Saturday, October 20, 2007

Taipei, Taiwan, 10 -13 Oct 2007: Now & Then
Present & Past Perfect


Four Days In Taipei
Touchdown, Taonan Airport, 10.30pm, 10th October. Took a 30-minute taxi ride to Grand Hyatt Hotel. Haunted, I heard one fellow traveler spook another at immigrations. The hotel is next to Taipei 101, which was brightly lit up for the Taiwanese Independence Day ("Shuang Shi ++" or "Double Ten"). My room was gloomy, the bed-lights did not work. (I was to find out: other people in my group also had lights that did not work. Strange. Very.)

Changed quickly and walked to nearby Linjiang Night Market. Busy pedestrian street with many hawker fare. Ate, sated, strolled back.

The next day's workshop was scheduled for the afternoon. Went with Wanshan to the National Palace Museum, or "Gu Gong". Train stopped at Shilin Station. Continued on a cab for NT100. Gu Gong has an awesome Chinese collection stretching back 8000 years: jades, bronzes, porcelain, court paintings. Favourites: animal-mask bronzes (4,000 to 1,000 BC), Sung porcelain, Ming bowls, Qing jades (treasures from individual rooms in the Forbidden City). The free guided tour was very informative. Pity, photography was not allowed.

Attended meeting in the afternoon. After that, our group gathered at the hotel lobby. Siok Luan and Kiam Wee pointed out the talisman scrolls that were displayed on both sides of the service entrance to the lobby, as well as the heavy wind chimes at the main entrance. These were put up purportedly to ward off ghostly spirits. The hotel was built on burial/execution grounds. Somewhat shaken, we went out for dinner at Ximending, of mostly street fare. And returned with some trepidation to our rooms at the end of the long day.

Whole-day meeting the next day. Evening programme: Lungshan Temple, Ximending again. Returned to hotel, then went for group dinner at Kiki Restaurant, Guangfu Road. Hearty Sichuan food. Strolled back to hotel in light drizzle. Another long day ended.

Saturday 13th, flight was not until 6.25pm. After breakfast, took train to Beitou, a spa town during the Japanese Occupation. Small Hot Springs Museum (where you must remove shoes at the door and wear the slippers that were provided) was good for a 20-minute visit. There were a public bath and some hot spring inns, but I did not stay to try them out.

Took a bus (230, one every 30 min) to Yang Ming Shan National Park. Met Vivian and husband on the bus. They were staying with a friend until Monday. Reached YMS bus terminus at noon. Vivian was going to visit a restaurant-bathhouse. I did not join her, but walked towards the park instead. Saw Datun (Ta Tuen) Falls, climbed a small hill in Datun Recreation Area, and Guan Jing Ting (Scenic View Pavilion).

Stopped at Sun Yat Sen Memorial on the way back. Paid respects to the Man. Hurried back to hotel. To airport. Touchdown, Singapore, 11pm, 13th Oct.

23 Years Ago ...
Lived for a few weeks with a host family in Kaohsiung as an exchange student. Our group of junior college students was brought on a whirwind tour of the island: Taipei, Hualien, Alishan, farm stay in Changhua. I now only have scattered memories of that long-ago visit:

  • Faded faces of my host family;

  • Ou Zhenhan, my host, who pedaled me on a bicycle part of the way to school daily;

  • Going to school where all the boys sported crew cuts and military-like discipline prevailed (every school had a military trainer);

  • Bringing "Bian Dang" (lunchbox) to school, this was steamed and brought to me by duty classmates during lunch recess;

  • Losing my "Bian Dang" in a freak accident one morning (it slipped from my bag and fell through a gap in the closing bus door as the bus was leaving a stop), and having it returned to me in time for lunch (some girl students at the bus stop were able to identify my school from my uniform and their school managed to call my school to arrange for the return!);

  • Cooking lessons at school where we prepared and ate delicious "Yao Jiu Ji" (herbal wine chicken [ingredients: 1 chicken chopped, herbs, lots of sesame oil, more than 1 kg of ginger root, 4 bottles of rice wine!) and "Suan La Tang" (hot-and-sour Sichuan soup);

  • Learning to cycle in the school yard and knocking into parked scooters;

  • Eating stir-fried mutton (the best I ever ate), snake soup (over-rated, many small sharp bones) and Mongolian-style "Huo Guo" (steamboat) dinner on a wintry night;

  • Trips with Zhenhan's friends to the Night Market for supper;

  • Waking up at 3am, and buying breakfast of hot onion pancakes and coffee from an enterprising peddlar, to hike to the mountain top to see the sunrise in Alishan;

  • Mountain hike with friends;

  • Lishan, where orchards of pear trees covered the entire hill;

  • Harrowing bus rides along the North-South highway (the edge of the narrow road dropped precipitatously down steep cliff walls to the roaring Pacific Ocean) and spiraling up and down the mountains and gorges in Hualian (the driver admonished us not to stand up in the bus, in case it toppled over the side);

  • Friends visiting my host family in Changhua, queueing up to use the family's flush toilet, one of the few in the village, where spider-infested outhouses over manure holes did the job with equally devastating effectiveness.

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    Blog item posted by R S Tan @ 5:58 PM  

    Comments
    finally got to know about your taiwan experience as an exchange student. sounds interesting.
    ru yuh
    Comment posted by Blogger Unknown Monday, July 13, 2009 4:17:00 AM
     

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    These are the 30 countries that I have ever set foot on. Airport stopovers don't count!