First Night in Taipei
December 4th, 2007 | Published in dispatch | 5 Comments
Shocking fact #1: I am travelling with my folks.
Shocking fact #2: I am travelling with my folks and six of their friends. Median age, 52.
Unsurprising fact #1: I am not used at all to travelling with… people. So many people. So many old people.
Taipei seems a nice enough city, although we got here at nightfall and I haven’t seen very much of it beyond the Taipei che zhan (main station) area. If dinner, a quick and simple one at the corner store in the neighbourhood was anything to go by, I am going to like Taipei very much. The train stations have announcements in Hokkien, which still gives me a rude shock each time I hear it, with how versatile and expressive Hokkien really can be, in the right hands (”the express train to Hualien leaves in four minutes. Passengers who have not boarded please hurry up!”). I still take about five minutes to read menus, having to mentally transcribe each character from traditional Chinese script back to simplified Chinese and then back into English, the tardiness of which is linked directly to how long I haven’t used written Chinese, although my spoken Mandarin is holding up admirably.
More updates from Taipei to come — since there is free wifi in MY hotel room — I think I’m going to really, really like this city.
December 5th, 2007 at 2:44 am (#)
sweetheart -indigopearl is no where near shops - v sorry but did not find beer lao but miss you much - wet kisses and big hugs!
December 5th, 2007 at 7:26 am (#)
Yeah I just read about that (about how far the hotel is from.. anything) :) So sorry, hope the seclusion didn’t mar the experience? Tell me all abt it over beer (not lao) and burgers soon!
December 5th, 2007 at 8:35 am (#)
Enjoy your stay!!!!!
December 5th, 2007 at 6:32 pm (#)
i was in transit in taipei last month. when the plane was landing i saw a large number of ponds dotting the area around the airport. are these natural ponds or man made and is it some kind of fish farming? do you know?
December 5th, 2007 at 7:43 pm (#)
Jasbir, those “ponds” you saw are probably rice fields.
Due to tensions with the mainland, large swaths of rural Taiwan were designated as farmlands decades ago. They still are, with rice being the main crop. They look like ponds ‘cos rice fields need to be flooded at the beginning of each planting season. With 3 harvests a year, rice is plentiful and you’ll find a lot of rice based tidbits in Taiwan.