Yesterday we checked out Taipei 101, the 6th tallest building in the world. Yeah, it was pretty big.
For dinner we had all you can eat hot pot which was crazy tasty. Reed and I cook it at home, but the variety of things to cook in the broth here was really impressive. 3-4 root vegetables, 4-6 types of mushrooms, 4-6 types of greens, 6-8 other types of veggies, 4-6 different types of fish, crab, squid, shrimp, clams, mussels, octopus, 4-6 different types of noodles, 6-8 types of dumplings, 4-6 types of wantons, 15-20 things I couldn't recognize, 6-8 types of tofu, and I'm probably forgetting half of it. At the end of the buffet there were 10-15 seasoning mixes, spices, peppers, garlic and sauces to flavor you pot. We each had our own pot embedded in the table on an induction burner, filled with broth. You season it, bring it to a boil, and cook any of the above in the broth. Dessert was a whole other buffet of fruit. And a display case of tarts and cakes which we didn't even get to. Back at the hostel we played Texas Hold Em and had a beer from 7 Eleven.
Today we check out and head to Yuli as mentioned in last post. Internet might be more challenging in the next couple days, but maybe not. Most hostels, coffee shops, and 7 elevens seem to have wi-fi.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Wulai
No river tracing yesterday, but we did hike and swim around Wulai, up in the mountains around Taipei. It took a 35 minute bus ride, standing room only, 75-80 degrees, through switch back after switch back. I did ok aside from my shoulder being jostled so much trying to hang on. Others struggled more with the heat and motion. We took a cab back to town. The river water was cold, but not Lake Superior cold, so we jumped right in and started a little trend for the other tourists. There were many beautiful waterfalls along the way. One lady stopped us on the trail asking, "American?!American?!" Then proceeded to sing a song and chat a bit praising Obama and asking us to re-elect him for a third term. Or so the guys said - I could not understand her accent. Due to the language barrier we didn't explain how unlikely (unconstitutional, as Harrion pointed out) it would be to make her wish come true.
Food of the day included boar bacon wrapped around peppers, mushrooms and mixed with onions. Good stuff. Also a variety of sausages and some kind of bird...I couldn't tell you what it was but it was the whole bird, gutted, but eyes and beak remained. I think it was duck. All was good.
That night we wandered a few blocks before deciding on a restaurant next door to our hostel - HUGE ramen and rice bowls, definitely my favorite meal here so far. It was so much food, and Harrison was nearly done with his when they came and poored more broth into his bowl. It was one of the funnier moments of the trip so far, the look on his face, and Tyler and I stopped eating ours before they filled ours up again. Reed had the rice bowl - everything was really tasty.
Harrison earned bonus points for the team when he was able to mime for a to-go container for his extra filling of soup. Well done, Sir.
We finished the night at a bar/restaurant/bakery that the guys found the night before, when I went to bed early. They serve Belgian beers on tap, one of which is a tasty brown sour.
Today's a rest day. Much needed. I looked up the yoga studio down the block - they teach Bikram which is what a lot of folks in the states call "hot yoga." Not sure if I'll go for that or not. A foot massage sounds a lot more restful to me...
We also plan to solidify our itinerary for the next 3 days, as we left them open. Right we're leaning toward taking a train to Yuli for two nights to hike some of the Walami trail through mountain jungle - yes, JUNGLE, with MONKEYS. :) Then maybe a night in Dulan, a seaside artsy town with a black sand beach, before arriving in Taitung for our ferry to Green Island, our next base camp. We'll see what works out.
Food of the day included boar bacon wrapped around peppers, mushrooms and mixed with onions. Good stuff. Also a variety of sausages and some kind of bird...I couldn't tell you what it was but it was the whole bird, gutted, but eyes and beak remained. I think it was duck. All was good.
That night we wandered a few blocks before deciding on a restaurant next door to our hostel - HUGE ramen and rice bowls, definitely my favorite meal here so far. It was so much food, and Harrison was nearly done with his when they came and poored more broth into his bowl. It was one of the funnier moments of the trip so far, the look on his face, and Tyler and I stopped eating ours before they filled ours up again. Reed had the rice bowl - everything was really tasty.
Harrison earned bonus points for the team when he was able to mime for a to-go container for his extra filling of soup. Well done, Sir.
We finished the night at a bar/restaurant/bakery that the guys found the night before, when I went to bed early. They serve Belgian beers on tap, one of which is a tasty brown sour.
