Dragon fruit for breakfast

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  Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan
Friday, May 16, 2008

.....and of course the answer was Taiwan, which everyone who answered got right. Welcome to the Republic of China (as opposed to the People's Republic of China which is just across the water). Taiwan sits on the Tropic of Cancer, directly on the route between Korea and Hong Kong which I visit next, so I thought I'd pop in for a look round. And now my phone works again, my cash card works everywhere......life's good really.  
I learned about this at school. Taiwan is a spin-off from the Chinese Civil War. When the Communists defeated the Nationalists in 1949, Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China and around 2 million Nationalists under Chaing Kai-Shek fled to Taiwan. There's not much prospect of Taiwan being recognised as a country any time soon either, because of China's veto at the UN. At the moment there's an arms build-up going on, with China pointing missiles at Taiwan, and the US (naturally enough) supplying missiles to the Taiwanese

Taipei 101

. And now I think of it, when did Mao Tse Tung become Mao Zedong?? At about the same time as Uranus became Ur-ar-nus probably.
Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, is home to the tallest building in the world (although it was overtaken in height last year by the Burj Dubai. The Burj is still being built though, so the title of "World's Tallest Building" rests with Taipei 101 until its construction is finished). There's an observation deck near the top, so I went downtown to take a look. This is one seriously tall building, and very impressive. The elevators are the fastest in the world, and reach speeds of nearly 40mph. They are pressurised, and deliver you to the 89th Floor Observation Deck in just over 30 seconds (do the maths - that's around 3 floors per second). I'm normally pretty good with heights, but there were a couple of vertigo-inducing moments up there. Probably I'm just not used to looking down on 40 and 50 storey office blocks........
This is very much a city-break as I'm only here for a couple of days, but you could easily spend lots of time here as there's plenty to see and do. On my first night here, I spotted a restaurant called "Potato", and tried to remember the last time I actually ate a potato (it was weeks ago, and I think it was in Venezuela - can't remember). The menu was Chinese with pictures of potatoes cooked in various ways. I chose one cooked in a dish with a mussel on top, which just had to be fish pie. IMO fish pie is one of the best things you can do with a potato, and I was starting to get quite excited while I waited for my meal. You can imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that I'd ordered macaroni cheese - with a mussel on top for some reason. 
Day 2 and I got a bus to Yangmingshan National Park which is in the hills surrounding Taipei.

Lungshan Temple roof detail

Taiwan is one of the most densely populated places in the world, but it's extremely mountainous (there are more than 100 mountains over 3000m on the island) so it's very easy to escape into the countryside. The parks are well organised, and it's difficult to get lost if you go walking, but I decided to get a map anyway. It turned out that the Visitors' Centre is over 1km from the bus-stop, and uphill all the way. In the heat, it felt as though I'd done a day's walk by the time I got there, and I hadn't even started. Yangmingshan is a nice place though, and well worth a visit. There are lot's of butterflies and birds up there, including a bird called a White Eyed Nun Babbler (I kid you not)! There are lots of strangely named things in Taiwan - on the news today the Fire Brigade captured a 2m long snake called a "Stinking Goddess", which they've decided to adopt . That should keep them amused on the night shift anyway.
In the afternoon, I went to a suburb of Taipei called Danshui, which is where the Keelung River flows into the East China Sea. Because it was a weekend, there were literally tens of thousands of people there. I'd intended to get a ferry back into town, but one look at the queue (which I couldn't even see the end of), and I took the train instead. 
Back in Taipei, my next stop was a place called Longshan Temple, which is a beautiful building, and thick with incense and devotees

Yingmangshan National park

. Near there is the Huahsi Night Market, where I went for a meal that evening (no potatoes involved). Part of Huahsi is called "Snake Alley", and is full of restaurants selling snake meat, snake's blood and snake gland drinks. Killing snakes is a spectator sport here, and a couple of stalls were preparing the snakes in front of a crowd (photography forbidden). Basically the guy in the stall took hold of a big snake, over 1m long, and bashed it's head on the counter. Next he strung it up by the neck (do snakes have necks?), took a pair of scissors and cut downwards length-ways from the centre towards the tail of the snake. There's a thick vein in the middle which he cut, and emptied the contents into a large glass of water - this is the snake's blood drink. He rooted round inside the snake and pulled out a gland, which he then punctured and emptied a dark green liquid into another glass of water. A glass of each drink costs 100 Won (around $3), and there were plenty of takers - I decided to pass.
Dodging motor bikes on the pavement in Korea turned out to be good practice for Taiwan, as they drive on the pavements here too, but in Taipei it's official. The pavements double up as scooter parks, and the only way of parking a bike is by riding it down the pavement. The Taiwanese also have a nasty habit of using zebra crossings as a short cut round traffic lights, so if you do come here make sure you watch your back. 
Taiwanese television was something else - 75% game shows, with 10 minutes worth of advertisements about every 15 minutes

Banksy sells out

. To add to the fun each channel is broadcast at a different volume, so if you turn a channel up because you can't hear it, when you turn over you'll jump out of your skin as you blow the TV's speakers on the next channel. 
Food is very cheap (even if it was macaroni cheese), but the Taiwanese don't really do bars. Saturday night, I ended up in a Sheraton Hotel drinking expensive beer. There was a Butlins style Chinese/Filipino band playing, and I missed the opportunity of a lifetime when the singer asked me if I had any requests. The correct answer, in a Peter Kay style, is "Yes, eff off!" (family joke), but I didn't have the heart. My favourite part of their act involved a Chinaman doing a Louis Armstrong impersonation, complete with mispronunciations - the funniest thing I've seen for many years.
Bird flu is a big health scare here as well as in Korea. At breakfast there were signs asking you not to talk near the food in case you spread germs, which was a new one on me. I saw one man on a scooter start sneezing while he was waiting for the traffic lights to change, and he nearly caused a multiple pile-up as people tried to get out of his way.
  
Things aren't necessarily what they seem to be in Taiwan though. The 7-11's are open 24hrs a day (not just from 7-11), no self-respecting Taiwanese would ever buy anything labelled "Made in Taiwan", and just down the road from me is a place called the Onestar Hotel. But it's a 3* Hotel......................

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Taipei 101, it's a long way up	Taipei 101...but even further down!	I think I'll call my new shopping centre "Tit"	Taipei scooters
View from my room, Taipei	View from Taipei 101 (1)	View from Taipei 101 (2)	View from Taipei 101 (3)
Hotel Cosmos at night	Taipei from Yingmangshan	Owl crossing, Yingmangshan	Park bench, Yingmangshan
So glad I wore my sandals.....	Statue, Sun Yat Sen Centre	Lungshan Temple gates	Lungshan Temple roof detail (2)
Lungshan Temple	Lungshan Temple 2	Mangroves and apartment blocks, Danshui	Mangroves, Danshui
Food stall, night market Taipei	I think I'll call my 3* Hotel "Onestar Hotel"

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