Being in Taipei at first felt....weird. Like Tokyo, there are vertical signs protruding from every single building, stacked on top of eachother like tetris blocks. Like Tokyo, Chinese characters are everywhere. A slight difference: No Japanese katakana or hiragana characters.
Taiwan is reminiscent of Japan, but wholly different. The people are polite, public spaces are for the most part clean, and, of course, it has that inexplicable Asian vibe. On the other hand, Taiwan feels almost tropical, humid even during late December, and it's not as developed as Japan. The latter point is rather minor because Taiwan still has skyscrapers, restaurants, public transportation, and the infrastructural characteristics of a developed country. But, for instance, we would find something like this, which we would never come across in Japan:
It was uncomfortable being in Taiwan because I had ZERO idea of how to communicate with people. I had zero idea of how the transportation system works, what type of food they ate, and whether or not Taiwanese people bow like they do in Japan (they don't).
By some act of serendipity, my Taiwanese friends Jerry and Chuhern were in Taipei and able to show us around. Jerry even traveled to Hualien and Yilan with us, acting as our personal tour guide.
We went to: Taipei, Hualien City, and Yilan.
Here are some pictures:
By some act of serendipity, my Taiwanese friends Jerry and Chuhern were in Taipei and able to show us around. Jerry even traveled to Hualien and Yilan with us, acting as our personal tour guide.
We went to: Taipei, Hualien City, and Yilan.
Here are some pictures:
My favorite parts about Taiwan:
-Climate: tropical and warm. I imagine the summers are sweltering, though!
-Bubble tea: I can't explain it. This was BY FAR the best bubble tea I have ever had, and I have had a LOT of bubble tea. It doesn't even compare to Japan's bubble tea, even though Japan is right next door.
-Fried chicken: so delicious.
-Culture: the people were a lot quieter and politer than I expected. In Taipei someone told me that "Taiwan is a cleaner, politer version of mainland China." I have never been to China, so I cannot endorse this claim, but Taiwan was certainly cleaner and politer than my preconceived notions anticipated.
-Night markets: every town in Taiwan seems to have incredible night markets, teeming with delicious food: fried rice, chicken, every kind of noodle, stinky tofu (for the vegetarian lovers out there), soups. It was awesome. We spent Christmas night at a Yilan night market and came across an outdoor shoe store that was playing club music. Naturally, we danced, I mean it was Jesus' birthday. We resumed walking through the market as the whole street of Taiwanese people stared at us in amusement.
-Climate: tropical and warm. I imagine the summers are sweltering, though!
-Bubble tea: I can't explain it. This was BY FAR the best bubble tea I have ever had, and I have had a LOT of bubble tea. It doesn't even compare to Japan's bubble tea, even though Japan is right next door.
-Fried chicken: so delicious.
-Culture: the people were a lot quieter and politer than I expected. In Taipei someone told me that "Taiwan is a cleaner, politer version of mainland China." I have never been to China, so I cannot endorse this claim, but Taiwan was certainly cleaner and politer than my preconceived notions anticipated.
-Night markets: every town in Taiwan seems to have incredible night markets, teeming with delicious food: fried rice, chicken, every kind of noodle, stinky tofu (for the vegetarian lovers out there), soups. It was awesome. We spent Christmas night at a Yilan night market and came across an outdoor shoe store that was playing club music. Naturally, we danced, I mean it was Jesus' birthday. We resumed walking through the market as the whole street of Taiwanese people stared at us in amusement.
-It wasn't as clean as Japan. Then again, I imagine Japan is one of the cleanest countries in the world. The main reason I mention this I did a thorough search through hostel reviews to make sure we stayed at a bed-bug free hostel. One place we almost reserved in Hualien had some bed bug reviews, so we switched to another hostel. The morning after our stay, I met a traveler in the laundry room who had black circles all over his arms. He had been bitten overnight and was tracking how much his bites grew. Gross, right? Maybe just Hualien has a bed bug problem, or maybe by some freak accident I encountered two hostels there that happened to have bed bugs.
-Taiwan is awesome and I have few bad things to say about it. Everyone, go visit.