Come Away With Me

This will be the first post about my time in Taiwan :)

My flight left Xi'an on January 5th and I arrived in Taibei at 9 in the evening. I was picked up by Caro, one of my classmates from Germany and the main reason that I came to Taiwan. Exchanged my Renminbi for Taiwanese dollars and promptly held in my hand the first 1000-dollar bill of my life. 1000 Taiwanese dollars in Euro? About 27 at the time of writing. I then had my first encounter with the particularities of the Taiwan dialect, while we were getting tickets for the bus into the city. The main difference in pronounciation is that people here don't differentiate between the sounds sh- and s-, zh- and z- or ch- and c-. Everything to them is s-, z-, c-. Also some of them pronounce r's as l's. Anyway, so the person selling the tickets told us when the bus would leave, which was 11:40. shi yi dian si shi. But, since she was obviously Taiwanese, she said si yi dian si si. It actually sounds very cute, just takes you some time to get used to. I'm pretty okay with it now and sometimes I even do it myself. Creepy. I hope they still understand me in Xi'an when I come back.

The adventure that is Taiwan started the next day. Caro's lessons only start at noon (what a life), so we slept in and I accompanied her to her university's campus. After she went to her class I was left to my own devices, so I went to visit one of Taibei's main temples, the Longshan temple. It was really beautiful, didn't take any pictures though. This was before I learned that it's quite normal to take pictures inside temples in Taiwan. But don't worry, there will be plenty more temple pictures :D Afterwards I went back to meet Caro and her friends for lunch. I think I had some sort of curry. It was very good, anyway. As was everything that I've eaten here so far. I then went out on my own again, my destination was the Museum of Modern Art. Sadly, I got there after closing time, so I just walked around the surrounding park, which was amazing. Pictures below. I also by chance found Taibei's Confucius temple nearby, so I naturally went to check it out. It was quite nice walking around it at night, very peaceful. In the evening I went to meet up with Caro in 士林 Shilin, for my first night market experience. Night markets in Taiwan are the best place to go for food. There is so much good food there!! While there we tried 鸡排 (a giant piece of fried chicken), some weird Tofu on a stick thing, a pancake with ice cream in it and I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Went to bed feeling altogether content with the world.

The park. With ice-cream!

Apparently it's still Christmas in Taiwan.

The Confucius temple. Sorry, blurry night picture.

On Wednesday, the 7th, already my last day in Taibei, I went to see its top attraction, Taibei 101. Wandered around the gigantic shopping mall for quite a while until figuring out that they have two different ticket offices, one for groups and one for normal visitors. And then I finally went up. If I remember correctly, Taibei 101 is currently the world's 4th tallest building and the view you have from up there is truly amazing. You can also go see the damper that's hanging inside the tower to keep it from swaying too much in windy weather. It was there that I was addressed by a stranger for the first time in Taiwan. Which is kind of crazy to me, I went a whole day without someone asking me for a picture? Madness. Luckily, a Japanese girl asked me to take a picture with her there, so a little bit of normality returned :D In general, people don't tend to stare quite as much at foreigners in Taiwan as they do in China. Quite a nice change, if I may say so. Also a nice change is that people here care about traffic laws. They stop at a red light and they yield to pedestrians. Heaven *_* And of course, the air quality is a million times better than in Xi'an. Now, where was I? After the visit to the tower I walked to the Sun Yat-sen memorial hall which is very close. There I was hit by a lucky coincidence. At the time, there was a singing competition being held in the concert hall (don't ask me why the memorial has a concert hall, it just does) and I sneaked in there. It was pretty hilarious, choirs from China were singing on stage, nobody in the audience seemed to care much and clapping was kept to a minimum. The moderator tried his best to keep them interested, but most people there were just dozing off. Not me though, I was enjoying myself immensely. There was even a choir from Shaanxi there. Home sweet home. After this amazing day, I met up with Caro in 西门町 Ximending, a quarter full of shops and food stalls. Walked around there for a while, found a hidden little temple, which you find everywhere in Taiwan by the way, and then went back to her flat. That evening a few of her friends were coming by her place to watch a movie and make pancakes. The pancakes and the friends I enjoyed immensely :) The movie (Eurotrip) not so much. All in all a great evening though! Also, I found cheese in her flat! Real cheese, in a piece and ready to eat! I'm sorry for eating half of it Caro. I just couldn't control myself.

The city from above.

The Japanese girl took this picture of me.

The damper and the mascot of the tower, called damper baby.

The tower from afar. You can see it from pretty much anywhere in the city.

Shout out to my Estonian friends! Tallinn is in Taibei 101!

The random temple.

My impression of Taibei after this very short time? It's a very well functioning city. You can get everywhere by Metro or walking and there is food everywhere. Also people are really polite. And they will not sit on the priority seats on trains. I was stared at hard when I did once. I promise I will never do it again.

That concludes my time in Taibei, next stop: Hualien.

Chinese Word of the Day: 博爱 bo'ai, fraternity/humanity. It's used to translate

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité: 自由，平等，博爱 and also to mark priority seats on public transport.