Taiwan days three and four

in

Our third day was pretty unremarkable. Grace was feeling fairly sick, so we just took it easy in the morning and relaxed in the hotel for the afternoon.

The fourth day we headed out of Taipei down south where Grace's mom's family lives. We took the high speed train which was pretty awesome. Got to see a lot of the countryside with a lot more comfort, a lot less hassle, and barely any less speed than we'd have via flying. Something that would certainly be nice in the USA, though I doubt it will happen any time soon.

Grace's uncle picked us up from the train station and took us to his house where we were staying the night. At this point Grace was feeling even sicker than before, and finally consented to go to the doctor. We first went to a pretty basic clinic, but they sent her along to the hospital emergency room. Apparently a fever of 103ºF, convulsive fever chills, and numbness in your extremities necessitate urgent medical attention.

The hospital experience was actually pretty good. As far as hospital experiences go, I guess. Here are some pictures from after Grace was feeling better (but still pretending to be stricken in some of them).

Hilariously, when they were giving Grace her prescriptions, they were very careful to mention that one of the medicines was quite expensive. Since Grace is not a Taiwanese resident or citizen, she would have to pay out of pocket to the tune of TWD 1000. Or roughly USD 30. In other words, what one might be happy to pay for after insurance in the USA. Great system we've got there. The entire hospital stay was about USD 130, which included multiple lab tests and the administration of an IV.

After our hospital adventure we went out to dinner with most (but not all) of Grace's mom's side of the family.

Taipei day the second

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Today started similarly to yesterday, delicious breakfast and all.

After breakfast and visiting with Grace's grandparents we went to see the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (on Wikipedia). It's a pretty impressive building located on beautiful grounds. We were also lucky enough to catch the changing of the guards. I took a bunch of pictures, some of which are below. Not pictured is the oppressive heat.

Later that afternoon we went to Taipei 101, one of the tallest buildings in the world. It was the tallest from 2004 (taking over from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur) until 2010 (when the Burj Khalifa was completed in Dubai). Unfortunately, a lot of our pictures didn't turn out that well from haziness and the fact that there were taken through glass, but I'll include several below.

One thing really cool about Taipei 101 is the tuned mass damper. It is apparently the largest and heaviest in the world in addition to being one of the few that are open for public viewing. It's truly massive (5.5 m diameter and a mass of  660 metric tons), and, in my opinion, pretty gorgeous. I snapped a few (okay, a ton) of pictures, but I'll try to restrain myself from posting all of them.

There was a massive gift shop we went through while exiting the observation deck of Taipei 101, mostly featuring a ton of really expensive coral (Taiwan is pretty famous for coral).

We met up with a friend of Grace's family to get hot pot for dinner. I'm pretty clueless as to Taipei and its neighborhoods, but it seemed like a really cool area. The food was delicious, though I am unskilled in the arts of hot pot.

First day in Taipei

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We met Grace's parents for breakfast after a very satisfying sleep. We had a pretty typical Taiwanese breakfast, consisting of many things for which I do not know the name. Highlights were fresh soy milk (very different from what you get in stores - less an imitation of milk proper than its own, separate entity) and some sort of breakfast sandwich with eggs and fried doughy goodness akin to churros.

After breakfast we met Grace's grandparents (on her father's side). They don't really speak English at all, so I couldn't offer much in the way of conversation besides saying "Hello" in very poor Mandarin as coached by Grace. Some funny tidbits from the meeting, but maybe I'll let Grace go back and fill them in.

We spent the majority of the day at the National Palace Museum (on Wikipedia). No photographs allowed there, so you all won't be tortured with a massive gallery. I will include one picture of what is apparently the most famous piece, the jade cabbage.

The jade cabbage. Apparently famous for how well the sculptor used the flaws and natural variations in the jade as assets to make the piece more lifelike.

The jade cabbage. Apparently famous for how well the sculptor used the flaws and natural variations in the jade as assets to make the piece more lifelike.

Grace described the jade cabbage as something like the Chinese Mona Lisa. Perhaps a little underwhelming in person, but with a perpetual giant crowd surrounding it.

We saw a lot more things, including other jade sculptures. Unfortunately, I have even less appreciation (and context) for Eastern art than I have for Western art, so a lot of the beauty was most likely lost on me. In particular, there were many famous examples of calligraphy that, while interesting, probably had most of their significance lost to me.

We had dinner that night at Din Tai Fung. As usual (they have a couple locations in Seattle), it was very good. Particularly the black truffle dumplings (yum!).

We grabbed a couple pictures of ourselves at the restaurant.

Arriving in Taipei

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We arrived in Taipei on September 15th in the afternoon. Grace's parents met us at the airport, which was very nice. We were both a little out of it from all the travel and jet lag, despite the shady miracle drug my parents express ordered from New Zealand. It may have actually helped - it's hard to be sure since I haven't done enough traveling involving major time zone changes lately to have a good comparison.

The airport is a bit outside Taipei, so the cab ride to our hotel took about half an hour. Our hotel was an interesting mix of old and new - or maybe just things I am used to and things I am not used to. No swipe card for the door. Just a regular key (that you leave at the front office when you depart the hotel for the day). A mostly clever but occasionally irritating system is a little slot by the door in your room into which you deposit the key. This allows all the lights to turn on. It's nice, since when you're leaving you can just leave everything on, take the key out, and it will shut off. Less nice when it also unpowers the outlets your laptop, camera, whatever is plugged into for charging.

The hotel also had incredibly fast internet (around 60Mbps, or 6 times what I was happy to get in Arlington), but no WiFi. Not sure why these things tend to happen. Maybe Taiwan just developed so quickly that by the time WiFi was common everyone already had fast wireless internet through their phones? Anyway, not a big deal. Figured out how to use my laptop to broadcast a wireless signal from an ethernet connection for our other devices (handy to know!).

Also, Taiwan (and maybe a lot of East Asia) is all about hard beds. The bed in the hotel was maybe the hardest one I've ever slept on. Left me really sore the first couple days but was actually pretty nice after that.

Unfortunately, I don't think Taiwan caters to a whole lot of people in the 2m and up height range, so the ceilings were a bit low, and I didn't exactly fit in the shower.

After checking in to the hotel, Grace, her parents, and I went out to dinner at a nearby restaurant. Lots of good food, particularly Peking duck (so good!). Grace and I were in a fugue state at this point, so went right to bed after dinner. It was nice to be done with flying for a little while.