Our Trip to Taiwan - Day 1

Our first official day in Taiwan was a whirlwind. We landed at 6am Taiwanese time (which was 3pm PNW time) and were pretty worn out from the almost 24 hours of flying/layovers. However, from previous travel experience we knew to get onto local time as quickly as possible as it would make the vacation much easier. I soon learned that it's relatively easy to get yourself on the new time but somewhat hard to do with a two year old who can fall asleep in the car, stroller, or carrier at the drop of the hat. :-)

First up on our agenda....dropping off our four suitcases, four carry on bags, one carseat, and one carseat roller at Tim's place in Linkou. Well, it's technically Tim's parents place that they bought as an investment but since it's closer to the airport than Taipei Tim uses it as a second home when he's flying. Now, I will fully admit that I didn't know what to expect upon entering the house. I've never seen the inside of an 'Asian' house (besides movies and you know how realistic that is) and the outside, well, was not on the same level of cleanliness that I was used to. (I found out later that there's a reason for this. There aren't really any places to rent in the city, as most people buy their condos outright. But there's no association fee for keeping the outside clean so all of the hundreds of units would have to agree to fix up the outside on their own dime, which just doesn't happen. So it's just a cultural norm that the outside of the building looks like what it does after decades of weather and living, but the insides are truly beautiful.

Tim's place was fantastic! Tile flooring throughout (so no need to worry about spills damaging carpet), lots of cabinets (that were hard for Abby to open), a large living room (room for Abby to get out her wiggles), four bedrooms (so everyone had ample sleeping space), and two bathrooms (no lines for showers!). Tim graciously gave Abby and I (and eventually Nate) the Master Bedroom as he thought that the bigger space would work better for Abby. The neatest thing was the toilet in the Master Bath. Yes, the toilet. It automatically raised the lid before you sat down (and automatically closed when you were finished), had a heated seat (!), had various buttons for the bidet and other fancy options (which I never did try as they were all in Chinese characters and I was afraid of breaking it), and flushed automatically as well. I thought it was so interesting that as soon as I saw it I ran to get my Mom to show her. :-) Yes, we're weird.

The Dining Room and Kitchen. If you look on the back kitchen counter, on the left by the door,  there's a small bucket just to the left of the yellow cutting board. That small bucket, which is overfilled with plastic, is the garbage can! I think we filled it up before we even had breakfast. :-)

The Living Room and Front Entry Way. The coffee table slid open to reveal a secret play place for Abby. 

The Master Bathroom. Sorry for the towels in the picture. I pretty much dropped gear and took a shower to wipe off the plane nasties, and then thought to take a picture. The infamous toilet is on the left. Abby had a blast in the tub as she loved reaching over and turning the water on and off and swimming around.

After we had a quick rest we were off! We first met up with Jane, Tim's Mom, at her Juice Shop. She currently owns a few juice shops around the country and it was amazing to see how many customers this tiny place had. While we were there for the 30 or so minutes we saw three tour buses stop by and let their passengers off to get a snack. Come to find out, Jane has a deal with the tour guides that she gives them a kick back if they stop at her place and the gift shop that's just around the corner. Smart girl! I didn't mind the wait as Jane helped her many customers as she gave us a bunch of her juices, and the fruit that makes them, to try. Our fruit platter consisted of mango, guava, sweet sop, and waxed apple. It really is amazing how yummy food can be when you get it as close to the source as possible rather than a grocery store miles away. Mmhmm. We also tried a few juices....I remember the passion fruit pineapple (my favorite!) and a mango one (not my favorite, but still yummy). It was then time to head out so Jane promised we'd come back later in the week to try the other juices. Plus, Nate wasn't with us yet and I knew he'd want to see Jane's shop. (Nate was busy teaching his modeling class until Saturday morning.) We ended up at a local eatery where I had the best 'thing'. I have no idea what it was called but it was a flaky pastry that had hoisin sauce, marinated beef, and sliced cucumber wrapped up in it. I think I had three or four they were so good! We also had some type of dumpling/pot sticker, rice, shrimp lettuce wraps, a soup, and another dish I can't remember. Regardless, good food!

