High Speed Rail
With our convoluted tickets booked, we boarded the high speed train from Taichung to Taipei. The trip only took an hour for the 165km journey. At one point the display read 283km per hour. We were all pretty stoked.
Upon arriving at Taipei main station, we took a while to find our accommodation, as google maps didn’t differentiate between north and south for the address, so we were a couple of blocks off. When we did find it, it was in a very tall tower. We took the elevator to the 23rd floor where our apartment was and found the door open. We decided to make ourselves at home and get ready to go out to meet my friend from work, Hailey. I checked the instructions again and saw our host lived on the 15th floor, so we checked in on our way out.
Hot Pot
We grabbed a bus to the hot pot restaurant we were meeting Hailey and her family. Upon arrival, her husband kindly translated the instructions to us and got us all set up. No instructions though were needed for how to get the unlimited beer from the tap. Soon, robots were delivering our hot pot ingredient choices and we were trying to make room for ice cream after. A couple of hours later, we wandered out to explore the area a bit more and pay for our super bowl tickets.
Cheryl’s Last Day
Determined to make the most of Cheryl’s last day before her midnight flight, despite the cold and somewhat wet weather, we headed to historic Dahua street, decorated for Chinese New Year and busy with last minute shopping. From there, we headed down deserted streets until we hit the busy Ximen area, a former red light district which is now the entertainment, shopping and cultural district. It was suddenly teeming with people. Or so we thought, until we visited again a few days later for the upcoming lantern festival when it was absolutely packed.
With very little open near our hotel for the New Year, we found a Japanese place for Cheryl’s last dinner. We played a last couple of games of Yahtzee and saw her to the train to the airport.
Chinese/Lunar New Year
The next day was still cold and quiet in the city, but we did find all the people not celebrating (mostly foreigners) at the Taipei Hyatt and outside the Taipei 101 station to watch the lion dances. Despite the crowds at the Hyatt, it was probably the most impressive I have seen, with the dancers doing acrobatics and high platforms to perform. We also found some great food stalls in the university district and checked out the grounds of the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall.
The next day was finally clear, so we took advantage (as did many others) to hike Elephant Mountain, then headed for the gondola. Not really knowing what were getting in for, we ended up spending four hours hiking around and admiring the views and temples before heading back for dinner.
Superbowl
Our final day in Taipei we woke up before 6am to get to the bar before 7am. Yup, before 7am. It was finally Superbowl day. This was actually the third time I had watched Superbowl cheering for the Chiefs, as we happened to be travelling the last three times the Chiefs had made it. At the most popular sports bar in Taipei, the place was soon packed. Good thing Jon had reserved us a table. And for free coffee.
Feeling pretty good, particularly Jon, we decided to check out the views from Taipei 101, as it was another clear day. It really gives you a sense of the scale of the city, and we realized that while Chinese New Year meant our food options were somewhat limited, we had been able to move across the city on buses much quicker than normal and see more than we would have. We did find a delicious dumpling place open for our last meal and made it to the Tamsui river just in time for sunset. We strolled along for a while before gearing up for our last night plans: claw machines, photo and karaoke booths we had discovered after dropping Cheryl off at the airport train in the underground world that existed between the main train station and our apartment building. There was a learning curve on all of them, but we were at least prepared for the claw machines, having watched how-to videos the night before. While definitely not cost effective, we all won some snacks and left with our pride intact.
We woke up early again the next day to head for our flight to the Philippines.
