Heather's Adventures in Asia: March 2009

On Tuesday, I got back from my second major trip...to Taipei, Taiwan! Before coming to Asia, I didn't know much about the place. But, when we found cheap flights there from Hong Kong, a huge group of us (fifteen or so!) decided to go. And we had a GREAT time.

Just so you have an idea, the people I went with were:

Lisa: You already know her - we went to Shanghai together.

Chelsie: She is also blonde and also from Ivey. In fact, people often mix up our names. She is graduating from Ivey this year, but going back to Western in the fall for one year to finish a degree in Math...and then wants to pursue a career in Finance.

Shannon: She is my roommate, so I have already talked about her a little bit. She lived in China (near Chengdu) until she was 16, and then moved to California - and at the time, she didn't speak a word of English. Now, she is completely fluent. She is a science student, and she laughs at me everyday when I try and say things in Mandarin. Like, laughs in my FACE. I am glad I can entertain.

Barbara: Barbara is from Ireland, and she is a baby (only 19!). But she has probably done more than most people ever do in her life - she is a triathlete and competitive swimmer, and she competes internationally! Even in Hong Kong, she trains. And she has lived all over the world...Egypt, California...her stories are crazy.

Kayla: Kayla is an industrial engineering student from Michigan. She is SUPER blonde. She has an interesting time in Asia because she is a vegetarian...sometimes that can be a bit of a challenge!

The other people in our group were Alfonso (Venezuela), Reda (France), Sophie (Sweden), Steve and Jess (A couple, from the USA, but Steve is originally from Taiwan), Peter (Sweden), Jesus (Spain) and Carlos (Alfonso's cousin, who goes to the Chinese University of Hong Kong).

I was a little nervous about travelling in such a large group, because it can lead to a significant portion of the trip being spent waiting: waiting for people to go to the bathroom, waiting for people to go to the bank, waiting for people to make a decision about where to go next, etc. But, actually, being in such a large group was really, really fun!

So, we call Dennis (the best cab driver ever), and he picks us up from Campus at 5:15 pm on Thursday, March 5th. At 6 pm, we've arrived at the airport and we are checking in for our flight. Everyone is excited - especially Reda, who is known for constantly yelling out the nicknames he has created for everyone else, in a strong (great) French accent. Barbara is "Barbarina!" with a rolled-R. Lisa is "Mona Lisa!". Me? I am "Izzar!" - it kind of sounds like the way French people say "Heather", but not really. Hahaha.

The flight was good (I was a good Samaritan AGAIN and gave up my seat so that a couple could sit together!) but the airplane food wasn't nearly as good as it was when we went to Shanghai. Oh well.

When we landed in Taipei, the weather...sucked. It was raining. But by this time, it was midnight anyways, so we didn't let it get us down. We took a bus from the airport into the city, and then split up: Lisa, Chelsie, Barbara and Kayla were in one hostel (Eight Elephants) and Shannon and I were with everyone else in a different hostel (Camels Oasis).

Our hostel is cute, but weird. The location is great. It is right in the middle of Taipei, which is really the most important thing to consider when choosing a hostel. But the kind of weird part is that the hostel was, well, someone's apartment. It is decorated really nicely...there is cute furniture, maps and guidebooks, and free coffee and tea. But still...it's an apartment. There are four bedrooms. One is the owner's, one is a double, one is a triple, one is a quad (female only) and then there was ours: an 8-bedroom mixed dorm (with an ensuite, thank goodness!).

Like I said, cute, but weird.

Anyways, all of us head to grab some food...and then the guys decide to go out, and Shannon, Jess and I decide to go to bed. I was having a great sleep until the guys came home at 5 am and kept us up until...6:30 am! Boys, boys. boys.

Anyways, the next day, Shannon and I got up early and met with the girls at the other hostel. Our first stop was Taipei 101. Haha...actually, that is a lie. Our first stop was a bakery, for these delicious sugary buns that are really popular in Taiwan. I think I ate at least 15 buns throughout the trip. I miss them.

Anyways, Taipei 101. It calls itself the tallest building in the world (but don't a ton of buildings call themselves the tallest building in the world???). We take the elevator to the observation deck (I think it is on the 87th and 88th floors). It was pretty cool. They give you a headset so that you can listen to an audio tour (in English, yay!) and check out the whole city.

It was really cool! Especially because there was tons of information and displays all around the observation deck. There was a lot to look at!

One floor down, there was a coral museum. I'm sill not sure why.

After Taipei 101, we took a short walk down the road to Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's memorial. In Taiwan, they love Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. He is Taiwan's "Founding Father", and as a result, quite an impressive memorial has been built in his honour. It is situated in the middle of a beautiful park that we took our time walking through (keep in mind, that it rained throughout this entire trip). In the museum, there is a HUGE statue of the Doctor, with a guard on either side. The guards don't move.

