousin, Karen. Unfortunately, when my sister and Noel were in town, we didn’t hear about it until the day they were closed. We’ll have to come back with them another time. I feel bad, the gua bao was on my sister’s top eats for Taiwan.

When we arrived in Gongguan, the pearl milk stand had a line up but surprisingly, the gua bao stand didn’t have a line up (Tim: maybe because it was not really lunch time). The pearl milk line wasn’t too long but by the time we got to the front of the line up (5-10 minutes) the line up had curled around 3 times! We just beat the crowd of students. We took our lunch to the NTU entrance benches and sat and enjoyed our cheap and delicious lunch. As I was eating the gua bao and biting into the best pearls I’ve ever had (super soft, warm and chewy), I kept thinking, “this is amazing”. I’m really savouring the good and cheap food in Taiwan because I know when we get to Australia, everything is going to be more the double the price and probably not as delicious.

After we finished our lunch, we decided to walk to the Roots Canada Lodge store and an Eslite Bookstore. We had noticed that Taiwanese people love Roots clothing when we first arrived in March. Even when we were in Korea and Japan, when we saw people with “Roots Canada” t-shirts, we knew they weren’t Canadian, they were Taiwanese. Coincidentally, Mom brought a brochure back from Roots back home that says “Roots loves Taiwan”. There’s a campaign by Roots Canada and Tourism Taiwan that shows pictures around Taipei as well as suggestions on where to go (it’s a pretty nice pamphlet). The store on Robson just had a grand re-opening on May 3rd and Mom was asked to look for Taiwanese dancers for their event. Pretty cool!

Any how, we were both interested in going to a Roots store in Taipei and the one we saw the other day while in the car had a Roots Canada Lodge restaurant. They served Canadian food – like Nanaimo bars, bacon cheeseburgers and poutine. We went into the store to see if they had any t-shirts that said Taipei on it because one time we saw someone who had one on. Tim asked the sales associate and she said those t-shirts only come out once a year and it’s usually in September. Roots clothing isn’t cheap and it’s definitely not cheap in Taiwan. A plain zip up hoodie is around $140 CAD (almost double what it would be back home).

We then made our way across the street to Eslite (the 24 hour bookstore). We hadn’t been to this location before, only the one near Taipei 101. Tim was looking for the Marie Kondo book, “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” in Chinese. He has been recommending this book to a lot of people and wants his parents to read it as well. I haven’t finished it yet, and I’m recommending it to others (Tim’s not happy that I haven’t finished reading it since it’s so short). We wandered around Eslite and browsed around at all the floors – besides books they have a lot of neat shops to look at.

On our way back to the apartment, we stopped at a CoCo bubble tea and ordered a passion fruit tea. This was one of our favourite drinks here as it’s super refreshing. With the heat, I wouldn’t have minded if it were all slushy. I know they opened a CoCo in Vancouver and I probably won’t go there this summer since it’s going to cost 4 x the price for what we had and I would have had enough bubble tea in the past 3 months to last a year.

We came back to the apartment to rest up and cool off before dinner. Tim and I had been going to a hot pot place a lot in March and we had a stamp card that only needed one more meal before we got one free (yes, we went that much). Hot pot isn’t something you crave during hot humid weather, but since they blast the AC so high in Asia, it’s always perfect.

As soon as we walked into the restaurant, the waitress recognized us. For the most part, the restaurant isn’t a tourist destination or even on most people’s radar (we couldn’t find any information on it in English at all). I guess she hadn’t see us in a month so when she saw us she asked us where we’re from etc. It’s basically Tim answering for both of us explaining that he’s Taiwanese and his parents were born here and then they look at me and ask what I am. Then he says, her family is from “Tai San” then they say, “you should teach her some Mandarin” and we all smile and laugh.

We ordered two types of beef as usual and enjoyed our last meal there. We both put a lot of fresh garlic in our sauce, so now today we both have severe garlic breath. When we were done, Tim showed her our stamp card and she said usually you are supposed to use the free one during your next visit (which is what Mom told us would probably happen) but Tim said this is our last day in Taiwan so she let us have the free one. Our meal was 270 NT = $10.71 CAD for the both of us.

