Taipei as you go

It seems the year stole a few bases on us while we weren't looking, so now it's August and the summer holidays are halfway done as if by magic. Work gave up without too much of a fight 2 Fridays ago, kicking off a 16 day break which was for the most part spent in sunny (steamy tropical oh god do I even have sweat glands there) Taipei. Unusually enough, we were packed and organised days in advance so by the time we headed out toward the airport, we were bordering on calm. We weren't quite sure what to expect when we got there - I couldn't work out if it was going to be more like Bangkok or Singapore - but as long as they had beer and dim sum it was going to be alright with me.

We got to the airport with a minimum of pre-trip domestic violence, had a quick bite to eat and boarded the  little Jetstar plane that was to be our home for the next 2 hours and 40 minutes. Flights as short as that are almost pleasant - you take off, you read for a while and then you land without feeling like you've spent 11 hours chewing on plastic shopping bags and cotton buds. We got into Taipei at about dinner time and were hustled out of the airport into a diesely bus station, where we boarded what looked like an armoured personnel carrier. We suddenly found ourselves illiterate, but our best guess was that the driver was barking "sit the hell down" so we squeezed into the only 2 seats left and embarked on the strangest bus ride of all time. Taipei subscribes to the Bangkok style of driving where you use the horn instead of the brake and the accelerator instead of your indicators; we passed no less than two crashed buses on our way to the station. Between the carnage on the roads and the hundreds of odd pieces of new highway stretching up like temple pillars across the landscape, I was rubbernecking even more than usual.

Youth hostels? I spit on your youth hostels

Somehow we made it to the station (which seemed to not have a roof) in one piece and managed to work out the MRT system well enough to get to our hotel stop. We were expecting a 3 day forced march to get there but after a pleasingly small amount of luggage-rolling-on-the-road-noise, we were checked in and shown to our cavernous hotel room. For the first time in history, it was bigger than the photos suggested - a king size bed and chaise and a bathroom you could play tennis in. Vowing to have a jacuzzi later, we had a quick unpack and decided to head out to the night market for a bit of food and wandering.

Dee-lish

Saturday nights, Shilin Night Market apparently stays open well past midnight which is awful nice when you live 5 minutes walk and can just wander in and out. Our first stop of the trip was a little hawker food stand with plastic chairs and sticky tables, serving food that had no right to be as good as it was. We had pepper fried chicken, crispy shrimp pancake and the unlikely-sounding prawns and pineapple in mayonnaise, all of which were fabulous.

Anything worth doing is worth overdoing

We were instructed to join queues whenever we saw them (because whatever it is will be worth queueing for), and the first queue we found was one for "large fried chicken" which turned out to be a spicy chicken cutlet the size of a dinner plate. There comes a time when you just can't eat any more deep fried things, and about halfway through this was an hour past that time.

Be glad the "smellograph" hasn't been invented yet

We had a good poke around the rest of the food area, stumbling quite quickly across the "stinky tofu", a local "delicacy" that seems to be Taiwan's answer to durian. It basically smells like a zoo - animal sweat and dung and straw - so pungent that it's banned indoors. The smell is amusing for about 2 minutes and then just cloying and unpleasant for the rest. Despite the tourist brochures declaring I'd be "hooked on the first bite", I never got closer than scowling distance.

Four legs good, two legs better

The night market stretches on for dozens of blocks with endless alleys of little stalls selling snacks, souvenirs and clothes. The shopfronts connect everything together and fill in the gaps with everything else you can imagine buying (including a pet pig). It wasn't dazzlingly cheap compared to some other places in Asia and a lot of places didn't seem to haggle at all but that was fine with me - I get bored of the "my wife will beat me but okay 300" thing very quickly. After all the window shopping we could handle, we retired to the hotel and I lay in the jacuzzi up to my nose with a big submerged smile.

A light Emperor's lunch

The next day we shambled downstairs and were set up for the day with the first of our hotel breakfasts - a buffet of hot and cold food where I ate my fill and then a piece of french toast. I'm not sure how I didn't work out this secret sooner, back when I was staying in backpackers and breakfast was just the day's first bleary-eyed trip to the convenience store. Fed and watered, we headed to the "Palace Museum", a sightseeing spot with almost as many ancient Chinese treasures as ancient Chinese tourists. It was interesting enough but beyond the odd curiosity (a jade head of cabbage and a piece of meat carved from agate) the vases and calligraphy brush holders all started to look the same after a while. We escaped the stampeding tour groups for long enough to enjoy lunch at the "Emperor's Teahouse", a bright and cheery little restaurant on the roof where we had some dim sum and outrageously rich beef brisket noodles and enjoyed the view of the grounds.

