Welcome to Travel Blog 2 - Adventures in Taipei, the exciting sequel to my Japan travel blog from a few years ago. My expectation is that this blog will be like most sequels (not as good as the first, honestly, why did they try to make another?), but we will just have to see how it works out.
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| What a lovely day. |
Bit of background. My current Adventures in Taipei comes to you courtesy of work, who have sent a bunch of us over to bring back a few odds and sods that we left over here (
link). That makes this officially a work trip, not a holiday, which is why I expect this will be a watered-down version of my Japan blog. Still, I fully expect to be exploring of an evening, so I hope there'll be a few things to tell you about.
We landed last night, and got to the hotel at some point around half 10 (after an exhilarating taxi ride from the airport). Taipei has been described to me as 'Tokyo Lite', and I wasn't quite prepared for how accurate that is. There's a 7-eleven next to the hotel (and opposite the hotel, and on the next road over from the hotel...), and I popped in to see if they stock the same range of things the Japanese stores did. Hooray, they do! I got my fix of the little rice pockets I almost lived on in Japan, which I thought at the time were wrapped in very thin omlette, but I think is actually fried tofu. They're just as lovely as I remember, and just right for a late night dinner.
This morning, we all met for breakfast and headed out to Yangmingshan National Park for a mountain walk, pausing on the way to pick up an Easy Card for the trains and buses (basically an oyster card with a cute ...thing... on it). The metro in Taipei is incredibly easy to use, and (once you've figured out if you tap on the way on, or the way off, or both) so are the buses. The bus journey out to Yangmingshan had beautiful views of the city as we climbed into the hills, but I didn't get any photos of that, so you'll just have to trust me. I did get this shot, though...
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| Bus rules. | |
In case you can't read that, the sign indicates that it is anti-sexual harasement, with a ban on smoking, birds, and food or drink. So if you ever feel like taking you chicken on a day trip, think again, buster. No birds on buses. Thems the rules.
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| Mount Qixing, the tallest peak in Yangmingshan National Park. |
This is a photo of the mountain that everyone but me climbed. I bailed pretty quickly - I'm not built for mountain walking, it turns out - and wandered back down the trail, looking a giant spiders (I'm going to put a photo or two in at the end, heads up) and trying to spot lizards in the undergrowth. Some creature of some description was making an almighty racket (like a motor revving), and I spent a lot of time trying to spot what said creature was, but to no avail. I did spot one lizard, but aside from that, there wasn't much but neverending butterflies, which I'm sure don't make noises like engines.
After 20 minutes trying to figure out where to wait for my bus, and whether my bus went the same way back into Taipei as it came out (pro-tip, it doesn't, but I was headed for the end of the line, so it wouldn't have mattered), I ended up completely missing the bus because my back was turned, so opted instead for a different bus to Taipei main station. My trusty phone map indicated that it was but a short walk from the main station to the hotel, which is more or less true if you walk quickly. I took best part of half an hour to do the walk, which was fine, and it was at least 34oC outside, so there was no way I was walking any faster. So now I'm back at the hotel, I've had a shower, and I'm lounging in the complimentary kimono as I debate whether to head out and find more things, or put my head down for a wee nap. I think the nap might win.
But first, SPIDERS!
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| This one must have been the width of my hand (to finger tips) when it was sitting waiting for lunch. Then lunch arrived, and whoosh... |
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| Nom nom. Another spider is eating well today. |
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| That's no cloud! That's a giant spider web between the trees. |
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