After dinner, we walked back towards the apartment and went to the Linjiang Tonghua Night Market (this is like our neighbourhood market since it’s so close). I wanted to buy some more dried guava for my family, fresh cut guava (for me to eat tomorrow), and a phone case (since mine was in horrible and dirty shape). We didn’t eat any food at the night market since we just had dinner. I bought a new phone case, which wasn’t that cheap but cheaper than home ($9 CAD). I know how cheap these phone cases could be, so anything sold in Taiwan isn’t cheap compared to China. My former co-worker asked me if I wanted phone cases before she went to China one year and I said I wanted one that you could put cards in. She told me it’s buy 1 get 9 free and showed me the Chinese website. I said I only wanted one and she’s like, it’s okay you can have them in 9 colours. So when she came back she gave me a box with 10 cases in it, and they’re the exact same ones in the night markets here.

We headed back to the apartment and packed up and went through all the items Mom is bringing back for us. It’s such a big help that she’s here to bring a lot of things home for us. I have a bunch of clothes that I didn’t end up wearing much and I know won’t be good for Australia and SE Asia. You really don’t need much clothing while traveling (Tim: which is pretty common advice, yet lots of people don’t adhere to) and especially in the humid heat, Lululemon or any dri-fit type of items are the best.

I’m a pretty sentimental person so whenever it’s the last day or last of anything, I do get a bit sad and reminiscent of all the good memories. During our time in Taipei, we became very familiar with the Daan area. Even as someone who isn’t great with directions, I got to know Daan very well. I’m happy that we got to see so many people while we were here and were able to spend 2 weeks with my sister, Noel, and Nate. Even passing by the apartment we stayed at or going around to sites we visited together, I think about them.

Steps today: 24,000

Taipei (Day 64): IMAX, Thai Food and Tea

May 3, 2016

We had an another early morning today… not because of a flight, but because Tim wanted to watch “Captain America: Civil War”. The movie was released last week in Asia and will be out in North America on Friday. Tim wanted to watch it at Miramar (which is about 5 stops away on the brown line from us), which has the largest IMAX screen in Taiwan (I think at one point it was the largest in Asia). We woke up around 7:45am, got ready and headed out.

We got to Miramar Entertainment Park at 9:15am, bought our tickets for the IMAX 3D (480 NT = $18.89 CAD), and looked for breakfast. The mall was closed so we went to Carrefour, which was across the street. We grabbed some Asian buns and a carton of guava juice and headed to the theatre. We arrived just in time for the previews, it’s nice to have reserved seating in Asia. We both enjoyed the movie, that’s all I’ll say (don’t want to spoil anything). (Tim: The IMAX theatre used the latest IMAX with Laser projection technology, and all I can say is it was frickin’ phenomenal. Head and shoulders the best digital projection system I’ve experienced and the 3D was particularly good.)

After the movie, we rushed back to the apartment to meet Tim’s Mom and family friends for lunch. Tim’s family friend picked us up from the apartment and drove us to a Thai restaurant in the area. When we arrived, we were warmly welcomed by his wife who was already at the restaurant waiting for us. She brought us into the restaurant and there was a beautiful spread of food already waiting. Tim and I both really like Thai food, so this was a definite treat. Tim and his family spent a lot of time with this couple while living here in 1994 and they also spent a good amount of time in BC, so it was a very happy reunion.

After a very delicious lunch (I think it was one of my favourite Thai meals), they took us to their friend’s store on Yong Kang Street. Their friend, who is also an artist, runs a store called, Chang-Yi-Fang Taiwan Puppet Creations. Their friend makes an assortment of merchandise with classic Taiwanese fabrics and prints and her husband makes costumes for puppet theatre. They were very generous and kind and told us to pick something for our wedding as well as something to bring to Tim’s sister and husband in Australia. Tim chose a canvas messenger bag and I got a canvas tote. Hopefully we will see them soon in Vancouver if they visit or when we come back to Taiwan. They offered to take us around Taiwan when we’re back!

Uncle Albert met us outside the store and was there to pick us up to go to a teahouse for a traditional Taiwanese tea ceremony. In about 30 minutes, we were out of the city centre and going up the lush green mountains north of Taipei. We stopped by Xin Mt. Meng Lake in the mountains and took some pictures.

After about an 8 minute drive, we made it to Shi-Yang Tea House. The tea house is beautiful and has a Zen feel to it. We were also meeting two of Mom’s friends for tea and dinner. One of them lives in Taipei and the other is visiting from Vancouver. Shi-Yang is located in the mountains and surrounded by a forest. We were welcomed and brought to a meditation room to mediate and relax before the tea ceremony. After about 10 minutes of meditation, we were lead to another room and began the tea service. The tea master served two types of tea, brewing each about 4-5 times so we could taste the difference. He was very methodical while pouring each cup of tea, it was very calming. He was very careful in feeling the temperature of the water and making sure it was the right temperature each time to pour on the tea leaves. He said that after you finish brewing the tea, the leaves should be intact and not broken. If they are broken, then that means the water was too hot, and the tea would probably be bitter. Tim and I looked at each other and were reminded of our wedding tea ceremony. The nice tea was very bitter, probably because we just poured boiling water on it.

