Day 1: New Friends | Dahu Park | Taipei


Taiwan - Day 1

Hello! This will be the place to get all your updates on our summer travels in Taiwan. With so many friends and family wanting to see pictures I figured it would make more sense to put them in one place rather than text everyone and post for all acquaintances on social media. 

To start off here is a map so everyone will know once and for all that we are in the Wan of Tai not the the Land of Thai. Please do not worry, I am not teasing you if you made this mistake :) At least 4/5 people hear Thailand no matter how strongly you emphasize TaiWAN. It is just more familiar to most people.


On Saturday, May 26th the adventure began!

Jerry and Ben taking the MRT
to a Japanese steakhouse our first night


We left KC at 8:30am Saturday (just 17 hours after I took my physician assistant board exam). 17 hours and 7 movies later we landed in our new home Taipei, Taiwan. Once we arrived at our extended stay hotel Ben's longtime- instant message BFF (he's real!) came and met us. Knowing that I would be all alone the next day, he tested me to see if I could get back from the restaurant to our hotel via MRT. I did manage to get us home possibly by guessing from his facial expressions before hoping on to the wrong trains.



From Left ro Right: Kevin, Phillip, Jason, Carol, Jerry, Seth

Dahu Park




















Despite having slept 4 hours the night after my board exam and only 2 hours on the plane, jet lag woke me up at 5am Monday. I was pumped to get the day started. Ben had been awake since 2am. We quickly got ready and headed out the door to see what was around us. We found this lovely park just a couple minutes walk from our hotel front door. 

All throughout the park there were many senior citizens standing alone in the woods or facing the calm water making slow movements, stretching or slapping their muscles. It looked like what I guess would be Tai-Chi (although I'm not sure what it was they were doing.)
Yeah- I am definitely going to ask to join them once I learn enough Chinese.


Ben was pretty excited that his friend Jerry picked him up for work on this scooter.












I spent my first day walking around the city, grocery shopping and trying new food. I went to ifun cafe and asked the owner if she spoke English. She said, "little English." The menu was in Chinese. I panicked and resorted to asking for the one dish I was pretty sure they would serve anywhere in Asia. 

                                                                                                Me: "Rice?" 
She said, "yes." 
Me: "Chicken?" 
 Owner: "Salmon"

I said "ok" and then I got this delicious salmon fried rice.  My first food ordering experience went well and my confidence for exploring Taipei increased.


Transportation is actually easier to figure out than figuring out what to eat. I am taking the MRT everywhere I go so far. There is also the bus, speed rail, uber and taxi but I haven't summed up the courage for those yet. The MRT stands for Mass Rapid Transit. The Taipei MRT transports 2 million riders per day.  It is less than a dollar for me to use daily. It takes 30 minutes to 1 hour to get to my most of my sightseeing destinations...but I have all day. 

I was not nervous to take the MRT all over Taipei. The train stops are in Mandarin and English and the arrows are easy to follow. 
Metro map of Taipei Full resolution


Just reflecting on my first day I realize that we live in an amazing time. We are able to communicate and connect better with people all over the world than any time in history. I was able to read signs and items at the grocery store using the Google Translate app. I simply hold my phone up to the sign and it shows me what the characters say. (I learned this after my first restaurant experience). 


I find plenty of fun things to do by myself but the best part of my day is when...BEN GETS OFF WORK!!! 


Ben's friends are so nice and take us to fun restaurants after work. Dinners have been hilarious and consist of many jokes about food, relationships, English/Mandarin translation and of course Trump! The Garmin Taiwan employees have great English. If you compliment them on their English they are very humble and say "No, ______ has better English than me." I just love watching them all laugh and joke around. Sometimes I don't even know what we are all laughing about but it is still funny. Often I talk too fast or don't use the more obvious/simple vocabulary and Ben has to re-phrase it to them. Occasionally I cannot understand the word they are trying to use because of the accent so Ben will translate for me.


At the end of our first day Ben and I took the MRT to the Miramar Ferris Wheel. We feel really blessed to be here. The part that is more exciting than trying new food and seeing the beautiful country of Taiwan is the opportunity to meet these new friends.

Day 1 is in the books and was awesome! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 6: Pingxi | Hike | Rahoe Night Market

Image
Day 6 Saturday, June 3 Today we took a train from Taipei to Pingxi 平溪 Pingxi is known for it's Sky Lanterns festival. The small town attracts tourists from all over Taiwan and the world to write their wishes on a lantern and release it into the sky.  Along our route from Taipei to Pingxi we stopped to change trains. We spent about 45 minutes in a very small town (village?) I was encouraged to try a traditional Taiwanese snack from a street vendor. I struggled a bit with the texture of the gelatinous casing. The inside tasted like dried meat and some kind of vegetable. I subconsciously frowned at it and saw a local woman laugh at me. At least she was not offended!!! I wish I was not as easily bothered by textures.  Now back to Pingxi.... Overall the trip from Taipei to Pingxi was at least 2 hours by train.  There was of course a lot of street food to see and try. Ben tried black pepper and g...
Read more

Day 5: Traditional Street Market

Image
Day 5 Ben left for his last day of the work-week and I had planned to relax at a coffee shop most of the day because my feet hurt from all of the walking this week. I put the address of a new coffee shop in google maps and started walking. I turned the corner and this... YESSSS All of my Asian dreams have come true. I thought this was only in the movies.  A traditional street market, with beautiful fruits, vegetables...and... ....Food ya don't see in the US Which Jerry keeps reminding me this is "normal food" Maybe it is?  Maybe it makes more sense eating it all and not letting it go to waste....  Brain Heart Tongue Ear Tendon Liver Stomach Intestine Bladder ...Each for it's own special dish This dog was looking pretty adorable just sitting on his scooter. He was staring me down with squinty eyes like he was saying, "I dare you to pet me."  I think he was just confused what an Amer...
Read more

Day 3: Confucius Temple | Baoan temple | Lin An Tai Homestead

Image
Taipei Confucius Temple  They love their cutsie little (sometimes big) figurines ________________________  Baoan temple taipei __________________ Lin An Tai Homestead ____________ I had a private tour of the botanical gardens  _______ The service here was so nice!  Often the servers or owners watch me take a bite and ask how I like what they made. It is really fun to tell them how much I like it. They look really happy.  Pinneapple Lemon Milk Tea with 30% sweetness (You choose your level of sweet here!) Sushi that from a street vendor (that I was not brave enough to try). But how pretty is it?  By far the strangest tasting thing yet which surprised me - a club sandwhich. I do really like that tea is served everywhere (sometimes in replacement of water at a restaurant). 
Read more