Week 21 – Auckland, New Zealand and Taipei, Taiwan

Changing Direction

Taiwan – Taipei – Night bus in the rain

After a month of comfort and familiarity in New Zealand, we started our journey through Asia by flying to Taiwan. We spent the first two days of this week returning the van and hanging out in Auckland. Then after 27 hours of traveling we arrived in Taipei exhausted from (1) the fast pace of our New Zealand leg, (2) trying to get a night’s sleep on the plane, (3) the heat and humidity of Taipei, (4) and the five hour time change. We gave ourselves two days to get our bearings before doing any serious sightseeing. Then we had two solid days of touring Taipei.

Taiwan is different in many ways, but the most surprising to us is the popularity of 7-11 stores. Not only are they everywhere, you can do nearly anything at them. You can pick up train tickets you bought online, or just buy them at the 7-11. You can pay your bills. You can use the microwave or hot water to make meals. You can make copies or print. You can wire money to another 7-11 location. Oh, and obviously you can buy soda and snacks.

1. Go

• Metro – 52 km. Around Taipei.
• City bus – 70 km. To airport in Auckland, from airport in Taipei, to/from National Palace Museum.
• Car – 208 km. Returning the van.
• Foot – 110,000 steps in 7 days (approx. 55 miles). Back to walking! It feels nice to have full walking days again, but boy are our feet sore.

2. See

Dropping off the van was way easier than we anticipated so we had nearly two full days to explore Auckland. We visited the Auckland Art Gallery, which was decent but not our favorite. We really enjoyed wandering around the harbor and checking out all the boats. Auckland is known as the “City of Sails” and one stat we saw was that one in three Auckland households owns a boat. Wow!

New Zealand – Auckland – Auckland Art Gallery – Napoleon’s Death Mask

New Zealand – Auckland – Upside down bench

Taipei really impressed us. It is incredibly easy to navigate and most signs are written in Chinese and in pinyin (official phonetic system for transcribing the Mandarin pronunciations of Chinese characters into the Latin alphabet). The mix of new and old is striking. One night we walked to and from the Shilin Night Market in the pouring rain. With all the bright lights and the water, it was a futuristic sight. Then the following day, we toured several temples with traditional architecture.

Taiwan – Taipei – Shilin

Taiwan – Taipei – Night bus in the rain

Taiwan – Taipei – Qingshan Temple

Taiwan – Taipei – Lungshan Temple

We visited the National Palace Museum in the evening which meant less crowds, but sore feet for us (no photos allowed). We had three hours before they closed and barely saw everything before time was up. There were huge rooms filled with curios, bronze, ceramics and calligraphy. Our favorite was a large exhibit featuring the works of Giuseppe Castiglione, an Italian Jesuit missionary in China who became the painter at the imperial court. He blended European and Chinese styles to create stunning works.

We had a clear day on Sunday and decided to hike up Elephant Mountain for views of the city. We were surprised at how quickly the pavement ended on the jungle began. At 80 degrees and 80% humidity, it was a hot and sticky hike, but definitely worth it for the views.

Taiwan – Taipei – Elephant Mountain

Taiwan – Taipei – Elephant Mountain

Taiwan – Taipei – Elephant Mountain

Taiwan – Taipei – Elephant Mountain

On Sunday we walked through Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. There was some kind of festival going on. Although we couldn’t read any of the signs, there were lots of military around and banners with “Discovery Channel” on them. We assume it was some sort of Special Forces day or celebration. There was a long line to get your photo taken with buff dudes in skimpy shorts.

Taiwan – Taipei – Chiang Kai Shek Memorial

Taiwan – Taipei – Chiang Kai Shek Memorial – Special Forces Day?

Taiwan – Taipei – Chiang Kai Shek Memorial

3. Eat

“Have you eaten?” This is the common greeting in Taiwan. As we’ve heard time and time again, food is the center of life in Taiwan – and it is delicious! There are options for every budget, but most of the best food is found on the street. They are fond of “little eats” which are exactly what they sound like and typically sold on the street. Thankfully, most restaurants either have pictures or English menus for us. It’s a little easier eating at street carts where we can just point at what we want. We still have no idea what we are eating half the time, but it tastes good.

Our favorites so far have been beef noodles, dim sum at Din Tai Fung, wandering the Shilin Night Market, Taiwanese rice bowl, and sweet red bean filled waffles (I don’t know if these have a real name, but that’s what they look like to us). While wondering around Taipei 101, we saw a really popular burger joint. They had photos of their burgers, so we took a look out of curiosity. They were not your typical burgers! The buns were sticky rice patties and the filling was anything from beef and egg to shrimp. We had to give it a try! They tasted just like stir fry. Also, check out the photo in the bottom left below. We had an amazing bowl of rice with pork belly from this character. Pay special attention to the boiling pot with black crusted goo coating the top – that’s what makes it taste so good!

 

Taiwan – Taipei – Din Tai Fung

Taiwan – Taipei – Shilin Night Market

Taiwan – Taipei – Pork belly

Taiwan – Taipei – Burgers?

4. Drink

New country, new drinks! With the heat and humidity, we have been turning to cool refreshing drinks. Our favorites are the many varieties of iced tea. We usually just go by the pictures on the bottles, so we don’t know if we are getting sweetened or unsweetened, caffeinated or decaffeinated, but it has turned out fine so far. We also really like a sparkling apple juice drink we randomly picked up. There are also lots of juice and smoothie bars. We have to be a little careful at these since they sometimes mix the fruit with milk or unfiltered water, so we try to choose more established looking places.

5. Sleep

We had one night at a big hostel in Auckland, that we didn’t love, but was cheap enough to make it worth it. Then a night on the plane before five nights at one of the best places we’ve stayed in a long while. We will be staying there again on the way back through Taipei. The staff was super helpful with planning and they provided umbrellas, which was a necessity during our visit!

Taiwan – Taipei – Lane outside our guesthouse

6. Move

We didn’t realize how hard it would be to spend all day on our feet again!  All through South America we spent most days on our feet walking around towns or strolling through museums. In New Zealand, we spent a lot of time driving the van instead of walking and standing. Our feet are pretty sore now, after two moderate days of sightseeing. We will need to work back up to it.

Taipei has great walking, running, and biking paths, so it is pretty easy to get out and be active. We’ve gotten out on the path along the water a few times. We also enjoyed a hike up Elephant Mountain, which is right off the metro.

Check out Pat’s CADENCE Week 21 post for details about this week.

7. Etcetera

We were really nervous and excited to arrive in Asia. We were worried about not only not speaking the language, but not being able to read the writing. For the most part it hasn’t been an issue. The only time we’ve run into issues is with the pinyin spelling. There are sometimes different ways to spell the same word. We were buying train tickets for our next destination which is spelled Xincheng or Sincheng.

We are also excited to return to our slower pace of travel. We have grown to love staying in one place for multiple days before moving on. But it’s been a little hard to slow down after New Zealand. We find ourselves saying things like, “I’m really tired, but I feel guilty skipping the next temple.” We have to remember that we have more time, so we can slow down. With a whole month in a small country, we should be able to take it slow enough.

Check out our Flickr album to see all our photos from this week.