Laurie's 2007 Trip to Taiwan (concluded!)

Well this has taken a while, hasn’t it?

My sister Laurie came to visit up for two weeks in February/March and I am only now recovered! HA! HA! HA!

We had such a good time and I am still missing her very much! It was really nice to have her around and be able to zip around the country with her.

So where to start?? Well, the evening that Sue went to play her big poker game, Laurie and I went to the Wen-Hua night market and Laurie looked at (hmm… what was she shopping for again? OH! Yeah! I remember now…) shoes.

What can I say? The girl likes her shoes! I must admit I have my preferences as well since I kept dragging Laurie and Susan into CD stores and stores that sell little toys and junk. *SHRUG*

Finally, at the start of the second week, we had a chance to go to Taidong on the East coast. Our trip there was fantastic! The train ride, although it was about 5 hours long, was really not so bad. We were on the train for about an hour and a half and then we got off in Kaohsiung to change trains. I took the opportunity to chill out with a cup of coffee at Starbucks while Laurie and Sue browsed for knick knacks at a cute store they have in the train station. Susan and I had been to that store before and there were some things Sue wanted to look at again.

Our train arrived shortly and we set off on the second leg of our journey. We arrived in Taidong a few hours later, having been refreshed by naps on the train and having been treated to some spectacular scenery as the train traveled from the West coast of Taiwan, through the mountains, and up along the magnificent East coast, with the Pacific Ocean shoreline in full view.

Once in Taidong we took a taxi to our hotel and settled in. We stayed at the Teachers and Public Workers Hotel. It was reasonably priced, decently furnished, clean, and very comfortable. That night we had a little walk around Taidong and poked in a few shops, but the weather was a little colder than we would have liked as a storm front had blown in during the afternoon. We tried to rent scooters, but since we didn’t all have a Taiwanese driver’s license nobody would rent to us. They didn’t care if Laurie had a valid international license or not. “No Chinese? Can’t read it and don’t care what it says.” So we walked a lot.

Although we had a really good time and the trip was wonderful, I think this marred the experience a little in some ways. Taidong is a beautiful city, but with no way to get around except foot-power, it kind of sucks. We spent three days on the same streets (the ones nearest the hotel) when I would really have liked to drive out to some of the scenic areas on the nearby coast. We didn’t even see the ocean until the third day of our trip!

On the second day of our trip I ran into a foreigner and we got talking (while Laurie and Susan were looking at …shoes….). He showed me a little out-of-the-way restaurant called La CASA. I brought the girls there a little later and we had a really nice meal. The owners are an American man from Texas, and a Taiwanese woman from Orchid Island (who speaks AWESOME English). They serve Tex-Mex, bagels (made from scratch!), teas and coffee. There was an interesting desert that we all tried: baked apples with ice-cream! Unfortunately, it would have been better if the apples weren’t cooked in butter that solidified on them when it got cold. Many a bite of ice-cream turned out to be butter. UGH… but on the whole it was pretty good!

The restaurant is really cute. It is half inside and half outside. That first night we sat outside in the garden under the stars and enjoyed some coffee.

On the last day of our trip, the weather finally co-operated with us and we had beautiful blue sunny skies! Originally we had planned to head over to the nearby town of Ju-Ben, which is famous for its natural hot springs, but since it was our last day in Taidong, and we hadn’t been to the ocean yet, that was where we went and we spent the better part of the afternoon down by the water reading our books and relaxing in the sun and the shade.

We took the opportunity to walk down to the sand and collect a little bit for mom, which we put in a small glass vial for her as a memento.

Laurie and Sue managed to get their feet in the water, despite the fact that it was winter. It was still relatively warm and they had a great time. I wish I could write more about this, since it definitely the BEST day of our Taidong trip, but we really just hung out on the beach and chilled. There isn’t much else I can say!!!!

As the afternoon started to turn into evening, we walked back into the town and found ourselves back at LA CASA where we had a late lunch (early dinner?) and spent another couple of hours chit chatting!

