Taiwan, Taiwan... Taiwan!

Dear Diary,

Back in Singapore now after a 5-day trip to Taiwan! =) Got home with more than what I bargained! A huge belly and possibly a 5kg addition in my body mass! Trying to resist taking any meat for today till Sunday. Hope it will help me cut down some weight. In fact, since going for January’s 2-week military service, I have steadily nurtured an unsightly belly which I tried in vain to stop! I believe I can put it under control when I go for my twice-weekly physical training from 7 April onwards. ;-) Bright warm afternoon now and just completed watching “Music & Lyrics” on DVD, starring the loveable Drew Barrymore and charming Hugh Grant.

Anyway, this Taiwan trip is a timely relaxing holiday for me. Managed to catch up with my family too. On Easter Sunday (23-3-2008) we woke up early and by 6am, we hailed a cab to Changi Airport Terminal 3. Yup, the newest one. Upon reaching there and checking in, I realised I had forgotten to inform the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) of my departure from Singapore. So I had to rush to a nearby Internet terminal and give that online notification. It isn’t easy being a guy in Singapore. We are soldiers, haha… Yeah…. Pharmacists by Profession, Soldiers by Compulsion… oh well… Bought some stuff at the Watsons and the Duty-free Cosmetics stores. You should see how girls have that voracious appetite for cosmetics. My sister hadn’t even started the tour yet and bought about $180 worth of Clinique products. Yes, Singapore dollars.

Got on the Singapore International Airlines (SIA) flight and spent most of the time watching movies “Juno” starring the super-adorable Ellen Page, and “2 Days in Paris” which was basically spoken half-the-time in French. However, both were great movies. Upon touching down at Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan, we were ferried to Leo Safari Village Theme Park. I was quite surprised that most of the attractions that I saw were pretty much the same since 2000. Hmmm… somehow, the huge Arabian-inspired dome-shaped castles no longer got me as excited as before. 8 years before. The weather was chilly at 17 degree Celsius. When the wind blew, I had to get my pullover on. Even then, could feel the achingly cold fingers of mine. I guess… the redeeming event at Leo Safari Village Theme Park was that little monorail ride into the animal safari where I saw the Rhinoceros, the American bison, the giraffes, the zebras, blah blah blah… The roller-coaster rides and the Viking ship no longer interest me as much as before. Getting old? Haha… Then, it was back to our “Hotel Riverview Taipei” at fringe of Taipei city. Just at the end of the Jhongsing Bridge, and within short walking distance to Ximending (Hsimen Ting) business district. Had dinner in a restaurant at Ximenting, before roaming the streets there. Realised that Taiwanese food tends to be low in salt but very oily!

On Monday (24-3-2008), we ate international buffet breakfast at “The Waterfront” restaurant in our hotel. In fact, we ate breakfasts there for the next 3 mornings. The food was great but what was breath-taking was the stunning view aerial view of the Jhongshing Bridge and the buzz of the morning crowd. The Kuomintang (KMT) candidate had just won the presidential election the day before and the political situation was a little tense. We could feel it as we walked across the parade square just in front of the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. The wind was still chilly and I raced up the 89-step stair into the grand entrance of that hall. A gigantic statue of a seated Chiang Kai Shek was in the middle with numerous colourful traditional kites hanging from the ceiling. Some political activists were distributing leaflets. I have this feeling that this monument will be renamed back to Chiang Kai Shek (CKS) Memorial Hall in the near future after the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had failed in the election. We then proceeded to Yeh Liu Geopark, which is a nature reserve of naturally forming rocks that resemble lots of things notably the “Great River Queen”, the “Fairy sandal” and even a turtle! Needs a little of imagination though. ;-) However the sight of the sea and the rocks with the sun and the wind… I went, “Whoa….”