After about an hour, we were lead down to the restaurant for dinner. For dinner we were treated to an amazing tasting menu. Everything was wonderfully prepared and presented beautifully. Tim’s Mom treated us all to such a wonderful afternoon here, it was very relaxing. I never knew Taipei had tea houses like this so I’m really happy we got to experience one with her during this trip.

It was a pretty long day for us, so we were ready to get ready for bed and sleep as soon as we got back to the apartment.

Steps today: 9,000

Sapporo/Incheon/Taipei (Day 63): 3 Countries in 12 hours

May 2, 2016

This morning we woke up early to catch our flight to Seoul-Incheon en route to Taipei. Our flight time on our e-ticket said 8:55am so we woke up at 6am and left the hotel around 6:45am. We took the JR train to Chitose Airport, which took about 40 minutes (we also had to wait 15 minutes for the train). Luckily, Tim checked the flight time while we were at the train station and it showed that the flight time actually changed to 9:40am. I guess we didn’t get a flight time change notification. Any how, that actually worked out a lot better for us because by the time we arrived at our check in counter, it was already 7:50am.

Chitose International Terminal is about a 8-10 minute walk from the JR train (it’s a lot closer for the Domestic Terminal). The international flights that leave Sapporo are only to a few cities – 5 to Taipei, 4 to Seoul, 3 to Bangkok and 1 to Kuala Lumpur on a daily basis. One thing that I’ve noticed in Sapporo that I didn’t see anywhere else in Japan was that tourist signs always include Russian. We’re pretty far north and this is probably the closest I’ve ever been to Russia.

The International Terminal at Chitose has a few duty free stores. The store with food souvenirs was a bit of a gong show. There were a few Thai flights leaving so people were stocking up (I think I’ll be the same in July). A LeTAO representative was there dishing out huge spoon fulls of their cheesecake. (Yum!).

We were flying Korean Air so we had a 3 hour layover in Incheon before flying to Taipei at 4pm. Incheon iss a really good airport to have a layover in, so I don’t mind being there for 3 hours. There are a lot of stores, restaurants, and their Wi-Fi is extremely fast.

Our flight to Seoul from Sapporo was only half full (if even), so we got a row to ourselves. There are some really nice views of the mountains as you leave Sapporo. Tim likes to take aerial shots from the plane while we’re flying. The food on Korean Air has been very good. We both had a chicken dish and it had a shrimp salad and a plate of assorted fruits. (I didn’t take a picture of the meal).

When we arrived at Incheon, we walked around for a bit and browsed some of the duty free stores. If you like Longchamps bags (Tim: and who doesn’t?), Incheon’s Longchamps store is about about 25%-30% cheaper than at home or online. I can’t say the same for the other luxury brands, since those are the only bags I looked at in detail. Also, if you want to buy face masks while in Seoul, you can buy packs of 50 of them at the cosmetic stores for slightly cheaper than what you would pay in the stores in Seoul (they have Nature Republic, Tony Moly, Innisfree, and the Face Shop). Another interesting thing to note is that Incheon retail store prices are all in USD and are charged in USD, which doesn’t really make sense to me. But all the food and restaurant prices are in Korean Won. I don’t get it.

Tim and I didn’t eat anything at the airport since we got meals on both the flights on Korean Air. While walking around the airport, I was reminded why I wasn’t a big fan of Korean food and/or snacks. There was definitely not as big of a draw to buy any snacks and treats like there is in Japan (unless you want to buy Red Ginseng). I just bought a Chilsing Cider (which is their version of 7up) to tie us over until our flight.

Our flight to Taipei was a full flight and it was a fairly large plane (777). Apparently there was a long weekend for Labour Day in Taiwan this weekend, so that’s why so many people were traveling. The flight was one of the scariest flights I’ve been on to date. There was a lot of turbulence that made the plane go up and down a lot. I’m “okay” with turbulence when it just shifts the plane side to side but when it starts to dip up and down, that’s when I start to freak out. The flight attendants had to sit down quite a few times during the flight because the turbulence was so bad. When I’m scared on flights, I grab Tim’s hand and squeeze it pretty tight. He’s really calm when there’s turbulence. He told me after we landed that I looked like I was going to cry. To be honest, I did have that urge to start crying (which has never happened before on a plane). Other than the turbulence, I watched the Steve Jobs movie (which was pretty good) and the meal they served was also quite good (I had Korean beef bulgogi).