As it began to get dark, we decided to head back in the general direction of our hotel. After dropping our stuff off, we found a cute vegetarian restaurant on a nearby street and had a wonderful dinner. We ended the evening by buying and exploding some fireworks in a nearby park and then, exhausted, we returned to the hotel and called it a night. We were a little bummed to have to return back to Chiayi so soon, but Susan’s vacation was over and she had to work on Thursday and Friday.

Thursday and Friday, while Susan was at work, Laurie and I zipped around Chiayi looking at last minute gifts and poking around little stores together. It was really fun… especially on Friday afternoon when we started out looking for a few incense burners and ended up in a complete stranger’s living room drinking coffee.

It started like this: Laurie had a short list of people that she wanted to buy some nice things for, typically Chinese things. I suggested we go to a Bai-Bai store, where they sell incense and incense holders and various religious supplies for Taoist worship (statues of the gods, ghost money used as offerings, alters etc). This was going to be our first of several stops, so when the owner offered us a cup of coffee, I initially refused.

I wasn’t being rude, I just know that this can lead to hours of chatting and I also knew that Laurie wanted to get to a few other places that afternoon. Laurie, however, didn’t realize that this was an invitation to social coffee, I guess.

In Canada if someone offers you a drink while you are shopping, you say “yes”; they give you a drink; and you go on with your shopping while sipping a beverage. In Taiwan if someone offers you a beverage, it is actually an invitation to stop whatever you are doing and engage in small talk for the next two hours. OK… I’m exaggerating… but you get the gist!

If someone offers you tea or coffee, it is a social thing. It would be rude not to sit and chat for awhile, so when Laurie said “yes” to a cup of coffee, I rolled my eyes, smiled, and made myself comfortable at the little table in the back of the shop.

The owner was a very kind woman who, I would gather, speaks mostly Taiwanese and not Mandarin Chinese. She spoke Chinese with a very thick Taiwanese accent and spoke no English at all, so I was left with the interesting task of interpreting her Taiwanese-slash-Chinese conversation, translating it back to Laurie, and then responding to the woman in Chinese for Laurie.

The woman prepared some coffee for us, which in-and-of-itself was unusual since (as I’m sure you’re aware by now) Taiwan is very much a tea-culture country. It turns out that her friend / brother / sister / cousin / uncle / someone-she-vaguely-knows owns a coffee plantation in one of the nearby mountains and this coffee was picked and roasted this past week. Laurie was impressed (as was I) with the flavour, and amused by the freshness of it!

I don’t believe coffee beans have an optimum freshness in the traditional sense of the word (although they can get stale). I am certain that the coffee we get in Canada is as good as coffee you could buy elsewhere, but it was certainly cool to be drinking coffee that had been on the tree earlier in the week!!

The woman eventually offered us a business card for her friend’s business, so that we might buy some coffee. Laurie was particularly pleased as she thought this would make an excellent gift. The woman tried to explain to me how to get to the man’s store, but in the end she decided that it would just be best if Laurie and I were to follow her.

This is another Taiwanese trait. I have yet to meet a Taiwanese person who will give you directions. They will nearly always meet you somewhere and conduct you to your destination. This is something they do even among themselves, so I was pretty prepared for it when she interrupted herself mid-sentence and stopped giving me directions, insisting instead that she should show us where it is.

We were agreeable to this, we said, but we had some things to do first since there wasn’t much light left in the afternoon and Laurie and I wanted to use the video camera up around the lake this afternoon as it was Laurie’s last day in Chiayi. We agreed to meet her at my school in a few hours and Laurie and I took off.

We zipped around Lan-Tan lake with the video camera, Laurie riding on the back of my scooter, filming, while I provided commentary. It ended up looking and sounding great except for when the camera was turned to the left or the right. As long as the camera was pointing towards the front, looking where we were going as it were, the sound was perfect. The minute Laurie turned it sideways to scan the scenery around us all that the microphone picked up was rushing wind. Oh well! It still LOOKS good!

We ended out trip around the lake in front of the bagel shop. We parked the moped and were about to go inside for a drink when the phone rang. Lynn, my co-worker, was calling to tell me that the woman was waiting for us at the school to bring us to the man’s coffee shop! Laurie and I couldn’t believe how late it had already gotten!

We got back on the scooter and headed over to the school, where we met the woman and followed her to her friend’s “shop”.