After lunch at yet another restaurant (realised that the Taiwanese always have this bowl of fatty pork bits in sauce which they will spread over their plain rice with) before we proceeded to Chiu Fen, which is a hill on a mountainous region. Along the hill of Chiu Fen, there were rows of stores. That was also the place where I bought most of the goodies to be given away to colleagues and friends when I return back to Singapore. It was an experience to remember. Bought two pieces of “smelly bean curd” which are the Taiwanese specialty. Despite their renowned “garbage-smelling” pungent odour, I thought it was quite nice! I comfortably ate those two bean curds. It was my first time tasting them. My sister was able to cope with it too. Only Dad and Mum felt the odour particularly revolting. We ate lots of other food like yam puffs, durian puff with yam / sweet potato crisps, some yam dessert… very “Teochew”, isn’t it? Haha… full of yam! In the late afternoon, we headed for Taipei 101, the current world tallest building. Since we weren’t particularly interested in paying NT$400 to ascend to the 89th storey on the world fastest lift and see nothing of the city life with that foggy sky, we just shopped around the first 4 storeys of the building. Most of the boutiques were priced outside our budget. We went to the nearby shopping malls including “New York New York”. Took a picture of that grey “Statue of Liberty” just as I did 8 years ago. However, somehow… the shopping in that district no longer excites me as 8 years before. Had this fearful feeling that this trip is going to ruin my splendid impression of Taiwan of 8 years ago!

On Tuesday (25-3-2008), the tour-guide brought us to the Martyrs’ shrine and we were on time to see the ceremonial parade at 9am. Quite comical to see a man in tuxedo (presumably the soldier’s senior) cleaning the perspiration of the sentry standing still on a podium! Admired the Chinese architecture of the shrine. Unlike my trip to Hong Kong last year, Taiwan seems to attract tourists mostly from mainland China, Japan and Korea. There were very few Caucasian tourists around. We then adjourned for some photo taking at the famous “Grand Hotel” of Taiwan. It was a majestic sight with that amazingly palace-like architecture. We went to the Miramar Entertainment Centre. Didn’t want to sit in that smaller “Singapore Flyer” look-alike. So we went to shop and the salesgirls were greeting us with a bow for the first 5 minutes of its opening. Reminded me of the time when I visited the 8-storey Sogo departmental store in 2000. Then we went to some government cultural agencies where they enlightened us on some of the national “treasures” they have like Lingzhi, royal jelly in its original form and honey. Learnt something interesting. To choose honey, you can put a drop of honey in a flat dish. Fill it up with water. Then swirl it. If you see the formation of a honeycomb image on that drop of honey, it is then authentic honey! I really didn’t know that till they demonstrated to me! The next way is to always check that when you tilt the honey jar over, there should be no residue. Shake it and there should be no frothing. That’s good authentic honey, so they said. Hmmm… then we even had this talk by some Fengshui master. Taiwanese are so “into” Fengshui and Lingzhi. Listened to him speak. I don’t believe in Fengshui actually. I trust in God, haha… He was talking about how your traditional Chinese name characters must have 4, 9 or 13 strokes to have good luck. Hmmm… then there is that amazing calculation method of summation of the two digits of the same number. Example for 13, you get 1 + 3 = 4, which is also a good number. He spoke how our minister mentor sought fengshui advice and hence we have that “Bagua” octagonal symbol on our dollar notes and coins… and even our road tax licences on our cars’ windscreens! Then he explained how Suntec City had that “Fountain of Wealth” design that cost millions of dollars to build. I see how incredibly elaborate Chinese culture is.

Next we headed to the Fishermen’s Wharf and took some pictures on that famous “Lovers’ bridge”. There was a wedding couple taking pictures in the vicinity. Then we shopped at the nearby Old Tamsui Street. Ate some of their unique food like “Arcade” which is basically a bean curd emptied out of its content and filled with vermicelli. Anyway, in Taiwan, people are crazy over vermicelli. You will find it everywhere. We went to the famous Shih Lin Night Market where we tasted more local delicacies like oyster omelette, oyster vermicelli (See! Not again, haha), “Big sausage wrap small sausage” (oh man, felt cheated when they gave me a sausage wrapped with glutinous rice… that’s not what the name says!), “Frog pearl” drinks… and many more. There were some young girls distributing some VCDs and upon looking at them, we noticed, “Call Us, Play Us” slogan with a sexy girl picture. We dumped them all in the rubbish bins which were so rare in Taipei city. It was hot… not the girls… but the temperature hovering around 27 degree Celsius. Realised that in Taiwan, by 6pm, the sky is pitch black. The sun rises really early. At 6am, it feels almost like 7.30am in Singapore. Maybe we are still in the “winter” season of Taiwan.

