Taiwan Bound. And Then There Were Four...

We arrived safely in Taipei, Taiwan after waking up at 3:00am to catch our 7:30am plane with only an hour or so of sleep. Our apartment was very nice and modern, fully furnished and close to the local business district, shops and MRT station. Charlie (the apartment owner), took the time to show us on a map where we should visit for hikes, shopping and famous sites to see. With such lack of sleep we took a nap to recuperate before exploring the city. The apartment building is supervised by a twenty four hour security guard. The guard that we met when we arrived is named Ren. Ren was so very nice to us and told us how it was his last day at the apartment building. He gave us his mobile number and told us to call him if we get lost or need to know where to go and he will come on his scooter to help us. This act of kindness gave us an idea of the sort of people we were to meet in the coming days and was only the very beginning of the kindness and generosity that was demonstrated to us by the locals throughout our trip. 

In comparison to Hong Kong, getting around is much easier as Taiwan is geographically flat. Hong Kong however has various different altitudes and can be difficult to get around by foot as you need to walk up and down multiple hills to get to and from your destination. 

After a nap we caught the MRT to the local night markets where we discovered just how cheap everything was. We ate "street food" for dinner which included fried chicken, hand made stone baked pork buns, peanut balls, scallops and tofu. The fried chicken was the best! Esther was told by a friend that Taiwan was famous for its fried chicken at the street markets and she certainly was not wrong. Even after the first day we could not believe how cheap everything was, relative to Hong Kong. The food in comparison to Hong Kong is much better and there is so much more variety. 

In economics we have studied the costs of living in comparison between two or more countries. Whilst exchange rates fluctuate from country to country it does not give an accurate display of a currency's value (i.e. what you can buy with $1.00) also known as the Purchasing Power Parity. A certain method of doing this is called the 'Big Mac Index'. As the McDonald's Big Mac is one of the only standardised products that is available in almost every country in the world it is used in economics to determine the value of one country's currency to another. This informal method of measuring purchasing power parity was evident between Hong Kong and Taiwan where I measured the difference between the a Big Mac meal. In Hong Kong the meal is $21.00 HKD ($3.00 $AUD) and in Taiwan the same meal was $70 TWD ($2.70 AUD). Whilst the price difference between the two is not that large, it shows that you can buy more with $1.00 in that country regardless of the exchange rate. Compare the price of the same meal in Australia and you have yourself a decent variance. This price of such a standardised good is of course dependent on the welfare and living standards of that country.

Following a nice sleep in we were up and ready to visit the National Palace Museum. The museum was located in what appeared to be a traditional Taiwanese temple that had been refurbished on the inside to fit the purpose of the museum. Unfortunately, none of us had really studied any history of Taiwan so it was difficult for us to appreciate many of the artefacts that were on display, also the fact that many of the tapestries were written in Chinese characters made it difficult to comprehend. As the next tour was not until later that afternoon we decided to have a late lunch and decided on Shabu Shabu hot pot at a nearby restaurant where we managed to get our vegetable fix for which we were all in dire need of. 


That Tuesday night we visited 'Shilin Night Markets'. These markets were huge and were situated across multiple streets, too much to cover in one night. I managed to find a store that had very good quality mens clothing at very reasonable prices. As I had many items I was going to purchase I managed to barter for a further discount and was very happy with my overall purchases.

We were set to have dinner in Taipei City so we headed for the 101 Trade Centre building only to find that everything was closed and there were no people around, after all it was midnight. We hailed a cab to pick us up, unbeknown to us that we were about to embark on the most exhilarating taxi ride of our lives. Our taxi driver 'Mi-Lee' spoke very little english and struggled to understand exactly where we wanted him to take us when we said "bars", "beers" and "restaurants" in both mandarin and english. I sat in the passenger seat in the front with Mi-Lee with my feet pressing as hard up against the floor of the vehicle as Mi-Lee ran two red lights, gliding across three lanes of an intersection dodging cars before weaving between a dozen or so scooters. We made reference to "Mi-Lee" sounding like the artist Miley Cyrus and that he "came in like a wrecking ball" that "we can't stop" driving. He found it humorous that we wanted to go to what he referred to as a "romantic" dinner with nice meals and beer as opposed to going out and partying hard. After driving us around in circles to show us the different restaurants we could visit I finally convinced him to stop and let us out under the condition that we would dine at his recommended restaurant. The restaurant had beautiful food and was incredibly cheap. We had a few beers with dinner and it was my first time trying clams and bullfrog which were delicious, but nothing as good as the deep fried fresh crab!

When leaving we hailed another taxi. The taxi driver was speaking quiet abruptly in mandarin when we gave him our address but we continued to try and explain that we did not know where we were and that we needed to get to this address. What we didn't realise until we got out of the car was that our apartment building was literally just across the road from the restaurant that Mi-Lee had taken us too. Any wonder the taxi driver was confused, he must have thought that we were trying to pull a prank on him. We could not believe that we were so close to home and laughed at our oblivion.