It wasn’t until we were halfway in the door that we realized it was someone’s home! We were introduced at the front door then led into their living room where the children were sitting watching television. The kitchen was visible through a doorway directly in front of us, and piled on the floor up against the far wall were huge bags of coffee beans. Despite the lack of lavish decorations, it was clear that this was their home, not an office.

We were asked to make ourselves comfortable on the couch. On the coffee table in front of us, coffee was prepared over an open flame in a vacuum-pressure style glass coffee maker.

It was all pretty surreal to begin with, and then the mother came down the stairs with the baby, whom she handed to Laurie, and proceeded to busy herself with setting up cookies and cakes for her guests. We were offered some traditional Taiwanese cakes to eat, which we both really enjoyed. We sipped our coffee, were regaled with some stories (that I was desperately trying to translate at mach speed) and then we bought some coffee. It was pretty amusing and was a very nice way to end the day! Laurie and I both enjoyed ourselves, and Laurie told me it was a highlight of her trip.

We left about an hour or so after we arrived, and we drove back toward the school.

About a block or so behind my school is a temple that has three of the Chinese gods sitting on the roof: larger than life and formidable looking! I stopped there with Laurie and we did our one and only temple tour of the entire trip! We brought the video camera with us and filmed some of the interior and exterior as we explored.

In true Taiwan fashion, we were invited in to have dinner with the caretakers and several members of the congregation. I’m uncertain about which day it was in the Chinese calendar, but I am pretty sure that it was one of the god’s birthdays and so, unbeknownst to Laurie and I, there was a feast being held at the temple and they wanted us to join in. Laurie and I were tempted, but it was almost time for Susan to finish work, so we thanked them but declined the invitation, explaining that we had to go meet our sister.

We went across the street and waited for Susan in the park. We also took the opportunity to explode the last of the fireworks that I had bought in Taidong! Susan eventually joined us and we shot off the rest of the firecrackers, then we went to dinner.

Sadly, the weekend of Laurie’s departure had arrived and so the next day we made our way to Taipei.

I had had a difficult time finding an inexpensive hotel in Taipei (everything was booked solid) until I stumbled upon a tiny little hotel called the Queen Hotel (located at 226 Chang'an W Rd, behind Taipei Main Station; tel: 02 -2559-0489). We had to drag our luggage up two flights of red velvet carpet because they don’t have an elevator, but they do have air conditioning and television: for less than $30US a night (about $800 Taiwan dollars). The rooms were small, but perfect for a place to dump the luggage during the day, and sleep at night. Some of you may be amused by my description of hotel, thinking that it is some kind of sleazy place, but there were no mirrors on the ceilings or vibrating beds, if that’s what you’re thinking! It isn’t a “love hotel”, as they’re called, but at those prices, I guess it could be! HA!HA!HA!

All I was concerned about was that it was clean, secure, private, and quiet. It was all of the above, so I was very happy to have found it!

Right behind the hotel was a day market, crowded and fun to browse, and we were within walking distance of the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit, or subway).

We did the standard tour of Taipei 101, poked around in the book store, had dinner at a groovy all-you-can-eat “Shabu Shabu” restaurant that I know in the area. Similar to the KOREA restaurant Susan and I went to last year, you choose whatever you want to eat and throw it into your hot-pot or fry it up on the barbeque on your table. After our meal, we went over to our foot massage guy near the train station and the three of us treated ourselves to an hour of reflexology. AHHHH!

After the doctors finished torturing our tootsies, we walked across the parking lot and turned in for an early night at our crazy little hotel with the garish wallpaper. No… I mean it: seriously garish!

At the hotel, Laurie and Susan had one last “girlie night” (consisting of scented facial masques) and then, at 6am the next morning, we took a taxi out to the airport and that was it! Laurie’s whirlwind island tour was over!

As a closing note, I was watching the DVD I made with all the bits we filmed during her visit and it occurred to me that we really did do the tour of the island! We went to Taipei, Chiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung and Taidong! We didn’t have time to stop at Toroko Gorge in Hualien or the famous resort areas in Kending, but we still managed to circumnavigate the entire country by bus, plane and train!

It was a fantastic trip and it reminded me just how much fun my sisters are!