你好,台北. Hello, Taipei.
This is it! I’m back in the United States. I can’t believe it. But it the meantime, I’m going to be chugging out these blog posts, before I forget all of the crazy memories that the trip has given me. You can read my other posts here.
Man, Taipei was cool. What a phenomenal city. Our first morning waking up in our hostel, we realized just how much we missed the order and organization that comes from the first-world Asian cities. Sure, Bangkok and Hanoi have their own exhilarating madness, but it gets exhausting. It felt as if a spell had vanished from our psyches, and we could take a sigh of relief.
And for a country we had never visited, it felt incredibly familiar. The vertical, brightly lit cascade of signs and advertisements proliferating Japanese streets were here in Taiwan, with the Japanese replaced with the visually similar Mandarin Chinese. Taipei had a world-class, frighteningly efficient subway system permeating every stretch of the city, just like Korea. The Asian smorgasbord of food options were now full of options we had tried and loved, and eager to eat once again, dotting the 10 story skyscrapers filling Taipei City. Almost everyone spoke English, making navigation and communication a cinch.
Then there were the people. I have a rough rule that there is an inverse relationship between the size of a city and the friendliness of the people you pass by on the street (I’m looking at you, New York). Taipei took my hunch and balled it up and threw it on the street. The sheer friendliness of the people. Oh, I loved it. It brings us to our first full day in Taipei, where we walked towards 228 Peace Memorial Park, where we found an old man feeding a squirrel (for those of you who don’t know, I have an adamant belief of One Squirrel Theory™, which is exactly as straightforward as it sounds).
He saw us watching him, coaxed us over, gave us some peanuts, and laughed with us as we took turns feeding the singular squirrel. The squirrel was so cute too, it would look at us curiously, stare down the peanut, pounce over and start nibbling on it, turning and handling it with its cupped tiny paws. The old man gave us more peanuts, and we made this one squirrel incredibly happy. We shared no language, but I’ve found that often it can make friendships easier, with communication involving hand gestures and laughter.
Changing gears, we also saw some wonderful temples, Buddhist, Taoist, and other folk cultures all represented on the Island. Some wonderful shots of some of the temples are displayed below.
Night Markets
We also made it to two of the night markets in the city. Taiwanese sausage is quite popular in the country, which comes served on a stick, so I got some at Linjiang Night Market.. I don’t know what it was, but I could hardly keep it down. I don’t think it was bad, but Taiwan uses some sort of spices that I was not able to make any sense of.
Raohe Night Market, the second we went to, was much more of a success. We started off by eating butane-torched beef cubes, and it was some of the best beef I’ve had in my life. They also had a garlic pizza thing that was scrumptious, and a selection of other delectable bites that our friends tried. Plus, the market was over 3 blocks long, stuffed with vendors! People who do know Taiwan know about their famous stinky tofu. I stayed as far away as possible from it. Anywhere on the market there was a stinky tofu vendor, there was a distinct absence of people standing around said vendor. I took heed.
Taiwan Pride
The unexpected highlight of Taipei didn’t involved anything I have mentioned so far. As we were living our lives day-to-day, we soon found out that our hostel was sold out for the weekend. There also happened to be a pretty decent number of gays that I had met throughout the week. Turns out, these two were quite related. Taipei was holding their annual Taiwan Pride festival, which was significant as Taiwan passed legislation this very same year that made the country the first in Asia to legalize gay marriage.
Boy oh boy, did Asia show up. An estimated 200,000 thousand people took to the streets, cheering and celebrating and exercising their pride. People danced, there were party trucks with different gay groups, outfits were scandalous at best (I looked so boring in my jeans and jacket, in comparison), rainbow flags were everywhere, and the end of the parade was nowhere in sight. Lena got some spectacular photos of the day.
That, on top of the numerous day trips easily accessible from the city (which I will write on next), gave me a distinct positive sentiment towards lovable Taipei. I have thought heavily about teaching English somewhere, and Taipei takes the top of my list. Who knows, maybe the dream will become reality.
