While searching for a plane ticket on kayak, I found the best itinerary in the world. It was 700 dollars for a one way ticket home with a 16 hour layover in Taipei. I decided to take advantage of that long layover and squeeze in one more country/city into my trip.
During my researching phase, I learned that Taipei Intl. Airport has a program for long-layover passnegers. There are two half-day day-trips into the city and country you can sign up for at the airport and the amazing thing is that it's totally free. Every airport should do something like this. But in the end I decided to strike out on my own because I didn't like the itinerary of the tour I would have had to take.
Armed with google map printouts, advice from wikitravel, and my resurgent mandarin chinese I arrived in Taipei at 10pm and checked into my hostel at midnight. This was one of the coolest looking, nicest hostel/guesthouses I've seen. I think this could be a Protip: In big, international cities, stay in guesthouses/hostels because they are great value and really pleasant places to stay (whether or not your on a budget). There was nobody at the reception since I was checking in at 12am and checking out at 6am. The front door was password protected but there was a hotel phone out front and I called the posted number for the english speaking extension; nobody answered. I remembered I was bilingual so I called the chinese number and the guy told me the passcodes. Since no one would be working during my six hours stay there, I was supposed to use the honor system and put my money in the little red box next to the kitchen fridge.
I wandered around the deserted, empty downtown streets for an hour before going to bed at 1am. Is there anything in the world better than strolling down a deserted empty city street late at night?
For some reason, I thought Taiwan would be as hot as Vietnam. It was not. It was not as hot.
woke up around 6am (didn't sleep well because of early departing backpackers) and started to do my self-guided tour. I eschewed all the typical tourist sites. You know how I feel about tourist traps. I decided to check out the University. I thought The Taiwan Univeristy campus would be a pleasant walk with cool looking buildings. It was okay but it was not like UW or UCLA. Protip: large university campuses are cool places to see and maybe even do things as a tourist. But it was still an interesting walk. The buildings are utilitarian and it was so early in the morning that there were no students around. In fact, there were more white haired senior citizens doing Tai Chi around the campus than there were students. The main library was closed! 7am on a Monday morning and the main library was closed.
Then I headed to YongKang Street, famed for it's eateries. Again, it was still too early in the morning and most of the restaurants were still closed. So I went Taipei 101 (here). It was a rather cloudy, windy and cold day; my day in Taipei. I didn't get to see anything from the 400 meter up observatory. That's not true; I saw a lot of clouds.
Then I went back to YongKang St. and ate at a place famous for their Steamed Juicy Pork Buns. They were good. Their other dim sum items weren't that great. There was the daily crowd of tourists at the front of the restaurant lining up to get in when I left.
Then I ate some more food at other shops along YongKang St. Then I had to leave for the airport. I almost didn't make it back in time because of transportation. I arrived at the gate with 30 minutes to spare.
Then I flew for 7 hours and caught up on movies. I swear, 90% of the movies I've seen in the past 3 years have been in-flight entertainment system movies.
Then I arrived home; felt my usual disgust at the Honolulu Airport's facilities, services and staff.
It reminded me of an article I read about how difficult it is for tourists to come to America. They want to spend money in our country and do some cultural exchange but the government seems to throw all these barriers and hurdles in their way. The article stated that travelers are more afraid of the TSA and border agents than of terrorists or accidents; they are afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing while going through immigration. I realized I felt the same way. What does it say about our country when people are more afraid of the government than terrorists?
Taipei was a cool city. I liked it. I realized if I was going to live in a big city, it would definitely be in a nice, international, modern Asian big city. I don't know what is about nice, international, modern Asian big cities, but they do things right.
During my researching phase, I learned that Taipei Intl. Airport has a program for long-layover passnegers. There are two half-day day-trips into the city and country you can sign up for at the airport and the amazing thing is that it's totally free. Every airport should do something like this. But in the end I decided to strike out on my own because I didn't like the itinerary of the tour I would have had to take.
Armed with google map printouts, advice from wikitravel, and my resurgent mandarin chinese I arrived in Taipei at 10pm and checked into my hostel at midnight. This was one of the coolest looking, nicest hostel/guesthouses I've seen. I think this could be a Protip: In big, international cities, stay in guesthouses/hostels because they are great value and really pleasant places to stay (whether or not your on a budget). There was nobody at the reception since I was checking in at 12am and checking out at 6am. The front door was password protected but there was a hotel phone out front and I called the posted number for the english speaking extension; nobody answered. I remembered I was bilingual so I called the chinese number and the guy told me the passcodes. Since no one would be working during my six hours stay there, I was supposed to use the honor system and put my money in the little red box next to the kitchen fridge.
I wandered around the deserted, empty downtown streets for an hour before going to bed at 1am. Is there anything in the world better than strolling down a deserted empty city street late at night?
For some reason, I thought Taiwan would be as hot as Vietnam. It was not. It was not as hot.
woke up around 6am (didn't sleep well because of early departing backpackers) and started to do my self-guided tour. I eschewed all the typical tourist sites. You know how I feel about tourist traps. I decided to check out the University. I thought The Taiwan Univeristy campus would be a pleasant walk with cool looking buildings. It was okay but it was not like UW or UCLA. Protip: large university campuses are cool places to see and maybe even do things as a tourist. But it was still an interesting walk. The buildings are utilitarian and it was so early in the morning that there were no students around. In fact, there were more white haired senior citizens doing Tai Chi around the campus than there were students. The main library was closed! 7am on a Monday morning and the main library was closed.
Then I headed to YongKang Street, famed for it's eateries. Again, it was still too early in the morning and most of the restaurants were still closed. So I went Taipei 101 (here). It was a rather cloudy, windy and cold day; my day in Taipei. I didn't get to see anything from the 400 meter up observatory. That's not true; I saw a lot of clouds.
Then I went back to YongKang St. and ate at a place famous for their Steamed Juicy Pork Buns. They were good. Their other dim sum items weren't that great. There was the daily crowd of tourists at the front of the restaurant lining up to get in when I left.
Then I ate some more food at other shops along YongKang St. Then I had to leave for the airport. I almost didn't make it back in time because of transportation. I arrived at the gate with 30 minutes to spare.
Then I flew for 7 hours and caught up on movies. I swear, 90% of the movies I've seen in the past 3 years have been in-flight entertainment system movies.
Then I arrived home; felt my usual disgust at the Honolulu Airport's facilities, services and staff.
It reminded me of an article I read about how difficult it is for tourists to come to America. They want to spend money in our country and do some cultural exchange but the government seems to throw all these barriers and hurdles in their way. The article stated that travelers are more afraid of the TSA and border agents than of terrorists or accidents; they are afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing while going through immigration. I realized I felt the same way. What does it say about our country when people are more afraid of the government than terrorists?
Taipei was a cool city. I liked it. I realized if I was going to live in a big city, it would definitely be in a nice, international, modern Asian big city. I don't know what is about nice, international, modern Asian big cities, but they do things right.
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