On Wednesday (26-3-2008), I bumped into my colleague as I was leaving the restaurant after buffet breakfast! It was so coincidental to be meeting someone who works with you in Singapore! =) Chatted with him for a while. There was this female colleague who kept telling me before my Taiwan trip that if she meets me in the streets of Taiwan (since she was also going to Taiwan), she is going to buy lottery. I didn’t meet her so I guess… God didn’t want her to buy lottery, haha… Today was the start of our free-and-easy tour. Didn’t know what the free-and-easy days were so few! We hopped onto a taxi and headed to the Taipei Botanical Gardens. There, we checked out some of their native trees. There were some young little students following their teachers for an excursion. They were so cute and adorable! J The garden was definitely smaller and the trees were more “naturally” grown. You can see that it was less neat, haha… However, the squirrels were very “sociable” indeed! They practically come close to you and not flinch! So unlike our shy Singapore counterparts, yeah? Haha… We then visited the National Taiwan Arts Education Centre which was housed in two former Japanese police stations. We admired the watercolour paintings of Huang Kwang Nan. As we are brought up so obedient, we were puzzled when a young Taiwanese teenager was snapping photographs in that art gallery despite the “No Photography” sign and the mechanical whirling of the moving security camera! We went over to see the children art displays in another gallery. It was amazing. They had collections from many countries like Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Peru and many more. No Singapore though. The children who drew those pictures ranged from 5 years to possibly 16 years old. Looking at those “abstract” art and those “anatomically-distorted” drawings… well, sigh… I guess we adults can’t see and imagine like the kids anymore which is a sad legacy really… I loved looking at those art pieces. It just transported me into a world which I once knew but yet forgotten totally over the years. We spoke to the curators and they seemed impressed that we are from Singapore.

Next, we proceeded on to the National Museum of History. A pretty amazing art gallery and many “Huaxi” artefacts of Ming Dynasty. Yup, their idols, their instruments and pottery… there was even an exhibition of puppetry. Love that small little balcony which we could sit and see a huge portion of the lake and the forestry of the nearby Botanical Gardens. Hopped onto a cab and off we went to Taipei main MRT station. There we ate at one of the rare food courts in Taiwan before proceeding to shop at the streets of Jhongsiao. There was even one shopping mall “Shin Kong Mitsukoshi departmental store” which had 13 levels. We went through all the levels. A girl in costume who helped the customers with the lifts, hmmm, operated the lift… We went to the nearby NOVA and other electronic malls to search for the Asus mini computer. The lowest price quoted was just NT$9700 (S$460) per notebook computer. Dad was tempted to buy until the guy could not reinstall the English-version of the Linux on that computer. Dad gave up. He can’t read Mandarin well. Neither can I. The food sold at the surrounding areas was surprisingly the cheapest among the places I had gone thus far. Tasted the scallion cakes. Yummy… the cabbage omelette was good too! We went back to our hotel rooms for an hour rest before we hit the streets in Hsimen Ting. It was the most thorough shopping at Hsimen Ting in my life, haha… we went from shop to shop, desperate to buy some gifts for my other sister back in Singapore, our friends, our neighbours and for ourselves. We did not buy much… instead, bought some the famous Taiwanese cutlets and even Kebab sandwiches from a Turk at a makeshift stall. Hsimen Ting is largely patronised by the youths and we were made to feel old there. Not exactly impressed with Taiwan’s fashion but their youths have the most exotic, unique and widest array of hair styles in any countries I have ever visited. The call girls were distributing the VCDs at Hsimen Ting too, as in Shih Lin Night Market.

On Thursday (27-3-2008), ate our last buffet breakfast. Tasted dragon-fruits for the first time. Did not do any shopping that morning. After all, we had shopped enough of 7-eleven stores, Family Marts etc… In Taiwan, there are so many convenience stores that you can find one every turn. There are so many cabs too; that you can basically flag a cab almost anywhere and if you book a cab by phone… you get a discount. Yeah, the paradox to the Singapore situation. Then we hopped on the coach bus and off we went to the International airport. We did some frantic shopping at the duty-free shops in the airport and managed to buy some souvenirs. Watched “P.S. I Love You” on board the plane. Touched down at Changi Airport. The temperature was 27 degree Celsius that was exactly the same as that in Taiwan from Tuesday onwards. Bought some duty-free wines, and the taxi ride home was enjoyable. We get some good rest waiting for us, and some memories to bring home.

Breaking news include hailstones falling in Singapore yesterday afternoon for the first time in history in the central areas, and the pope baptising a Muslim on Easter Sunday at the Vatican sparking outrage… back to the real world with the newspapers. Haven’t being reading them for days! Okay, it is 5pm now! I actually took 1.5 hour to recall and type this entry! Gotta go for an evening run now. See ya!

God Bless,

Andrew