Our Scoot Airlines flight from Tokyo delivered us safely and on time. By the time we arrived, we were very weary but we managed to buy our Metro card and get some Taiwanese dollars from the ATM. The weather was miserable with driving rain and gusty winds so taxis weren’t available. Our best option for getting to the hotel was to navigate the Metro. A train from the airport goes to the Main Station, a huge complex that would be confusing even when we weren’t tired after a four hour flight. We picked out a kind looking young man from the crowd to ask for directions. He not only told us how to get where we needed to go, but took us to the escalator that led us to the Metro line we needed. We were very grateful to Fabian, a young student from Malaysia studying in Taipei.
Once we exited the Metro, it was so windy that our umbrellas turned inside out. Lucky for us, the hotel is just a few steps from the exit from the Metro stop. We were wet and weary but happy to have arrived!
Our hotel is very nice and well-located but compared to Tokyo, our view is less spectacular.
It was still rainy this morning but after breakfast at a coffee shop down the street called Mr. Brown’s, we set out to find a laundromat. It took awhile but we found it and were successful in navigating the machines.
While we waited for things to wash and dry, we talked to a young Japanese man who is studying Chinese in Taipei and also browsed the nearby supermarket. Larry found some reading glasses to replace broken ones and we discovered flavored beer…grape, mango and pineapple. Don’t worry, we didn’t drink any!
We spent the day exploring our neighborhood. We ate lunch in the basement of the upscale Sogo Department Store. There are stalls with many different options. People are very friendly and we enjoyed talking to a young Taiwanese Physics student and his cousins who were visiting from New York.
We haven’t spent enough time here to really have a sense of the culture, but our first impressions are very positive. Like Tokyo, there is lots of traffic and many 7-Elevens.
It seems to us, so far, that the people here might be a little friendlier and the neighborhoods not as polished compared to Tokyo. Taiwan shares a lot of culture with its neighbor to the north, Japan, but it also has much in common with the Indo-Chinese countries to the south.
The sun came out in the afternoon and the evening sky was pretty. Motorcycles are waiting for the traffic light to change.
We’re settling in and moving at a relaxed pace. We hope all is well with you!