From lunch we headed to tour Daxi Old Street. Unfortunately those pictures are on Mom's camera so you'll have to see the uniqueness of the place by clicking on the link. I do have one, lonely picture of the temple we visited, though. The temple was very interesting. It had a roof but was very open to the elements. As you walked in the front there was a table where you placed your offering to the gods for their blessing, then you picked up the item to take with you on your way out. Each wall or corner area was dedicated to a different god or goddess and their 'spot' was decorated to represent that gods area of worship. People were very open to us being there and taking pictures, which was something I was concerned about. I mean, this is a person's place of worship and I didn't want to disrespect that just for a few snap shots. But Jane said it wasn't a problem and then we saw others taking pictures as well. I thought it was interesting that some people came in and worshiped at each of the gods' statues while others seemed to go to their favorite god and just worship there. I asked Jane what one actually does to worship their god and she said that you go before their statue and, putting your hands in a prayer position in front of you, you bow three times while each time saying silently your specific prayer. Well, when in Rome and all, so I bowed to the god I was in front of and said my prayer. I know that my prayer got sent up to God himself, as I don't believe in these other gods, but it was a neat ritual to participate in. Another cool thing we got to see was across the street from the temple. To please the gods the people built a theatre house across the street figuring that the gods would enjoy the entertainment. While we were there a two woman play was being performed. Jane said that these plays happen very infrequently so it was an omen of good luck for our trip that we got to see one!

The temple we visited. Very ornate with lots of statues and dragons.

We then took a stop at a local park for Abby. While Abby was having fun running around, waving, and saying 'hi' to everyone. I had a little girl follow me around and just STARE at me. It took me a minute to realize I was probably one of the few, if any, white person she'd seen. I felt like the Pied Piper there for a bit as I would move from play thing to play thing with my little shadow friend closely behind. :-) After we finished our touring here Jane took us to Tina's Coffee and Bakery for an afternoon treat. It was a gorgeous location. A wide field with wooden lounge chairs scattered here and there, a small garden with a variety of herbs and flowers, a small cafe for ice cream and coffees, and then a the shop for the bakery itself. Abby enjoyed getting a second chance to run around. Jane opened up the fruit she'd brought with her, and had blessed at the temple, and we got a laugh out of Abby as she would take up a tomato, stab it with the plastic toothpick, eat it, then spit it out as it tasted bad to her. I think she did this routine over and over for the entire container of cherry tomatoes. At first I was concerned as she was basically wasting food but after seeing Jane and Tim just giggle and laugh at her antics I decided to let her have her fun. On our way out we stopped by the bakery to pick up some breads for breakfast the next morning. As all the item description tags were in Chinese we used Jane as our interpreter to find a few loaves of bread. We ended up with a raisin-nut, a cheese-garlic, and a sesame-sourdough. All three were super yummy!

At this point it was obvious that our jet lag had caught up with us. It was 5pm local time but 8am WA time so we were just dragging. So much so that we weren't interested in seeing any more sites, but really just wanted to head home, have dinner, and go to bed. Jane and Tim were so sweet accommodating us. They took us back to Tim's place and ordered pizza! Abby, poor girl, fell asleep before they got back with dinner so she got a Taiwanese style peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a banana then passed out before I could say "go to sleep". I'll admit I wasn't too far behind her. I think it was 9pm Taiwanese time when I bid my goodnight and closed the door for bed. Well, after a long day of touring after a very long time of flying you'd expect both Abby and I to crash until long into the morning, right? Nope! Not my girl. :-)

Stay tuned for Day 2! (Hopefully coming quicker than this last post did. An out of town visit to the in-laws, a head cold, and a non-napping Abby in the past two weeks put a damper on my blogging. Here's to staying home, good health, and naps, glorious naps!)