Wednesday was the day of the hot springs at Xinbeitou. On our way, we stopped by a cherry blossom tree to take some photos. An old lady we named 'Shower Cap Lady', saw us taking photos and came over pointing and speaking in mandarin. Luckily Esther was able to translate what she was saying which was that there were more cherry blossom trees in the direction that she was heading and that she would take us there. As it began to rain the old lady presented herself with a folded up shower cap which she wrapped around her head to cover her hair from getting wet in the rain, hence her name 'Shower Cap Lady'. The strip of cherry blossom trees that she took us to revealed some amazingly beautiful scenery where the pink colour of the flowers against the dark and gloomy city allowed me to produce some nice shots on the SLR.

We later found our way back to the local hot spring pools after our short detour of the cherry blossoms. It was amazing to see the cultural difference between us and the locals. We did not take into consideration the effect we would have on the locals as us boys stepped into the hot, steaming pool wearing only short board shorts and the girls in bikinis. You could smell the sulphur as we entered the town and it was now even stronger as we sat in the water that it engulfed. The four pools were spread across different levels according to temperature, each one increasing in temperature the higher it was above ground level. The water from the hot springs than trickled down from pool to pool until it reached the bottom pool, which naturally was the coolest, 38-40 degrees with the highest being 45-48 degrees Celsius. 

We proceeded to have beef noodles at a local restaurant to Henry's desire. Henry is from Canada and is currently studying science at HKU but is unsure as to what he wants to do long-term as a career. He is considering taking on medicine and becoming a doctor but is also interested in science and similarly to me, architecture. We managed to talk about our interests and similar passion for architecture and its appreciation during our many walks along the outskirts of Taipei. That night we hired our own private karaoke room for a bit of fun and headed to a restaurant shortly after for dinner before heading home to bed for our hike to the waterfall in the morning.

It was a long morning of travelling to Shifen village to visit the famous waterfall. The amount of people that were squeezed onto our train was insane, we literally could not move and it was getting very hot and sticky with all those people on one train. The waterfall's enormity was astounding, you could feel the spray of the water against your face from across the valley as we took many photos of our breathtaking view. I was gobsmacked at the fact that the town is divided by the railway line and that until a train comes along it is used for such things as selling food/gifts, children playing and lighting lanterns to send off into the sky. 

I was stopped on our way to the waterfall by a group of Taiwanese high school girls who were amazed to see a tall white tourist. They could not believe how tall Henry and I were and insisted on getting photos with us and later adding me on Facebook.

We took the train a few stops further to a small town called Pingxi where we sent off our very own hand-painted lantern into the sky before grabbing a bite to eat and heading back to Shilin to visit the Night Markets for some last minute shopping and final taste of that mouthwatering street food. One thing for sure is that I am quite over the smell of "stinky tofu", I began to feel sick at the markets having smelt it being cooked so many times, there is only so much of it you can take.

Throughout the trip we have seen countless homeless people rummaging through bins for leftover food. That night we walked past a lady searching the bins for bottles to obtain money from recycling them. Esther and myself stopped and gave the lady our water bottles. I felt so much sympathy for this old lady that I was going to go to McDonald's and buy her a meal. However I realised that she was not really searching for food in the bin only bottles and I did not want to offend nor assume that she hungry and would eat something from McDonald's, so unfortunately I did nothing. It sure does make me appreciate what basic things I have in my life such as access to water, money, food, education, a warm bed at night and a roof over my head.

Since arriving in Hong Kong we have been eating a fair amount of McDonald's, especially as a last minute resort if there are no restaurants available to eat at. For someone who has not eaten McDonald's in three years I sure have made up for it in these last three and a half weeks. Monday will be the start of no more McDonald's, choosing healthy options when eating, exercising every day and going to the gym at least three times a week. Lets see how I go.

It was Friday morning and we were up and ready to leave for the airport at 9:00am. We had an hour or so to kill before departing for the airport so we decided to grab some last minute items from the shops plus a morning coffee to try and use up the last of our Taiwanese dollars. We came back to the apartment and were just about to leave when Henry dropped the one statement that nobody wants to hear two and a half hours before your flight, "Guys I can't find my passport". We searched high and low throughout the entire apartment and through our bags trying to find Henry's passport but we had no luck and we were running out of time, it was lost. We had to leave Henry behind at the apartment as he searched and called up places we had visited to see if it had been handed in. Due to our new time constraints we caught a taxi straight to the airport rather than the MRT where we had checked in and were ready for our flight back to Hong Kong. 


That feeling of leaving something behind had returned in the pit of my stomach except this time I knew exactly what it was; not the iPad nor the sunglasses but another member of our group, Henry. As bad as we felt for leaving him, unfortunately there was nothing more we could do and we could not afford to miss our flights and stay with him, especially after all the trouble we had gone to secure those flights home. Due to the Canadian embassy being closed until Monday, Henry will have to stay in Taipei for another 5 days before being able to return to Hong Kong which means missing out on a full week of uni classes. 

And then there were four...