We landed at Taoyuan Airport about 15 minutes late and as soon as we got off the plane, we felt a sudden wall of humidity. Apparently it was 37 degrees Celsius today, a stark difference from our 5 degrees temperatures in Sapporo. A bunch of flights from Japan landed at the same time and we were caught behind the crowds and had to wait at customs for about 35 minutes. We finally got through and got our bags, which were very lonely on the baggage carousel by the time we got downstairs. Uncle Albert came to pick us up and we dropped off our bags and headed straight for dinner with Tim’s Mom, and Tim’s Dua-yi Diu (whose apartment we are staying at).

We went to G-Woo, a restaurant close by to the apartment and one that we had gone to in March with Tim’s other relatives. They are known for their chicken soup, but since we got there fairly late, around 8pm, they said they were sold out. Everything Tim’s Mom and Uncle ordered was really good. I didn’t realize how much I missed the taste of Taiwanese/Chinese style food.

Before leaving Japan, we found out that some good friends were in Taipei visiting from Toronto and we would have a 12 hour overlap with them here. Unfortunately they were leaving tomorrow morning at 6am for Hong Kong so the only time we could meet was tonight. We planned on meeting at Ice Monster (shaved ice restaurant) after dinner. We don’t get to see them very often since they live in Toronto so we were both really happy to see them here. We shared two shaved ice and chatted for a couple of hours before saying bye. It felt like we were at home. They had to be up in a few hours to go to the airport and we were pretty beat from our long day of travel.

We walked back to the apartment, washed up and crashed. Tomorrow we planned on watching Captain America Civil War (which came out in Asia last week, and doesn’t come out in North America until Friday) at 9:30am. Tim has been waiting to come back to Taipei to watch it, since most movies here aren’t dubbed like in Japan.

It feels nice to be back in Taipei. It feels like our second home since we’re most familiar with it and there is family here. We only have 3 nights before heading off again. I kind of wish we had a bit more time here before leaving. Tim’s Mom is here visiting, so it’s nice to be able to see Taipei with her and meet more family friends.

Steps today: 13,000

Taipei (Day 29): Last Day in Taiwan

March 29, 2016

Today is our last day in Taipei until May, when we’ll be back for a couple of days before going down to Australia. We slept in this morning for the first time in a while which was nice. We used this morning to plan for Seoul – how to get to the hotel from the airport and researching DMZ tours.

We decided to go for lunch at this noodle restaurant that we passed by on our way to Daan Park multiple times. The restaurant was pretty much a hole in the wall (with no signage), the kitchen at the front with a “Mom” and “Dad” making noodles. Each time we passed by during lunch they always had a line up – which is usually a good sign. We ended up having a late lunch at around 1:30pm, which worked out because we avoided the work lunch crowd. This restaurant specializes in noodles – both dry and soup noodles (milk seafood broth and miso broth).

We picked the dry pork noodles and the milk seafood broth. The noodles were nice and chewy (the way I like them) and the milk seafood broth was surprisingly tasty and had a lot of seafood in the soup. The seafood soup bowl was a lot deeper than it appeared to be and was very filing. After we had this carb heavy lunch, I felt like falling asleep, so it was good we went for a walk after. While we were eating, the owners closed the door and were eating their lunch too (at the same table as us).

After lunch, we went back to SunnyHills to buy pineapple cakes for Tim’s Great Aunt, who we will be visiting in Osaka. We got to sit down and have a pineapple cake and tea again – delicious!

Our only other plan today was to meet Tim’s second cousin, Janiss, for dinner at the fish market, “Addiction Aquatic Development” (AAD). The English name is a bit weird, but it’s basically a large Japanese food market with individual restaurants inside. They have sushi, sashimi, steamed/boiled seafood, grilled fish, BBQ, and hot pot. We decided to get a bunch of take out dishes and eat outside.

Us with Janiss outside of Addiction Aquatic Development

Everything was really fresh and delicious. I’m really looking forward to going to Japan now! It was great catching up with Janiss over a nice meal, she’s such a sweet and bubbly girl. The last time we saw her was 3 years ago in Taipei when she took us to the Shilin Night Market. She’s now graduated university and is working full time. She’s fluent in Mandarin, English, German and Taiwanese – very impressed and wish I was multilingual. After dinner, we walked to the MRT station and said our goodbyes. Hopefully we’ll see her again soon in Taipei or even Vancouver.