Today's a rest day. Much needed. I looked up the yoga studio down the block - they teach Bikram which is what a lot of folks in the states call "hot yoga." Not sure if I'll go for that or not. A foot massage sounds a lot more restful to me...
We also plan to solidify our itinerary for the next 3 days, as we left them open. Right we're leaning toward taking a train to Yuli for two nights to hike some of the Walami trail through mountain jungle - yes, JUNGLE, with MONKEYS. :) Then maybe a night in Dulan, a seaside artsy town with a black sand beach, before arriving in Taitung for our ferry to Green Island, our next base camp. We'll see what works out.
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Tea Mountains & Dumplings
Yesterday we took a slow morning, trying to readjust from this jet lag. We met Harrison for lunch then trained out to a gondola (no glass bottom) and rode it to the top to where they grow tea. Had some street food snacks (grilled chicken with green onion and stinky tofu both seasoned with wasabi) and hiked further up the mountain. Great views of the city from up there - interesting to see how laced it is through the mountains. Shortly before sunset we picked a random Tea House, one that wasn't playing American ballads from the 90s and seemed less catered to westerners. Of course, in those types of places the language gap is more of a barrier, but they knew "tea" in English and that's all we needed. We went with Oolong, paid what the lady wrote down and followed her up to a deck which had to have been the best city view of any of the tea houses up there. She brought us a tray of porcelin cups that held about 2 tablespoons, a clay tea pot the size of a small fist, a clay pitcher the size of the tea pot, metal strainer, wooden scoop and wooden tongs. Then she wheeled over a cart with a propane tank on the bottom and a single burned on the top, with a kettle of water to boil. Apparently we bought a whole canister of Oolong as well. We all stared at the whole set-up a little while before I put the strainer in the tea pot and some Oolong leaf balls in the strainer like at home, right? No. She came back to check on us, looked at what I'd done, shook her head and said something that had to have been the equivalent of, "what on earth...no,no,no,no." She poured the few leaf balls I'd put in the strainer into the tea pot then added two large scoops with the wooden spoon. She put the strainer in the pitcher and, when the water boiled, poured it all over the outside of the teapot and filled it. Almost instantly she turned the teapot spout down and set it in the strainer. She took it out, set it aside, and rinsed our cups with the tea. She repeated it, this time leaving the tea in our cups to drink. Has anyone seem the Sherlock show, the British version? It's on Netflix, and if not you should watch it. There's an episode which explains all of this, and apparently it's accurate. With each fill of the tea pot, the water poured on the outside keeps the clay from drying and cracking. Eventually, she even brought us an explanation sheet in English explained that the first dump is to make sure the leaves are clean and to warm the cups. We shared pot after pot and watched the sun set and city lights pop on. It was dark when we left for the city and dinner. Awesome day.
Dinner was dumplings. A common way to order food here is to look at a menu then put the number of desired items next to their name listed on a sheet of paper. Last night, the menu had English on it, but the sheet we ordered with did not. It took us a bit to compare the Chinese characters from the menu to the order sheet to make sure we ordered the right things but it worked out. We got fried pork dumplings (pot stickers, so far the most authentic Chinese food at home), and steamed pork, beef and crab dumplings. Yum. Yum. I do have to say though...The food's not what I expected so far. I expected a lot more vegetables and flavor. So far the majority of what we've had is steamed meat and bread so we'll see if we can mix it up a little bit.
Afterward I hit the jet lag wall again, this time with a pretty decent headache, so I went back to the hostel and the guys stayed out.
This morning I woke at 5, and though I try to sleep in to readjust to the time, I'm usually too excited. Today I stayed up and walked to the Memorial Hall park for t'ai chi. I found large groups of people excercising in ways that looked like warm-ups for it, but no t'ai chi. I joined one for a while then came back to the hostel. Reed was awake this morning too so he went for a run in Daan Park, kind of like a Central Park with a running track around the outer edge. Maybe I'll check there for t'ai chi tomorrow.
After breakfast we're meeting Harrison for river tracing (hiking up river, through the river). Should be good :)
Dinner was dumplings. A common way to order food here is to look at a menu then put the number of desired items next to their name listed on a sheet of paper. Last night, the menu had English on it, but the sheet we ordered with did not. It took us a bit to compare the Chinese characters from the menu to the order sheet to make sure we ordered the right things but it worked out. We got fried pork dumplings (pot stickers, so far the most authentic Chinese food at home), and steamed pork, beef and crab dumplings. Yum. Yum. I do have to say though...The food's not what I expected so far. I expected a lot more vegetables and flavor. So far the majority of what we've had is steamed meat and bread so we'll see if we can mix it up a little bit.