I went to the information desk to ask if there was a English brochure or something Well, we got something even better...or, well, different. At the desk, an adorable first year Taiwan university student wearing a vest that said "English Guide" insisted on giving us a tour. She was so excited! And also very shy,. We encouraged her, and she showed us around the main floor of the museum, which as really helpful because ALL of the material explaining the exhibits was in Chinese. And since I only know about 20 Chinese characters (which is 20 more than the other girls I was with - Shannon was touring something else at the time), we would have been lost.

After the tour, we got to see the changing of the guards that watch over the Doc's monument. It was pretty cool...lots of stomping and rifle-twirling and stuff. But in the age of STOMP (the musical) it just wasn't enough to keep my attention for to long.

After the changeover, we decided to head to the National Palace Museum. From what I have read, the National Palace Museum has the largest collection of ancient Chinese artifacts in the entire world, and it is one of the top four museums internationally.

Needless to say, I was really excited!

Well, jeez. What a disappointment. I mean, it was pretty cool, but definitely underwhelming. The stuff on display was beautiful, but there wasn't a lot of background information provided, and in a lot of cases, the exhibits were just plain boring. The museum wasn't nearly as good as the Urban Planning museum in Shanghai. But, well, at least I can say I've been there?

After the museum, we hopped on a bus (by the way, it was POURING at this point) and quickly visited the Grand Hotel. This used to be one of the top tourist destinations in Taipei, because it is SUPER cool-looking, but because there is so much other stuff going on in Taipei these days, it has become less popular. BUT look how cool it is:

Again, this is not one of my photos. Remember the rain?

By now, it was beginning to get dark. We hopped in a cab and headed to a popular nighttime destination for Taiwan locals - a night market.

We chose Shilin Night Market - it is the biggest and supposed to be the best. Our cab dropped us off in front, and...we pretty much went crazy. There were awesome, awesome, AWESOME food stalls everywhere, serving all sorts of delicious, strange food items, from stinky tofu (gross!), to candied strawberries, to fresh custard-filled buns, to popcorn chicken (Taiwan invented it!), to dumplings, omelettes, seafood, bubble tea...it was crazy. And very busy!

After tasting a lot of different, new things, we headed to another part of the night market, where there are tons of really neat clothing stalls. Lisa, Barbara and Chelsie bough rain boots because, of course, it was still pouring out, and they were only wearing flip flops! After meeting up with the boys, we all headed back to our hostels to get ready for a great night out!

Before heading to the club, we spent about an hour drinking beer and hanging out with other young people at our hostel. Around 11:30, we headed to Room 18, a club in downtown Taipei. Since there was such a large group of us (15 people or something), we decided to go VIP and get bottle service. For less than $20 CAD, we got our own special area of the club and all the drinks we could handle. It was a blast. Highlights include:

1) A dance off on the VIP dance floor with Taipei locals

2) A foam party! At least, it looked like foam...but it was actually fluffed cotton!

3) All of the girls dancing on stage in the main part of the club...people were cheering for us!

Around 5 am, we decided to call it a night. And a fun night it was.

The next day, we wanted to see a bit of Taiwan's countryside, so we called a cab and headed to Jiufen and Jinguashi, nearby towns in Taiwan's northern region. First, we went to Jinguashi.

Jinguashi is called the 'Old Town' because it used to be totally bustling - back when it was being mined for gold! Now, the place has been carefully restored by the Taiwan government. It is nestled right in the middle of the mountains, and has a bunch of historic buildings within it. We hiked around the mountains for a while (OMG IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL) and then checked out the 'Gold Museum'. Inside, there were some neat exhibits, and I was even able to touch the largest brick of gold in the ENTIRE WORLD. Cool, eh?

Next, our cab driver (his name is Mr. Chen, and he was the BEST) took us a couple miles down the road to Jiufen, a cute little town with a bustling pedestrian street market. Again, we went crazy tasting local specialties - donuts, ice cream wraps, potato chips on a stick, spring rolls, jelly candies...etc. Soon, it was getting dark, so we climbed back into our cab with Mr. Chen and headed back to the city.

Mr. Chen told us a bit about his life story. He was in the army for a few years, and now has a farm with his family, several hours from Taipei. He only goes home on Mondays, to give his family his earnings from his job as a taxi driver. Every other day of the week, he works for 18 hours a day - and only for 2 hours at a time, so that he can take advantage of the busiest times for cab drivers. Can you believe it? I still can't.

We had Mr. Chen drop us off at a huge bookstore with a teahouse inside, and we relaxed with a cup of tea for a few hours. When it became dark, Chelsie and Barbara headed off to get massages, and Lisa, Kayla, Shannon and I headed back to our hostels.