This could be the start of a beautiful friendship

We met up with Lisa's friend Gareth later, who's been living in Taiwan for the past two years and was much cluier than we were about where to go and what to do there. Dodging streams of scooters, we had a quick wander through another night market near his apartment where Lisa discovered the lime jelly drink that became her obsession for the rest of the trip. We stopped by the pineapple stand where a man excitedly chopped one up for us, then we headed to a little restaurant.

And then we ate again

Dinner was in the style of a Japanese "izakaya", where you graze on lots of little tapasy things and wash it down with lots of beer. By special request we got our prawn mayonnaise thing again, which had hundreds and thousands on it for some reason (which worked surprisingly well). I was sure they'd undercharged us when we left - it didn't cost more than a couple of bucks each. We went back to Gareth's apartment for jelly drinks and pineapple, then said our goodbyes and got back on the MRT for home.

It's a wharf, alright

Our next port of call was Fisherman's Wharf, which I'm surprised we even made it to given the heat; it was 37 degrees or something which you can safely add 1000 to with the humidity. We managed to scramble out of the sun and find a bus, getting further and further off the beaten track until we were dropped at a little pier with a bridge and absolutely noone around. Most of the places there were closed and we discovered to our annoyance that all of the tourist brochures and posters showed it as a bustling nightlife area - we were there about 8 hours too early.

The silver lining

I'm wondering how much more interesting it would have been at night, mind you - the lights were pretty but it was such a small area I can't imagine people would be flocking there. Undaunted, we found a nice little dockside bar and sat sipping beer out of a bendy straw with the flying fish leaping around in the surf outside. We did a couple of laps of the souvenir shops along the boardwalk before retreating into the air conditioning and heading back into the city.

That's more like it

Our next attempt was much more successful - the Memorial Hall for the President of Taiwan. Basically this is a little building sitting at the head of an immense courtyard with statues and displays that go through the history of Taiwan and its tumultuous relationship with China. The basement holds case after case of military uniforms and medals, old photos and diaries and even the bulletproof cars the President used to be driven around in.

That's some good helmet shining, boy

The bit everyone goes to see is the changing of the guard though - two soldiers all dressed in crisp uniforms with silver guns and helmets stand there motionless like the Buckingham Palace guards; they only shift on the hour when it's time to swap. With a big shout and lots of stamping, two more marched in and kicked off a very elaborate ceremony - they saluted the President's statue, twirled and cocked their guns and eventually swapped them with the old guards'. I imagine they would have been pleased to have a break from it - I was sweating enough just in shorts and a t-shirt.

Why do they call it the Grand Hotel?

There were bouts of torrential rain over the next couple of days so we were more than happy to use the excuse to read, jacuzzi and lie around hedonistically. Between bouts of vigorous relaxing, we also found time to head over to the Grand Hotel, an excessively Chinese monstrosity full of red carpet, lanterns and smiling people in tuxedos. It's particularly famous for dim sum, so I was surprised to find the restaurant was a gloomy little place that looked more like a cafeteria. The food was amazing though, and the kitchen was fully open on one side so you could watch the chefs chopping away with their cleavers and making it all by hand.

Like a building but bigger

Our last big trip was out to Taipei 101, the 2nd tallest building in the world and possibly the most outrageously expensive. It sits astride a designer mall where the average item will cost you approximately 8 million dollars - we skipped most of it and headed to the observation deck on the 89th(!) floor. The first 5 floors take about 10 minutes to get through but the rest are done in about 30 seconds thanks to an elevator that I'm pretty sure is actually a rocket. The top is open on all sides offering a commanding view of the city from horizon to horizon and if that's not high enough, there's an outdoor observation deck 2 floors up. We learned all about the motion dampener that's supposed to keep the building from toppling in heavy winds and natural disasters (which looking down, we were quite grateful for), then circled down through a few floors of very strange shops and exhibits - it was like a Whitman's Sampler of museums and tourist traps. This was far from our last shopping - we headed out the next day to a huge mall and continued the spendings (mostly at Burger King - you do start to miss Whoppers eventually, it seems).

Back in our element

Our trip ended much the way it started - back at the scummy yummy Shilin Night Market stall. We had a final whip around to buy our last minute t-shirts and souvenirs, then retired to the hotel to pack up for the trip home the next day. We got back into Japan without incident or deportation and despite having a nice trip, getting home is probably the best bit of all. After all the fun and games though, going back to work is going to feel awful strange. I wonder if they'll just let me read my book and eat pineapple cakes for the rest of the year.