Taiwan travel journal: Part 1 - December 24, 2010

Note: This is the journal that I wrote as I was traveling around Taiwan. I'll post things at whatever pace I can.

It's been over two years since I last took a major overseas trip. Or any overseas trip for that matter. I left Hokkaido in the early afternoon, and I arrived in Taiwan in the evening. I've noticed that I have gotten over the initial anxieties of setting foot in a completely foreign country. When I first did this whole traveling thing, the first hour or two was always a cause for some fairly anxious moments. But now, on my 4th solo overseas trip, I'm pretty accustomed to the whole rigmarole.

The flight over was normal, if slightly more turbulent than usual, but that was probably to be expected as there was some rough-ish weather on both ends of the flight. I caught the cheapest bus into downtown Taipei, and on the ride in from the international airport, I determined that all Taiwanese buses have a secret code. ALL of the buses have electronic displays in the front window with a 4 digit number. Local, inter-urban, long haul. If only I could decipher the code I would be the master of the Taiwanese bus system!

Or I could just wait for the electronic display to cycle through the names of places in Chinese (which I sort of decipher, at least in terms of some place names) and English. That might be easier.

I got to Taipei station and find the hostel where I thought I had reserved a bed only to find that they didn't have any open beds. The guy I had emailed told me that I could crash on a couch or a table for no charge, which I guess I'll do. Hey, save myself NT400*.

I went to the Shilin Night Market, on the recommendation of the hostel manager, to grab a bite. It was all right. Kind of a mixture of Ueno's Ameya Yokocho and some of the Vietnamese markets I've been to. The Taipei subway system, however, was great. And the system uses NO PAPER! (Japan - please take note.) One time users get a small token that works the same as a scan type pass. And you return it like a coin in a vending machine when you disembark.

One thing that I definitely noticed is the huge number of Japanese businesses and stores here in Taipei. Family Mart, Tokyu Hands, Mitsukoshi, the Daiso (39元). And many many Taipei locals could easily pass as Japanese, given their appearance, fashions included. In a lot of ways, Taipei seems as though it would make a pretty good first foreign city for a Japanese traveler who doesn't want to go to Honolulu or Guam. Enough the same that it's not too scary, but enough of a distinctly foreign feel to it. My general sense of the character of Taipei is that it's somewhere between Tokyo and Hanoi, though it's probably considerably further along the Tokyo end of the spectrum.

Tomorrow, I plan to get up early and head out of Taipei, though I've not decided for certain, though I do have a few places I definitely want to hit. Tomorrow morning I'll try to figure out the gigantic mess that is the schedule board at Taipei's main train station.


*NT is the standard abbreviation for New Taiwanese dollar, the currency. In Chinese, it is usually written as 元 or 圓, Chinese characters that mean yuan, the Chinese currency.