Hello, everyone! This is the last series for our travel blog and it's going to feel good to be all done with travel write-ups. Early Thursday morning, the kids and I board a plane to Hong Kong, hang out for a few hours, board a plane to Canada, then hopefully make our connecting short hop flight to Columbus, Ohio where we will see their grandparents for the first time in a year. Our year-long adventure will end with a 26-hour journey home to the US. Ted will join us about 10 days later. Somerville, we will return around July 8th, almost exactly a year since we left.
Before we head out, I'd like to finish up this travel blog with posts from last week's trip to Taiwan. I'm going to post one blog for each day there because there was so much to see and do.
Taiwan is such an amazing place. A lot of Taipei made us feel like we were at home, or at least on a short trip to New York City. Taipei is definitely the most New York City-like city we have visited this year. The streets are in massive grids (mostly), all the cute shops and some big chains on the first floor of all the large buildings, people walking everywhere, and yellow taxis everywhere. I can't describe it well enough, but it just had a very New York feel to it, especially the last night there when we visited the crazy area that looks like Times Square but is much cooler, full of very fashionable teenagers doing their thang instead of boring families of tourists like ourselves (and like New York's Times Square). There are two big differences between Taipei and New York City. The first one is obvious: language, but that was to be expected. The second difference is the mountains. Gorgeous tree-covered mountains surround the city, making it feel somehow less concrete-filled. Taipei is a beautiful, incredible city.
We arrived at Taoyuan International Airport at about 8 PM. We breezed through customs and found our bags easily. Then we found a cab and settled into a 45-minute ride into the city. The Dandy Hotel is in the Daan neighborhood of Taipei and borders Daan Forest Park, which is Taipei's answer of course to Central Park. It's much newer though so it's not as forested yet, but it is beautiful. Not that we learned that the first night. That night we hurried right into our pretty and modern hotel and found our room--with one bed! And practically no floor space! We ordered up some extra blankets and made it work. Everyone was tired enough anyway.
The next morning we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel. They had a very nice, very large buffet with the loveliest little soufflé things. Yum. Then, the super helpful folks at the front desk (truly, they went above and beyond, love this hotel, love these people) helped us arrange a taxi to the river where we could watch some dragon boat action. Today was the start of the races, which meant the preliminary rounds, the less competitive, more partying-type races.
It was kind of a gray day so we were handed some umbrellas at the hotel before we left. The area by the river was very pretty and filled with people playing games, making, selling, and buying crafts, eating a ton of food, and preparing for races and cheering on dragon boat teams.
The races involved 4 boats each and started just beyond this bridge.
Some races (most) were not even close.
Many of the boat crews were just there to have some fun. Like these folks.
This is the loudest team on the riverbank, so naturally it's where we decided to watch. They took tons of pictures with the family, too.
A couple of races we watched were very close.
That building in the distance is a large hotel complex, which is apparently where all the dignitaries used to stay before the giant skyscraper Taipei 101 (3rd largest in the world) was built.
The team gave us some noisemakers and Wyatt quickly took them over.
They also gave us some food, sweet rice steamed in these leaves. The kids couldn't get enough of it.
After watching a bunch of races, we walked back to the games and food area. Ted found some mini-pancakes filled with different flavors of cream.
We hit up the kids' casino.
After playing, they could pick a prize. No one picked this nice one from Pizza Roof.
Then, it was time to go. Goodbye, Taipei Dragon Boat Festival 2013.
It was tricky, but eventually we found another taxi and explained that we wanted to go to the National Palace Museum. It houses one of the largest collections of Asian art. First, we visited the children's collection while Ted got our tickets to the regular museum. I thought this display was interesting.
The girls set up their own temple,
arranged a box of collectibles,
and re-assembled a Ming vase.
Then, they found this guy.
Then we checked out the exterior. It was mind-blowingly HOT.
We also re-fueled by having very fancy sandwiches and desserts at the museum's café before entering. Delicious treats.
The museum was very impressive. There were statues, vases, plates, bowls, and so on that were 6,000 years old! Unbelievable! Of course there was no photography allowed. We could only spend a few hours here but could easily have spent much more. Ted and I wanted to keep going but it was not in the cards. We picked up some souvenirs including postcards and a gorgeous scroll print to hang up back in Somerville.
We walked through the impressive grounds and found a taxi who would take us to our hotel. The lovely folks at the Dandy had decided to upgrade us while we were out. Our new room was on the top floor of the building and was a 2-room suite with big picture windows overlooking Daan Park. The kids brought out every toy they had brought and immediately covered the floor with them. Ted and I checked out the view.
All of the hotels where we stayed had these very high-tech sci-fi toilets that could do all kinds of special tricks.
After letting the kids relax a bit, we headed into that park we could see from our room. There was a large group of photographers set up with their cameras all pointing at one tree. We still don't know what they were capturing: a baby bird? a flower blooming?
We walked on by the photographers, past the court with skating lessons,
and found a giant playground.
This park was full of activity and people. There were several different play areas, a sand and water area, an amphitheater with a dude playing a flute, kids running and skating, kids playing soccer, and teenagers playing basketball.
And some birds just chilling.
After sweating like crazy at the playground, we walked through the park to find a place for nourishment and cold refreshment. We found this Taiwanese beer garden restaurant that had all kinds of fresh seafood displayed on the first level, where the kitchen was. Ted picked out what he wanted, figured out that the pickiest among us could have chicken, and ordered us a feast. We walked up the back stairs and found a seat on the roof with a cool breeze. They served us Taiwan Beer.
The restaurant was packed. There were three large tables of young people celebrating something. They were standing up one at a time and chugging these giant bottles of beer and cheering for each other. It was fun.
Patiently waiting.
Everyone loved their dishes. This was, if not the best, one of the best meals we had here.
The girls needed to wipe some hot spice off their tongues.
Then, exhausted, we walked back to our hotel. We had to take one last shot of the view at dusk.
It was a busy first day but we were ready for more. In the morning, we were heading out to the country. That blog is next.
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