Get There: Taiwan

Bonus photo gallery at the bottom!

photo by Ben Bucknole

Name, position on JET and placement

Benedict “Ben There Got The T-Shirt” Piers Bucknole (Ben) – 2nd-year ALT in Uji City

and

Laurel Ryan (L-Dawg) – 3rd-year ALT in Kameoka.

Where did you go and for how long did you stay?

B: Taiwan! I was there for about six days. You?

L: Also Taiwan, but my travel buddy and I were there a mere five days and four nights.

How did you get there?

B: I flew with everyone’s favourite budget Australian airline, Jetstar! In July last year, they commenced a service between Kansai Airport and Singapore via Taipei. I was able to get a promotional fare in October for around 16,000円 return (4000円 cheaper if you don’t need extra legroom like me). That’s Monopoly money.

L: I also partook of Jetstar’s sweet low prices. I didn’t get a promotional fare so my ticket was 26,500円. Still, that was the JetSaver Light fare and my friend and I purchased it just the day before we flew out. We could only bring one personal item and one carry-on that had to weigh10kg or less. I may have fudged a little bit with my carry-on, but it was plenty for the short stay. I highly recommend it.

What did you do?

B:

I stayed in Taipei, right near the main station for ease of getting around. Not terribly pretty, but convenient and heaps of restaurants all around the area.

photo by Ben Bucknole

I wanted to check out as much of the city as I could but also see a little bit of nature, so I went on a day tour to Taroko Gorge on the east coast of the island. I hate bus tours but for my first visit to Taiwan, I thought it best that someone took me around, especially since public transport through the gorge is infrequent at best. To say the least, it was quite spectacular and well worth the journey.

Back to Taipei, though. The National Palace Museum is well worth checking out, with a huge collection of Chinese artifacts from neolithic times all the way up until the early twentieth century, the museum has been called the best attraction in Taiwan and it’s easy to see why. [Laurel's note: During a cultural revolution in China many of the intellects and artists emigrated to Taiwan, taking their work and many artifacts with them. Ergo Taiwan's museums are said to give a more accurate depiction of China's than the mainland's museums!]

photo by Ben Bucknole

From there I checked out a town outside Taipei city called Beitou, famous for its hot springs, and then went further north to the coastal town of Danshui, which was just beautiful.

Taipei is famous for its night markets. There are plenty, but I went to the most well known at Shilin. Pinch your noses, people, because one of the local delicacies is stinky tofu. The name doesn’t lie. It reeks. Apparently, it’s edible. There are heaps of other things to eat and buy, though. Packed with people and open late, it was good fun.

It turned out that I had booked my trip around a national holiday. The most important national holiday in Taiwan, in fact. The tenth of October is Taiwan’s National Day and is called 十十 or ‘Double Ten’ day for obvious reasons. This year marked the hundredth anniversary of the Wuchang uprising. Talk about good timing.

photo by Ben Bucknole

There was a huge parade past the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, which is immensely impressive in itself, but even better with huge inflatable characters floating around. Also, the Office of the President was open in full for public visitation (it’s partially open on a daily basis for bookings but has a handful of days a year where it has an ‘open house’ if you like). The day ended with a big fireworks show on the river. Very cool to be around for that historic day.

Longshan Temple was just fantastic. It’s not especially big or beautiful, but morning prayers were going on and there were so many people dressed in black, giving offerings and singing – I’ve never heard music like this in any temple before. The atmosphere was incredible.

photo by Ben Bucknole

The Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall is also worth visiting and is conveniently located near Taipei 101. You know those shows on Discovery Channel about engineering feats being built? Well, the nerd in me loves them and I’ve watched plenty. Two that always stood out in my memory were the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge and Kansai Airport. Well, living in Kansai, I’ve seen both. Another that stood out was Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world. After riding up the fastest elevator in the world, I spent a while watching the sun go down over Taipei from about 400m up. Not bad.

And that, ladies and gentleman, was my trip to Taiwan. How’s about you, Laurel?

