Taiwan - Day 1 (Jiufen)

View from Jiufen

Friday, December 30, 2011

Whether it was jetlag or excitement I'm not sure, but I had trouble sleeping my first night in the Taipei Teachers' Hostel.  I got out of bed at 6:30 and went across the street to a 7-11 to pick up some water and a pastry to hold me over until breakfast time.  I was then able to get the free Wifi code from the guy at the front desk using no Mandarin at all.  Stephanie stopped by the hotel around 8 am to meet up for breakfast at a Chinese cafe attached to the lobby.  Rice soup, doughy bread thing, hard boiled egg?, and some broccoli/cauliflower plate.

Fish ball soup stop in the Jiufen market

After the meal we walked a few blocks down the road to the Chan residence where I met Stephanie's mom, her oldest sister, Emma, her brother-in-law Nick, and her 1.5 year old nephew, William.  Nick was born in Sweden, where Emma was studying abroad when they first met.  He only spoke spotty Mandarin and was fluent in English, so at least there was someone I could relate to.  The three of them had come in from their home in London for the week.  We hung out in their living room for a little bit.  Her dad had bought me a winter hat, and also lent me a sweater for the day because I was ill prepared for the inclement weather that we would face during the day.

The early plan for the day was for Steph, Emma, Nick, and I to head to Jiufen, an old mining village in the coastal mountains around 25 miles east of Taipei.  We took a combination of taxi cab, train, and then a bus ride to arrive at the village a couple hours later.  Unfortunately the weather was awful (cold, windy and pouring rain), so what should be spectacular views from the mountaintop of the coast and town below was covered by clouds and mist.  We walked around the market, which was mostly covered by canopies.  Our lunch were piecemeal as we made various quick stops at random eateries along the way, including a place specializing in fish ball soup, another restaurant specializing in red bean soup (a Chinese dessert) and other stops for sausage and random peanut butter stick thing.  I apologize that my explanations of food I eat are very unspecific and incoherent, but I can tell I'll rarely have any idea what I'm eating most of the time on this trip.

As far as food goes, so far the family has seemed impressed that I'm willing to try anything, although this rule was quickly put to an end as I met my new nemesis, "stinky tofu."  When we walked past the food stand for this fermented tofu, I thought that we had walked past a dumpster used to store dead bodies.  I was informed that this is the normal smell of what is considered a delicious Chinese treat (listed as the #41st most delicious food in the world according to CNN).  The stench was so overpowering that not only did I refuse to go inside to sample the treat with Steph and Emma, but I had to stop eating the candy I was working on and hold my breath at fear of gagging on the spot.  While the two Taiwanese girls enjoyed their cuisine, Nick and I went as far from the area as possible to wait them out.

Eventually it was getting too cold, so we hopped on a long bus ride back to Taipei.  We got off somewhere in the newer section of Taipei (the hotel and their apartment are in the older section).  This area had a much more New York City feel to it, with large commercial district and lots of people walking around the streets.  We walked around for a little bit, got some tea at Birdcage, and then hopped on the MRT (metro) back to the hotel.  The metro stations were impressive in how they looked like underground malls, in how clean they were, and in how orderly everyone is to get on the subway (there were designated lines where the trains would stop and people lined up, rather than everyone making a mass push to get on when a new train arrived).

Family dinner at Iki

I went back to the hotel for a quick nap, and then headed back to their apartment.  There I met her other sister, Amanda, who actually lives in the apartment, and her fiancee who came in from Hong Kong.  After some small talk, the whole group (minus Nick, who stayed home to watch the baby) headed to a nice Japanese restaurant, Iki, in Taipei (we couldn't get a reservation until 8:30, apparently because it is so popular).  It was one of those fixed priced menus, this one came with 7 courses (I think, I actually lost count).  There was soup, salad, sashimi, salmon rice bowl with roe, chicken on grapefruit w/ special sauce, grilled beef, sorbet, pear pudding with cream, and of course flavored tea.

To properly digest we walked back to the hotel area, cutting through a park, and through the town square (?) area, which featured some really cool architecture. I'll get some better pictures when we return in the daytime.


Blog note: I'm planning on updating the pictures on my blog after the trip after I collect photos from Stephanie and anyone else that was taking pictures during the week.  For now I'm just sticking with a few of my lower quality iPhone pics.