Afterward I hit the jet lag wall again, this time with a pretty decent headache, so I went back to the hostel and the guys stayed out.
This morning I woke at 5, and though I try to sleep in to readjust to the time, I'm usually too excited. Today I stayed up and walked to the Memorial Hall park for t'ai chi. I found large groups of people excercising in ways that looked like warm-ups for it, but no t'ai chi. I joined one for a while then came back to the hostel. Reed was awake this morning too so he went for a run in Daan Park, kind of like a Central Park with a running track around the outer edge. Maybe I'll check there for t'ai chi tomorrow.
After breakfast we're meeting Harrison for river tracing (hiking up river, through the river). Should be good :)
Friday, March 27, 2015
First Day in Taipei
City noise woke me up Friday morning. I'm not used to cars, ambulances, scooters, construction, etc. outside my window. One thing I do love about city living is the balconies where you can create your own little nook of green space, which there is a lot of here. Nearly every balcony has plants, many rooftops have full sized trees, and the amount of trees along the roads is unexpected for a city with the population of New York City in 1/3 the space. Yesterday we walked through three parks which were pretty amazing. Some of the smaller parks squeezed in between the high rise buildings have massage rollers and exercise equipment.
There is a Hatha Yoga studio one block down...so that will have to happen. In one of the parks we walked through yesterday (Chiang Kaishek Memorial Hall - google pictures of that!), there is early morning t'ai chi. That will also have to happen as it's only 2 blocks from our hostel. Across the street is a 7 Eleven, which seem to be every two blocks. They're like the general store - food, liqour, clothes and wifi. I tried some dumplings and I-don't-know-what's. I believe they were pork, shrimp and tofu. One was wrapped in cabbage - nothing crazy there. Except what's in the 'global' section of grocery stores (wasabi peas, shredded squid, etc.) are common snacks. We are liking the steamed buns with fillings ranging from red bean paste, sesame, pork, veggies, etc. Yesterday Harrison took us walking and on the train all around Teipei. Lunch was stirfry similar to hibachi but without all the show.
There are many things here similar to home. White lights strung up the trunks of trees among the roads, moms chasing kids running at the street, lots of cars... But there is also a lot that is so different - shops sell a strange combination of things (like the one that sells dogs and tires), food, language/characters of mandarin spoken and written everywhere, many people wearing face masks, and flocks of scooters on the roads. The differences make the familiar things seem so out of place...
Like hearing a Rhianna song on the radio or a yellow lab at a repair shop.
In the evening we saw the school where Harrison works, his apartment, then went to a night market. Looooots of food vendors and some selling clothes. Harrison had us try a Vietnamese sandwich, Bhan-mi? I forgot what it's called...French bread with pork, pickled veggies and cilantro - so good! I also had BBQ bee sliced thin, wrapped around huge green onions and grilled. After THAT we tried out two bars. Something Ales sells craft beers and at Roxy Rocker you sift through shelves and shelves of vinyl records which the DJ will play. Seems to be popular with 'foreigners' which include mostly Americans, Britians, Chinese and South Afrians. We did end up leaving after just one drink because we were all struggling to stay awake. Maybe we can make it a bit longer tonight.
One thing we have noticed is with the humidity and temperature, dried cracks (even bloody ones) in our skin from Minnesota winter have pretty much completely healed after one day here. Relief!
I think our plan today is to take a gondola up a mountain. I heard it has a glass floor so we'll see howi do with that...I'm sure the two climbers (Reed and Tyler) won't have an issue with it.
For folks who don't know these names I'm throwing around, Reed's my husband, Tyler's one of his closest friends, and Harrison married us. We all know each other through a tangle of years and people.
The great thing about traveling the way we are (everything in one back back, bare essentials only, staying at a hostel, etc.) is the way it forces (allows) a person to live. If you only bring so many items of clothing (laundry's 10 cents a load, including detergent) and a few to no electronics, your choices are limited, so you have more time to experience the place. You have fewer excuses for distraction to live more presently. I think this is why it is such a relief to take trips like these - I can loose the materialism of our culture to live more simply and therefore more fully. Something I don't always have the self-discipline to do when padded in the comforts of home. Food for thought.