We’re flying out to Seoul tomorrow at 1:25pm, so we’re getting everything packed up and ready. We’re both excited to go somewhere we haven’t been before, and experience new adventures in a place where neither of us can speak the language (I can only say “hello” and “thank you”). As much as we’re excited to go to Seoul, we’ll miss being in Taipei and feeling like a “local”, especially in the Daan area where we’ve been staying. I’ll write more on Taiwan summarizing some of my thoughts from the past month in a future post!

Total steps: 19,500

Taipei (Day 28): Movie Monday

March 28, 2016

This morning, we were woken up by Tim’s Taiwan cell phone ringing in the other room at 8:30am. It felt good not to have any set plans until later in the day. Taipei is 15 hours ahead of Vancouver, so when woke up, it was perfect timing to FaceTime with my family who were at Uncle Barry’s for Easter dinner.

It was nice to see everyone together and it felt like we were there too! They had finished eating dinner, but I saw all the plates of turkey leftovers and it made me really want a home cooked turkey dinner. We will have to have a turkey dinner in the summer when we’re back. There is a Canadian restaurant (Whalen’s) down the street from us that has a turkey dinner on their menu, but it’s quite expensive, so we’ll just wait.

We decided to go for breakfast and have a nice walk since it was sunny out today. It was about 20 degrees with a warm breeze (pretty ideal weather). We headed back to King Soy Milk and had the same meal we had the very first morning we were in Taipei. We shared a sao bing with egg, rice roll and a cold soy milk for 85 NT = $3.45 CAD.

After breakfast we decided to walk towards Taipei 101 and watch the movie, “Batman v Superman”. There is a movie theatre in the mall right beside Taipei 101, called Vieshow Cinemas. The walk to Taipei 101 took about 20 minutes. The weather was very pleasant so it was good to walk off those carbs we just had for breakfast. When we got to the theatre, we saw that Batman V. Superman was playing pretty much every half an hour (they have a lot of theatres). At the ticket counter, they asked if we wanted popcorn and drinks. The cashier said that if we bought the package with the tickets it was cheaper. He told us the price and for some reason we had miscalculated the conversion in our heads and thought that for two tickets and a popcorn combo (two drinks and a popcorn) was $20 CAD, but after we paid we realized we divided it wrong and it was actually $37 CAD! Each ticket was 270 NT = $11 CAD and the combo was 369 NT = $15 CAD. It wasn’t outrageous, it was North American prices.

When we first went into the theatre, we sat there and thought we should’ve double checked that the movie was in English and subtitled in Chinese (i.e. not dubbed). Tim spoke Mandarin to the cashier so he never would have told us if it wasn’t in English (Tim: that’s a pretty big compliment to the quality of my Mandarin I guess). We had only thought about this after since a Canadian family behind us were told that the Zootopia time they wanted was dubbed and was in Mandarin. As soon as the movie started, we were relieved to hear English (Tim: Ben Affleck’s sweet voice) and see subtitles in Chinese (phew!).

The movie wasn’t the best, that’s all I’ll say. When we left the theatre at around 4pm, there was a huge ticket line up wrapped around the entrance, so we’re glad we decided to watch an earlier movie.

We headed back to the apartment and walked down Tonghua St. to look for something quick to eat for a very late lunch. Tim found some oyster vermicelli (soup) and decided to have that. I just had a few spoonfuls since I was still full from my healthy lunch of pop and popcorn from the movies.

Our bubble tea for the day was from Ten Ren, a Taiwanese store known for their tea. We had passed by so many locations but hadn’t tried it yet. We ordered pearl milk tea and it was 50 NT = $2 CAD.

We headed back to the apartment and rested for about two hours before dinner, which was at 7pm. Dinner tonight was with Tim’s relatives (Tim’s Dad’s cousin’s family) who I had met during our 2013 trip.

After a big dinner, we met Austin at the Raohe Night Market to walk around. It was Austin’s last night in Taipei before heading off to Hong Kong so it was great we got to see him again on his Asia trip. Raohe Night Market is located north of where we are staying but very close to the airport in the city, Songshan. It’s one of the more popular night market’s in Taipei after Shilin.

It was a great night being able to spend time with Tim’s family in Taipei and seeing Austin while. Obviously family is very important to both myself and Tim and we know we are very lucky to have such amazing people in our lives – we don’t take any of it for granted.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Taipei before our Korea and Japan portion of our trip. We’re planning on meeting another one of Tim’s second cousins for dinner and use the rest of the day to pack and prepare.

