Taiwan - Taipei / Kaohsiung

We have now made it down to Kaohsiung after spending a few days in Taipei. The weather since we have been here has been scorching and humid which really makes it quite uncomfortable to go sightseeing in the middle of the day. Nevertheless we managed to pack in quite a bit during our time in Taipei.

We stayed at Holo Family House in the middle of Taipei near Taipei Main Station. It was a very friendly hostel with a great location but it was by far the most expensive place we have stayed so far in Asia. I think the times of US$10/night hotels are over for us on this trip - darn it!

We had a nice time catching up with Paul's friends Glenn and Aki for dinner one night. It was quite funny - since Glenn and Aki have lived in Taipei for about 1 year Paul thought that they would know somewhere nice to go for dinner. Glenn and Aki thought Paul would know because he was from Taiwan!! In the end we ate at a dumpling restaurant that Glenn and Aki picked which was very nice. We also caught up with Paul's friends Bonny and Sonny, his cousin Shing-yi (Sandy) and his friend Chia-heng (Hans) and his girlfriend.

Most days we headed out to see some of the sights around the city and at night we always ended up at one of the night markets. We managed to see the National Palace museum again (yes, we lined up for another view of the jade cabbage), checked out the 2/28 Peace Park and Museum, spent a day shopping for electronics (it's Taiwan - it's what you do), trawled Taipei 101 for a few hours and checked out one of the parks in the suburbs. We also spent a day shopping for outdoor gear as we are freaking out that we are going to freeze in either Mongolia, Tibet or Nepal. At night we saw Shilin night market, Yong-he night market (near Shing-yi's house), Shida night market and on one night we rode the train all the way to Miaokou night market at Jilong. Because Jilong is a port there is tonnes of seafood in the night market. We loaded up on takeaway crabs then ordered rice and veg at another stall and ate the lot.

I really can't say enough about Taipei's MRT system which allowed us to get all around the city without any problems. Although there are heaps of different lines, they are all colour coded and they have English translations for everything so the couple of times I had to use the MRT by myself I didn't have any problems. The whole time we were in Taipei I don't think we waited more than two or three minutes for a train and the air conditioning in the trains was pure bliss. There are MRT stations near most of the major sights and where there isn't there's always a connection that's really easy to work out (a free shuttle to Taipei 101 and connecting buses to the National Palace Museum for example). Even when we wanted to visit a park which was a little way from the MRT station the station staff told us to get on a free shuttle to a hospital that was right across the road! The fares for most of the trips we took were around NT$20 (less than AU$1). It really is the only way to get around in Taipei.

While we were in Taipei we visited a travel agency to try to see whether we could book a train ticket to Mongolia to solve our irritating onward ticket problem. It turns out that you can't book the ticket from here but the travel agent suggested that she just do up a fake ticket for us to show the airline - sweet! Hopefully that solves that problem.

After Taipei we went back to Ilan for another few days (during which we managed to fit in another few banquets). We tried to ride all the way to the sea with one of Paul's cousins but unfortunately it started storming - thwarted again! Paul's cousin had this really cool folding bike. They are everywhere here and I am very taken with them. They fold up quite small and you can fit them into a bag which you just put in the boot of the car or in the luggage compartment on the train. Very nifty.

We've been in Kaohsiung for a few days during which we have attended another four banquets. I can literally feel myself expanding from day to day. As I am usually the "honoured guest" I have to eat first and everyone keeps giving me food until I can barely stand. It is such a mean tradition in country of people who never seem to put on any weight. Seriously - have you ever seen a 45kg girl sit down and eat a bowl of noodles bigger than her head? I have.

In a couple of days we are heading up into the mountains to climb Yushan (Taiwan's highest mountain). I really, really wanted to climb Yushan this time and I was initially very excited to do it. Now though I don't know how I am going get up! We are going with a mountain climbing club so they will probably be really fit. I feel like our last two weeks in Thailand (which were basically spent laying either on the beach or on the deck of a boat) and the 9 or 10 banquets I've been force fed in the last 2 - 3 weeks have not exactly increased my fitness levels. Hmmmmm....

Experiencing a little problem with Picasa at the moment but more photos should be up as soon as I can resolve that.