There is a Hatha Yoga studio one block down...so that will have to happen. In one of the parks we walked through yesterday (Chiang Kaishek Memorial Hall - google pictures of that!), there is early morning t'ai chi. That will also have to happen as it's only 2 blocks from our hostel. Across the street is a 7 Eleven, which seem to be every two blocks. They're like the general store - food, liqour, clothes and wifi. I tried some dumplings and I-don't-know-what's. I believe they were pork, shrimp and tofu. One was wrapped in cabbage - nothing crazy there. Except what's in the 'global' section of grocery stores (wasabi peas, shredded squid, etc.) are common snacks. We are liking the steamed buns with fillings ranging from red bean paste, sesame, pork, veggies, etc. Yesterday Harrison took us walking and on the train all around Teipei. Lunch was stirfry similar to hibachi but without all the show.
There are many things here similar to home. White lights strung up the trunks of trees among the roads, moms chasing kids running at the street, lots of cars... But there is also a lot that is so different - shops sell a strange combination of things (like the one that sells dogs and tires), food, language/characters of mandarin spoken and written everywhere, many people wearing face masks, and flocks of scooters on the roads. The differences make the familiar things seem so out of place...
Like hearing a Rhianna song on the radio or a yellow lab at a repair shop.
In the evening we saw the school where Harrison works, his apartment, then went to a night market. Looooots of food vendors and some selling clothes. Harrison had us try a Vietnamese sandwich, Bhan-mi? I forgot what it's called...French bread with pork, pickled veggies and cilantro - so good! I also had BBQ bee sliced thin, wrapped around huge green onions and grilled. After THAT we tried out two bars. Something Ales sells craft beers and at Roxy Rocker you sift through shelves and shelves of vinyl records which the DJ will play. Seems to be popular with 'foreigners' which include mostly Americans, Britians, Chinese and South Afrians. We did end up leaving after just one drink because we were all struggling to stay awake. Maybe we can make it a bit longer tonight.
One thing we have noticed is with the humidity and temperature, dried cracks (even bloody ones) in our skin from Minnesota winter have pretty much completely healed after one day here. Relief!
I think our plan today is to take a gondola up a mountain. I heard it has a glass floor so we'll see howi do with that...I'm sure the two climbers (Reed and Tyler) won't have an issue with it.
For folks who don't know these names I'm throwing around, Reed's my husband, Tyler's one of his closest friends, and Harrison married us. We all know each other through a tangle of years and people.
The great thing about traveling the way we are (everything in one back back, bare essentials only, staying at a hostel, etc.) is the way it forces (allows) a person to live. If you only bring so many items of clothing (laundry's 10 cents a load, including detergent) and a few to no electronics, your choices are limited, so you have more time to experience the place. You have fewer excuses for distraction to live more presently. I think this is why it is such a relief to take trips like these - I can loose the materialism of our culture to live more simply and therefore more fully. Something I don't always have the self-discipline to do when padded in the comforts of home. Food for thought.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Taipei
Made it to Taipei..though it was more like 24-26 hours of travel...aside from that, Harrison picked us up at the airport and welcomed us to Taiwan with a beer in the cab on our way to our hostel (yes, it's legal here..)
Haven't been able to see much since it's midnight and have only had the cab ride, but we're excited to hit the town and start exploring in the morning. Apparently our hostel is on a street known for breakfast options, so we'll start with that.
Good night!
Haven't been able to see much since it's midnight and have only had the cab ride, but we're excited to hit the town and start exploring in the morning. Apparently our hostel is on a street known for breakfast options, so we'll start with that.
Good night!
Tokyo Airport
Sitting in the Tokyo airport, waiting for our final flight of this 20 hour travel day, I have the following to say...mostly in an attempt to stay awake.
1) Let it be known that the female traveler in this bunch has the least amount of luggage - thank you very much.
2) Ecomony Comfort is worth every penny of the extra $150.
3) Interstellar and The Imitation Game are both two thumbs up.
4) The toilet seats in this airport are heated. In fact, they have more buttons and controls on them than my car's dashboard.
5) We are all very tired...
-A
1) Let it be known that the female traveler in this bunch has the least amount of luggage - thank you very much.
2) Ecomony Comfort is worth every penny of the extra $150.
3) Interstellar and The Imitation Game are both two thumbs up.
4) The toilet seats in this airport are heated. In fact, they have more buttons and controls on them than my car's dashboard.
5) We are all very tired...
-A
Monday, March 23, 2015
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