Steps for today: 20,000

Taipei (Day 27): Happy Easter!

March 27, 2016

Happy Easter from Taipei!

This morning felt a bit weird/sad without hearing Nate waking up and calling our names. After an emotional night (for me), we woke up and got ready to go to Easter Mass at Holy Family Catholic Church. There is only one English Mass at 9:45am so we had to make sure we didn’t miss it! We power walked from the apartment and through Daan Park and got to church right on time.

The Mass was lead by Monseigneur Paul Russell, an American who has been in Taipei for the past 8 years working as a diplomatic representative for the Vatican. According to the announcements at church he has been very influential in trying to connect Catholicism to the Taiwanese population (Taiwanese Catholics only make up 1.5% of the population and Christianity as a whole is only 4.5%). It was announced last week that he was appointed by Pope Francis to become the Archbishop and nuncio (permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See) in Turkey. The way members of the congregation spoke about him, showed he has made a significant impact on the church in Taipei and he will be greatly missed. We didn’t even know him and Tim got a bit teary eyed during his goodbye speech at the end (Tim: I get moved thinking about a person with no past ties to Taiwan, who can serve the people of Taiwan for 8 years of his life, and express a deep love for a country that I’m only tangentially able to connect with, even though I’m “Taiwanese”).

Our only plan for today was to meet with Austin (Tim’s cousin, in town for a wedding) for a late lunch. We finished Mass at 11am so we decided to take a walk to the Gongguan area, an area close to National Taiwan University (NTU). We planned on going to Gongguan earlier in the week with my sister but the gua bao (Taiwanese “pork burger”) place we wanted to try was closed on Mondays so we didn’t end up going.

Tim’s cousin, Karen, recommended two places in the area to try, the gua bao (Lan Jia Steamed Sandwich Shop) and a fresh milk with pearls (no tea) stand. It was easy to track the places down since they were across from each other and both had line ups. I stood in the pearl milk line while Tim went to the gua bao line. We took our drink and baos across the street to NTU and sat on the bench and ate.

After we walked around for a bit, we took the MRT to meet Austin at Zhongxiao Xinsheng station to go for beef noodles at a restaurant called 72 Beef Noodle (this was another Karen recommendation). The restaurant is called “72 Beef Noodle” because that’s how many hours it takes for them to make the soup.

After lunch, we were feeling pretty tired. We made our way back to the apartment and rested. For dinner we wanted to go somewhere casual and close by. We decided to just walk back to Tonghua St. and see if anything looked interesting. Nothing caught our attention so we decided to go back to Formosa Chang’s to have something small.

We walked back to the apartment through the night market and picked up some fruit on the way back from the quick fruit lady who Noel kept buying fruit from last week. We got one guava and an apple pear (one of my favourite fruits) for 75 NT = $3 CAD.

We’re back at the apartment now and going to start planning for our Japan leg of the trip. We’re planning on watching Batman vs. Superman tomorrow (or Tuesday) and then we’ll have dinner with Tim’s relatives. My family at home is having a big Easter dinner on Sunday (tomorrow morning for me), I’m sad I’ll be missing out on dinner. I always look forward to our big family gatherings and being surrounded by all my loved ones on Easter.

Today’s steps are: 15,000

Taipei (Day 26): A Near Perfect Day

March 26, 2015

Today was our last day with my sister, Noel, and Nate here with us in Taiwan. We woke up to sun shining through the window blinds – which made for a good start to the morning and a perfect last day with them.

We walked to Daan Park one last time to play in the playground with Nate. I think we went there four times with them during their twelve day trip. It would have been more if not for the rainy weather and going to Kenting for three days. After the playground we walked through the park towards Yong Kang St. for lunch.

The plan for lunch was to go back to Yong Kang Beef Noodle since it was Noel’s favourite meal of the trip. We made our way to Yong Kang St. around 10:45am and headed for the restaurant. There was already a line formed and the restaurant was full. They hadn’t opened the upstairs section this time so we had to wait about 10 minutes before we were seated. Since we were on the first floor, there were no high chairs available and all the tables were way more cramped. Sitting downstairs is where all the “action” is but also made for a very different dining experience. My sister had to hold Nate while they both ate, which was a bit trickier, but Nate loved their noodles so he was happily slurping it down and wasn’t fussy.

