Posted by Jason
For those that don't know, I was born in Taiwan and lived there until moving to Vancouver at the age of 10. I've been back to visit many times before but this is the first time bringing Karbo with me, and I was excited to introduce her to family and my childhood friends!
The Family
We stayed with my grandma in DaAn district, the same area in the capital city Taipei where I grew up. Ever since we were kids, my brother Dennis and I have always been very close with my grandma, uncles, aunts and cousins from mom's side. The fact that we all lived within a 4-block radius from each other had something to do with it, and every night was a big family gathering! Mom flew in from Vancouver for our last couple of weeks in Taiwan, so we got to see her for the second time on this trip (Mom also joined us in Paris). My aunt (dad's sister) and cousin Ernie, who I haven't seen since we were kids, also came from the States for a short visit. Let's just say we had A LOT of catching up to do and I was so glad we got to meet up, even though it was only for a day.
Taiwan is a relatively small island - 36,000 sq km, slightly larger than Vancouver Island - but with lots of attractions to offer. It has become a popular tourist destination, especially for tour groups from mainland China. We took a few trips to different parts of the country, but didn't visit as many places as we had initially planned. The thought of fighting for personal space with bus loads of tourists made us want to spend more time with friends and family in Taipei instead, which we thoroughly enjoyed :)
Here are a few pictures from the days when we did our touristy things:
Here are a few pictures from the days when we did our touristy things:
Taipei
Kenting
We visited the seaside resort town on the southern tip of Taiwan for 2 days with our friends. We took the High Speed Rail to Kaohsiung, where we rented a car and drove for an hour before reaching Kenting. We stayed at the Kenting Chateau Beach Resort, which has its own private beach accessible directly from our hotel rooms. We took advantage of the exclusivity and had a blast, literally. We bought some fireworks from the night market and lit them up on the beach!
Jiufen
My cousin Henry and his girlfriend Patty took us on a day trip to the historic mining town of Jiufen, about an hour drive northeast of Taipei. Jiufen is famous for its "old street," an alley full of restaurants, food stands, and stores selling souvenirs, old-school toys and trinkets.
Tamsui
Just north of Taipei City, this sea-side district is a popular spot for watching sunset. Uncle Terry and his friend took us to Tamsui by MRT (Taipei's subway system) and we spent the afternoon there exploring the old Dutch Fort and its scenic boardwalk.
Hsinchu
We made three trips from Taipei to Hsinchu to visit my dad, who has been a professor of material science at National Tsinghua University for the past 30-plus years. Dad gave us a tour of the campus and his labs. He tried to explain to us his experiments involving alloys and super-alloys, which flew right over our head because it was just wayyyy too technical. Pretty sure he dumbed it down for us too...
Dad's been very supportive of our RTW trip and we've stayed in touch through emails and post cards, so it was really nice to finally be able to spend some quality time with him. He's also been one of this blog's most avid readers! Thanks pops!
Dad's been very supportive of our RTW trip and we've stayed in touch through emails and post cards, so it was really nice to finally be able to spend some quality time with him. He's also been one of this blog's most avid readers! Thanks pops!
The Friends
We spent almost two months in Taipei, which allowed me to fully reconnect with my closest childhood friends. We also met up with some friends from Vancouver who moved back to Taiwan. We also made some new friends along the way who we will for sure stay in touch with down the road.
We tried to be productive during our extended stay in Taiwan, so through my good friend Alice, who works at the international office of Shihchien University In Taipei, Karbo hired a Mandarin tutor to help with learning the language. Sidebar: Karbo's family is from Hong Kong, so she speaks mostly Cantonese at home. It was amazing how much Karbo's Mandarin improved over the two months in Taiwan. It helped that everyone in my family spoke mandarin to her most of the time, and Taiwanese locals in general don't speak very good English, so Karbo had to use her Mandarin when we're out and about.
Alice's manager at the university was also a professor, so he welcomed me to sit in on his International Events Management class once a week. For one of the classes I created a power point presentation, which I haven't done in ages. I never thought I would say this when I was in school but now a small part of me misses being a student.
Alice's manager at the university was also a professor, so he welcomed me to sit in on his International Events Management class once a week. For one of the classes I created a power point presentation, which I haven't done in ages. I never thought I would say this when I was in school but now a small part of me misses being a student.
The Food
While Taiwan has plenty of sights to see, its number one attraction is its FOOD. Despite all the amazing things we've eaten during our trip so far, we've managed to maintain decent weights and felt somewhat healthy because we would eat in moderation and walk everywhere (except for in Homg Kong, where we ate a lot and walked/exercised very little). In Taiwan we were constantly eating. Eating with friends. Eating with family. Eating at home. Eating out. Grandma's love for late night snack was a bad influence on us too. We even made an effort to exercise in Taiwan. We went to the gym regularly and walked or biked to places. I also played basketball at least once a week. However, we were still in the worst shape of the trip. Oh well, the food was so good it didn't even matter :)
That's about it for our time in Taiwan. Two months was the longest we spent anywhere on this trip. Although there is so much more of the country to see, we were very happy with our decision to take it easy. It was really hard to say good bye to our friends and family, but time has been going by so fast I'm sure we'll see them again before we know it.