We were all supposed to go out that night, but the girls in the other hostel were too tired, so it ended up being just myself, Shannon and the boys. The boys wanted to go to a club again, but Shannon and I were looking for a different experience, so we found a cute bar downtown. We grabbed a seat on the outdoor patio and just relaxed, and we even met some neat people from Taiwan, Malaysia, and the US. It was fun hearing their stories, and what they think about life in Taiwan.

The next day, we started off by grabbing breakfast/lunch at a world famous dumpling restaurant - Din Tai Fong. We had to wait 1 HOUR for a table, and it was 11 am. Have you ever heard of such a thing.

Well, it was delicious. Well worth the wait.

In case you don't know what dumplings are, this is what they look like:

They are steamed, and served in this bamboo containers. They are a specialty in Hong Kong as well, and I probably eat them for two or three meals each week! They have tons of different types: vegetable, pork, shrimp...yum!

After our meal, we headed to Yangmingshan National Park to do some hiking. It was beautiful! We hiked in the mountains for about an hour...but then...it started to rain. Why does this always happen to me!

At the bottom of the mountains, Taiwan is lucky enough to have a variety of hot springs! Most of them have been "claimed" by hotels, or even homes, but there is a great hotspring that is for public access. We paid the entrance fee (it was $1 CAD) and joined the locals. The location of this public hotspring was crazy - it was literally RIGHT in the middle of a downtown area!

Here is a picture:

They were really hot.

After the hotsprings, we headed to Danshui Old Town. It is a harbour, and from it, you can look at the Taipei skyline. We grabbed a delicious seafood dinner at one of the restaurants along the harbour, and then, exhausted, we hopped on the subway to head home.

After showering, it was time for our final night in Taiwan, and we wanted to do something special. So, all of us (15 people or so) headed to PartyWorld - a KTV chain. What is KTV, you ask? It is KARAOKE TELEVISION!

KTV is a super popular activity for young people in Asia - Hong Kong, China, Japan, Taiwan, from what I can tell, they love it everywhere. We each paid about the price of a movie ticket in Canada, and for this, we were given our own private room with couches and a KTV system. Also, we were given almost unlimited alcoholic drinks! As you can imagine, this led to a pretty fun time for everyone! By the end of the night, we were all singing classic songs by Britney and the Backstreet Boys at the top of our lungs. This was a highlight of the trip, for sure.

Here is a funny photo from our KTV night:

Yes. We were really into it.

After our last night at our hostels, we woke up and had a few final hours to see Taipei before catching our flight home. We checked out the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial (he controlled the KMT after Doctor Sun Yat-Sen). It was massive, and kind of ridiculous, really. But the grounds it is located on are beautiful - there are also concert halls and parks nearby. After this, we went to a teahouse and relaxed before returning to our hostel to pack our things and headed to the airport.

All in all, it was a great trip. The things I will remember most are how friendly the people are (they were SO nice and SO helpful anytime we were lost or needed help!), how delicious the food was (we tried SO many new and interesting foods!) and how fun it was to travel with such a large group of people. Taiwan was nothing like I expected, and I really recommend going there if you ever get the chance!

Now, I am going to write about my next trip - a Yangtze River Cruise!

When I think about it, all I can do is laugh.

So, after I got back from Shanghai, I was really excited about learning Putonghua. In fact, I even (impulse) purchased a computer program (with CD-ROM) that teaches you Mandarin in the Shanghai airport. Early last week, I went to HKUST's language centre and signed up for Putonghua I for English-Speakers.

The class is every Tuesday from 5:30 pm until 8 pm (2.5 hours!). It is small, with only about 10 students, and it costs $145 CAD for 16 weeks of lessons. I think this is a great deal, because when I wanted to sign up for a Mandarin class in the summer, courses cost a lot more than this.

The class is really basic so far - we go over the phonetic alphabet and learn really easy phrases and vocabulary. The teacher makes us say sentences by ourselves, and it just sounds so funny, that even she has to laugh at us. I spend half of the class, and some time after it, just laughing at myself. You feel like an absolute idiot.

The main reason is because, in Mandarin (and most Asian languages), tone matters. There are four tones - and they all sound completely different. For example, the word "ma" has four different meanings, depending on which tone you say it in. It can mean mother, hemp, horse, or scold. When it is said with no tone at all (natural tone) at the end of a sentence, it turns whatever sentence you were saying into a yes or no question! For native English speakers...this is a real challenge.

It was really fun, though! The time went by really quickly, and I think I am actually doing a better-than-average job at picking things up. Shannon, my roommate, lived in China until she was 16, so she is really helping me with my pronunciation, and we have a "Word of the Day". This past weekend in Taiwan, I actually managed to communicate with a few people...I'm not good, but I definitely get an "A" for effort!

I am excited to see how much I will be able to pick up after a few months of lessons and dedication. In fact, maybe I will go through Lesson 1 on my CD-ROM one more time.

Zaijian! (Good bye!)