Next up on our agenda today was to visit SunnyHills pineapple cake shop. Pineapple cakes are the most common souvenir people buy when they’re in Taiwan. There are so many shops around Taipei it’s hard to sift through which ones are actually good. On our first trip to Taiwan, Tim’s aunt bought us both Chia Te and SunnyHills to bring back to our families. Chia Te is the most internationally known pineapple cake shop and is often the only place people will buy their pineapple cakes from. After trying both of them, our favourite was SunnyHills. They use real pineapple rather than jelly or melon (which most places use), so depending on the season the cake filling may be tart.

At first, my sister and Noel weren’t planning on buying any pineapple cakes since Noel isn’t a big fan of them. He talked about how the first time he had a pineapple cake, it was so dry and turned him off from them. We tried to convince him that the SunnyHills pineapple cake were different than all the other ones he’s had before.

I did a bit of research on the SunnyHills store as it’s about a 15 minute walk from the closest MRT station in a residential area. Luckily we had google maps loaded on Tim’s phone because you can easily miss the subtle signage. When we found it, it looked like a little oasis in the middle of the city.

When we walked in, the very friendly and pretty ladies (Nate kept waving and saying “ni hao”) at the store led us to a table to sit down. The front room was full so they brought us to the back room and we got to sit at our own round table for four people.

The ladies there were so kind and kept pouring us more tea, which was nice of them. Noel, the former pineapple cake hater, had a change of heart after trying them here. After sitting and relaxing for about half an hour, we went to buy some pineapple cakes. Each pineapple cake is 42 NT = $1.70 CAD, and buying them in boxes of 10 or 15 doesn’t change the price per unit. Along with pineapple cakes they sell pineapple juice, honey cake (Castella cakes), and tea.

I would highly recommend anyone traveling to Taipei to go here for pineapple cakes. I have yet to try a better one. I haven’t been to Chia Te yet to look around but I can only imagine it would be a gong show of a store as Trip Advisor reviews all say to go early to avoid massive line ups. SunnyHills was seriously such a calm and relaxing experience that I wouldn’t mind just going there to have some tea and reading a book if they let people do that.

We headed out and decided to walk to our next destination – Breeze Shopping Center. The walk was about 30 minutes and it was nice because we were in a more residential area of Taipei. The streets were tree lined and very quiet. One of the major streets had multi-coloured pinwheels lining it, which gave it a community feel.

As we were walking along the “pinwheel street”, we found a Cama Coffee (I call it Taipei’s Starbucks). We have seen locations all over the city but my sister and Noel (who are coffee drinkers) hadn’t had a chance to try one. Interestingly, as much as Taiwan is a very tea-centric country, Taipei has a lot of really great coffee shops all around the city. Tim and I don’t drink coffee, but according to my sister and Noel, all the coffee places that they’ve tried were very good. Their iced Americano from Cama was 40 NT = $1.60 CAD.

We finally made it to Breeze Center, a mall filled with high end luxury goods as well as other stores. We were there for the other stores, like Muji, Uniqlo, and they even had a Maison Kayser (Paris bakery).

After a pretty full morning and afternoon, we made our way back to the apartment so they could do a final pack up before dinner and the airport. We planned on going to the Tonghua Night Market for dinner, since Noel wanted stinky tofu for the last time and my sister hadn’t tried an oyster omelet yet.

We went to the night market around 6:30pm and it was already really busy (it’s a Saturday night after all). Since Nate needed more of a sit down dinner place, we took them to Formosa Chang’s on Tonghua St. first. Formosa Chang’s is the fast casual chain restaurant that serves a good braised pork on rice. We ordered two large rice bowls, a stewed egg, a plate of vegetables and a pork chop for 242 NT = $9.80 CAD. After we ate at Formosa Chang’s, we got our night market eats and headed back to the apartment with about 45 minutes to spare before Uncle Albert came by.

We’re very fortunate that Uncle Albert has been so kind to us and to my family. Without even meeting them he offered to pick them up from the airport and now has dropped them off for their 11:55pm flight back to Vancouver. My sister and Noel said he parked and saw them off through the security gates.

Saying goodbye to loved ones, especially when we’re away from home for 4.5 months is hard. As most people know I’m extremely close to my family and see them more often than the average person, so being away from them for so long is harder on me – that and I’m a pretty emotional person. Saying goodbye was a teary affair for me and my sister. I think Tim was worried about how much I was crying when they left (I’m better now).

