The kids all have T-shirts with pictures of our cat Digsby who is staying in Ohio while we are away this year. We miss him very much and wanted to take him to Taiwan with us.
Here is danger cool.
It's a pretty cool land-sled contraption.
Note the teamwork?
Ted and Zoe went for a swing with a view.
There was a young school group at the farm. This group was taking a pontoon boat ride around the little canals.
We fed the ducks and the fish.
Then, it was time for pony rides.
Pretty quickly, it was time to check out. We took the hotel's shuttle to Hualien (skipping the Shoufeng leg this time) and bought tickets to Taipei.
We passed by this bridge that we could see in the distance back at the bed and breakfast.
A quick note about buildings in Taiwan. It seems like almost all structures are made out of unpainted concrete or light-colored tile. This is so different from Singapore where things are all freshly painted and gleaming clean. Taiwan is definitely one of those places that is 1st world in some spots and 2nd world in others. The infrastructure in Taipei was probably the most organized and complete than in any of the other cities we have visited in Asia (except Singapore, of course). But the conditions outside the city were very, very different. The only exception here is technology. Everyone here has a mobile phone. All the taxis had TVs in them. Up front. Yes, the taxi driver could watch TV as he drove. And watch they did. Most cars and taxis had these little video cameras attached to (or embedded inside of) their rear-view mirrors.
Once we got back to Taipei, we made our way to the Dandy Hotel and found ourselves in a third room, bigger than the tiny one from the first night, but nowhere as spacious as the upgraded suite from night two.
It was our last night in Taiwan so we had a big night planned. First stop was the Longshan Temple, which was very calm and perfect.
There are always food offerings at these temples. Someone had left a bag of McDonald's here.
We left the temple and wandered through some night markets. The craziest one was on Huaxi Street. It's known as "Snake Alley" for a reason. No, there weren't snake charmers, but every other thing. They sold snake milk, blood, and we read they even sell snake semen. There were lots of snakes.
We also found Herb Alley, which was quite small and some other normal markets selling all kinds of trinkets and souvenirs.
It started raining so we took a break for tea.
Then, we found Taipei's Times Square. This area is called Ximending and it is known for its Japanese-influenced youth and teen culture. It was definitely very cool. Beyond this big square is where the district actually starts. It takes up several blocks and it's mostly covered so you can be outside and not in the rain. There are tons of shops selling cool clothing as well as restaurants and dessert places and so on. What a fun place to hang out for teenagers.
Okay, here's the potty talk. Ted had just that evening read about a restaurant in this area called Modern Toilet. Because we happened upon the area, we decided to make the kids' dreams come true and eat there.
We sat at a bath tub. On toilet seats.
The food was served in toilets or bath tubs. And the food was actually pretty good. It's mostly pastas and curries with a lot of creamy and/or cheesy sauces. It's definitely not the type of food we usually get anywhere in Asia.
And then ice cream was served in miniature squatty potties.
The Modern Toilet restaurant has only a urinal and a squatty potty in its bathroom.
But the sink is a toilet so that's okay.
After dinner, we caught a taxi to the Taipei Eye where we would watch a Chinese opera about the Monkey God, Eleanor's favorite story collection.
Yes, we had fun even before the show started. The show was also great. There was a lot of acrobatics in the performance.
This was a perfect way to spend our last night in the city. After the show, we headed home and went to sleep quickly because it was very late.
We slept in a little and then after breakfast found ourselves with a few hours to kill before we needed to head tot he airport. Around the corner from our hotel was this fantastic weekend flower market under a highway bridge. They had it set up perfectly with little misting sprayers and everything. This was important because it was 40 degrees Celsius (104 F). We couldn't buy flowers but we found plenty of other things to bring home.
Beyond the flower market was also a jade market. It sure was fun to look around.
After all that, we spent a half an hour or so back at the playground in that park across the street. It was so hot. Then, it was time to check out and dash to the airport. There was a cool sign at our gate. It says Taiwan and is made out of circuit board materials (I hope that's right). A lot of this stuff really is made right here and we saw the factories to prove it.
So that's the end of Taiwan adventure. I have to say it was my favorite trip we have taken. I liked it even better than Bali, which was hard to imagine. I would definitely recommend this place as a destination for travelers. It's a beautiful island, at least what we saw of it. I wish we had more time to spend here and hope one day to come back.
As I close this entry, I realize that this is the end. In two days time, I will be on a plane heading home. We have had some memorable adventures this year. It really has been amazing. But right now, all I can think about is hugging friends and families. Any trip we take now will seem easy in comparison to all of this.
So much this year has been new and exciting. Wow, are we ready to embrace the familiar (and exciting) for a bit.