L:

I stayed in Taipei for two nights, Taichung for one, and then the final night back in Taipei. My hotel in Wanhua was less than ten minutes’ walk from the Ximen metro station, and five from a night market and the youthful hub of town. My friend and I were there during two of our three nights in Taipei, once for food and gawking, once for shopping. The youth look to Japan for their fashion and lifestyle trends. In this part of town it doesn’t look terribly different from Osaka, including a giant billboard for Battle Spaceship Yamato, complete with KimuTaku’s airbrushed face. Plus, there are Mr. Donuts, sushi restaurants, and Yoshinoya everywhere. And Starbucks. Lots and lots of Starbucks.

That stinky tofu really is foul-smelling. My friend and I were convinced that some restaurant had a burst pipe or some other sort of sewage problem. Only later did we learn that we smelt food.

As far as “real” sightseeing is concerned, I didn’t do much. This trip was the first time I’d ever visited a new place and skipped on most of the historical sights. I’m not a shopper by virtue of limited patience, but I loved shopping in Taiwan. Try it anywhere. I would like to note that the night markets pretty much all look the same, so if you see one there’s no need go find another just for the experience.

photo by Kim-Chi Do

We were unable to find a paper museum that Lonely Planet claimed was worth a look. There was an interesting side trip to a large thrift store and a lot of walking through neighborhoods, so those couple of hours spent trying to find it weren’t a total waste. We visited MOCATaipei, the museum of contemporary art. It was during the “Mediaholic” exhibition by Nitsai Chin. He’s a major Taiwanese artist whose most famous piece is a pig-dog-dog-dog orgy entitled “Who Is The Happiest?” which is, obviously, a social and political commentary. I wasn’t super impressed the man’s work, but it was still an interesting experience. There were also a couple of smaller exhibits in other rooms that I enjoyed. I would recommend a visit for modern art fans and cynics alike.

I also visited Taipei 101 on an unfortunately cloudy day. My advice is to check the weather beforehand. We did not and still enjoyed the trip. On your way down from the top you can purchase a kind of coral (whose harvest is supposedly not illegal nor controversial), jade figures and jewelry, and omiyage packaged just the way you need it. There are a lot of luxury shops in Taipei 101. If you’ve never allowed yourself to enter a Prada store for fear of instantly being recognized as poor, Taipei is a good place to brave the doorstep of high design. It’s fun to look, at least.

The food is by and large great. I had delicious xiao long bao at Din Tai Fung even though there’s one in Kyoto, accidentally ate bloody cake from a night stall, bell fruit (which at first I thought was just a frail apple), and an oily donburi-type rice bowl from a greasy spoon restaurant in Wanhua. There’s a myriad of foreign restaurants in Taipei and the surrounding areas, so if you’re craving Thai or American, Vietnamese or French then you’re in luck.

photo by Laurel Ryan

In Taichung I ate wonderful Vietnamese food and the Taiwanese version of shabu shabu. It pretty much tasted the same, but there were different sauces to be used for dipping and flavoring the soup. I also tried Taiwan’s specialty: pearl milk tea. If you’ve ever had bubble tea or any drink with tapioca balls in the bottom, thank Taiwan. Our host took my friend and me to one of the best pearl milk tea shops around, which had a menu more extensive than Starbucks’s. I had some sort of tea-based drink with both tapioca and coffee jelly cubes floating around. It was wonderful and a must-try for any visitor. Plus, I was completely wired during the HSR (High Speed Rail) ride back to Taipei.

On our last day in Taipei my friend and I stored our luggage at the main station and headed over to the Taipei Zoo. We got there fairly late in the day and so only saw about half of the extensive grounds. Still, we saw pandas, motherlickers! First they were asleep, then they yawned, and then they woke up and started moving around, and I nearly died from The Cute. Even without seeing many of the exhibits I was impressed with the zoo. The penguin house is spacious, the chimpanzee area is impressive, and there are a ton of lemurs and the pygmy hippo has a calf. I give Taipei Zoo two opposable thumbs up.

photo by Laurel Ryan

Recommended activities/sights/sites:

Ben

Taroko Gorge – one day tours are easy to come by
Taipei 101 – watch the sun go down from the top and see the building lit up at night from the bottom
Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall
Longshan Temple
photo by Ben Bucknole

Laurel

Taipei Zoo=pandas (and an American bison, for anyone who’s never seen such a beast)
Hiking/Trailwalking—we couldn’t fit this into our schedule, but it was recommended by a friend who had interned there. The Portuguese named Taiwan “Ilha Formosa” or The Beautiful Island, and the place lives up to its monniker. Taiwan is said to have some of the most scenic trails in the world.
Shopping
- Any night market. They mostly look the same, but they’re a great place for people-watching and getting some new foods and strange fruits. You can haggle on just about anything and the shopkeepers will still be nice to you.
- That luxury bag you’ve been eyeing is cheaper than in Japan, even at the Taoyuan airport! There are some luxury recycle shops as well―always fun to see a used Chanel clutch that costs more than my new Muji bed did. The Zhongxiao Fuxing area was my favorite.
- Taiwan is known for its innovative technology. Check out some of the electronic gadgets stores; had I not needed to buy omiyage I would have returned with pockets full of USBs shaped like Kamen Riders.

Advice for future visitors (things to watch out for, good eats, tips, etc.)

Ben

Taiwan is typhoon and earthquake central, so you have to think about when to go. I can thoroughly recommend October as a good time to travel – end of the typhoon season, still hot and humid, but no worse than a Kyoto summer (and we all know what those are like).
Buses between Taoyuan International Airport and central Taipei are very frequent, very cheap (about 300円) and take about an hour.
Taipei has an excellent public transport system, including a metro and buses. Buy the Taipei Pass (in 1, 2, 3 or 5 day varieties) from any metro station for unlimited bus and train travel.
- Laurel says: We did the Easycard, which is similar to the ICOCA or PitaPa in function. We didn’t travel by public bus, but even with a lot of metro travel we never ran out of cash on our cards.
Taiwan is cheap! If you really wanted to spend money, I’m sure you could. But food, transport, hostels, hotels, markets – Taiwan is a very affordable holiday from Japan.
Find KGB – Kiwi Gourmet Burgers. Run by some New Zealanders, they make good burgers (including New Zealand lamb) and serve Monteith’s beer (from New Zealand, strangely enough). Check out their website here.
photo by Ben Bucknole

Laurel

If you’re travelling by bus (coach) outside the city, make sure you know the kanji for your stop. Ask someone to help you recognize it if you aren’t sure. Beware of taking buses during the rush hours if you have a set schedule.
Most everyone we encountered in Taiwan could speak enough English to make travel easy. If they couldn’t speak English they could get by with Japanese (the lady at the airport couldn’t say the “ch” sound, though). Of course, Taipei has the highest number of willing English speakers, and even the Family Mart employees could understand when I asked them about WiFi.
Speaking of which, WiFi in Taiwan is plentiful and often free. Both the crappy budget hotel in which we spent the first two nights and the upscale one in which we stayed our last night had free WiFi. However, if you want to access the internet in public areas then you probably need a Taiwanese phone. I made the mistake of purchasing a day’s worth of WiFi at a 7-11 for my iPod Touch. When I entered the code for it the company asked for a mobile phone number. For security reasons they had to send the final passcode in an SMS to the mobile. My phone didn’t work in Taiwan so I ended up wasting my money. Be forewarned.
The taxi doors don’t open automatically. The streets are a little dirtier. Shopkeepers and vendors are more aggressively friendly. Nobody bows.
Bloody cake—it smells like meat, but it is not meat. You may not be able to read the kanji on the vendor’s stand, or even see what you’re buying because it’s at night. However, if that meat-smelling thing on a stick is rectangular, covered in a sauce and dusted with kinako, it’s probably pig’s blood mixed with rice. It was neither completely disgusting nor tasty enough to make the experience worth it.
If you’re going for omiyage, try Sun Cakes, Moon Cakes, Pineapple Cake, or something made with purple taro root.

Questions for Ben or Laurel? Advice or stories from your own trip to Taiwan? Leave them in the comments!