It was great having my sister, Noel, and Nate here. Things started off a bit rocky with Noel and Nate not feeling 100% but after that initial hurdle, the days couldn’t have been better (despite the rainy weather). It was awesome that they were able to come visit us in Taiwan and be able to meet some of Tim’s family and learn more about Taiwanese culture. I’m happy that Taipei was so baby/toddler friendly and we actually learned a lot about what it would be like to be a parent in Taipei (I’ll expand more on that in a future post). We all said we would come back in 10 or so years when we have kids – hope that happens!

Steps for the day: 24,000

Taipei (Day 25): Back to the Rainy City

March 25, 2016

Our last morning in Kenting started like all the others, wake up and head down for breakfast, except this time no swimming after breakfast. I think three nights in Kenting was good enough, especially when the weather wasn’t that great. Without nice weather, there’s really not much to do there, so it was good we were heading back to Taipei.

Our bus from the hotel left at 11am and we arrived at Kaohsiung’s Zuoying station at 1:30pm. We had about an hour to kill before our train back to Taipei. There is a mall attached to the train station that has a Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, Uniqlo, Daiso, Muji and a food court. We walked around and my sister found some cute plastic plates for Nate at Daiso. The items there were only 39 NT = $1.58 (a bit cheaper than the Daiso at home).

The train we took back to Taipei took about two hours this time because we made about five stops along the way. We arrived back to a very wet and colder Taipei. It was about 13 degrees Celsius and raining quite hard. We didn’t have umbrellas so we walked as quickly as possible (Tim: It’s actually best to walk slower in rain to not get as wet, unless it’s windy) and under awnings as much as we could back to Tim’s uncle’s apartment. We dropped off our bags and headed out for dinner. We had our mind set on hot pot because of the weather and we wanted some vegetables.

We headed back to our favourite hot pot place and it was packed for 6:30pm. We were actually surprised it was so busy because most locals eat later than we do in North America. Luckily, there was a table for us and warmed we up with delicious shabu shabu. Nate enjoyed it as well and loved having some of the ice cream at the end.

After dinner we came back to the apartment and my sister and Noel started to pack and organize their luggage (it’s their last night here). Tim and I went through some of our stuff that we realize we don’t need so they could bring it back home for us – mostly Tim’s electronics.

Tomorrow, we’re going to stop by some of their favourite places before they head to the airport around 9pm. Noel wants to go back to Yong Kang Beef Noodle, Nate wants to go back to Daan Park (so we think), and my sister wants to go to Sunny Hills for pineapple cakes.

The forecast tomorrow is sun! Nate has been singing “Rain, rain, go away”, so now his wish will come true. If only the weather had been nice while they were here.

Steps today: 10,000

Taipei (Day 21): Taking it easy in Taipei

March 21, 2016

It was our last full day in Taipei (with my sister, Noel, and Nate) before heading south to Kenting. We headed to Ximending (west Taipei) to walk around and grab some snacks to eat.

The first stop was KFC. My sister and Noel hadn’t tried their egg tarts before so we got a box of six (140 NT = $5.65 for 6). They were warm and delicious, if only KFC North America would serve these for dessert instead of deep and delicious cakes (although, deep and delicious cakes are (Tim: deep and) delicious too).

After walking through Ximending, we went looking for a store called Hakka Blue (the front of the store says “Art Yard”), that Tim’s Mom had told us about that sells “xiao long bao” condiment sets and other crafts made in Taiwan. The store is located in a historic area in Taipei on a street called Dihua. It took about 20 minutes to walk to this area from Ximending. Dihua street reminded me of most cities’ Chinatowns – cobbled streets full of dried fruit and herb stores.

Tim’s Mom hosted an exhibit a few years ago called “Made in Taiwan” and she had these xiao long bao sets on display – this is where my sister fell in love with them. When we found the store, it was not only filled with those xiao long baos, but it had an assortment of other crafted items that were really neat. I could see why Tim’s Mom really likes this store.

We made our way back to the apartment early in the afternoon since we had to pack and clean up before tomorrow morning. We had dinner at a place close to the apartment – a restaurant that is typically for late night eats but is popular for the normal dinner time crowd as well. I wasn’t feeling 100% so I just had a bit of congee and went home and rested.

Can’t believe it’s already been a week since my sister, Noel and Nate have been in Taipei! Nate is finally feeling at home in the apartment and now we’re leaving tomorrow. His favourite place in the apartment is on the balcony because you can see the MRT trains, buses, cars, scooters and a digger in the lot beside the building – it’s a little boy’s dream. Looking forward to going to Kenting tomorrow. It’ll be a nice change of pace and scenery from the city and hopefully we will be able to see some sun.

Our total steps today: 18,000.