Category: Japan and Taiwan

We planned our travels to avoid typhoon season but, the first typhoon to arrive in November since 1967 is heading this way! We’ve been following the track of the storm for the last couple of days and it looks like it will make landfall on the eastern coast. To be safe(ish) we spent this morning readjusting our itinerary. We learned that it might be safer to be away from the coast and in a larger city. We’ll leave Taipei as scheduled to take a train to Taichung, a large city in the interior of the island. According to news reports,  “Taiwan will be hardest hit by the storm on Thursday and Friday. The weather will improve over the weekend, though lingering moisture could bring additional rain to some parts of the country.”

We’ve totally rescheduled our trip and will save Hualien (originally our next destination after Taipei) for later in the trip.

We’ve spent the last couple of days wandering around Taipei. Yesterday we went to the famous Taipei 101 Building.  This very tall structure is sits on top of a shopping mall. In the photo below the 101 Building is on the right.

We find lovely walkways and parks all around the city.

Today we took a long bus ride to visit the National Palace Museum. We saw beautiful ceramics,

and the Jadeite Cabbage along with some beautiful jewelry.

Things in Taiwan are amazingly organized and efficient. At the entrance to the metro stations is a rack of umbrellas that you can rent for a few hours on a rainy day.

Leaving the hotel on our way to dinner this evening we were in the elevator with another couple. We had a conversation with them and discovered that they they’re from Atlanta too!

The winds are picking up but we should be at our next stop in Taichung by mid-afternoon tomorrow.  We’ll get some supplies and prepare to stay put for a day or two until the storm passes. These storms are very fickle so it could be a false alarm or maybe lots of wind and rain. In any case, we’ll be careful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have many delicious dining options in Taipei and we’re enjoying food from various Asian cultures. In addition to Taiwanese Street Food we’ve eaten at Indonesian and Thai restaurants. All very good!

People line up at this stall on Yongkang Street in the Da’an District to try the popular Scallion Pancake. There are several options to chose from like egg and basil or egg and cheese. They were filling and cheap…50 Taiwanese dollars or $1.56 in U.S.D.

To quench our thirst we bought a fruit drink sweetened with sugar cane, flavored with kumquat juice and embellished with unexpected “bubbles” or pearls of tapioca. It was very tasty! Interestingly, it was Taiwanese immigrants who brought bubble tea to the U.S. in the 1990’s.

There are many interesting eateries on Yongkang Street and we plan to return to try other spots like the one below.

We visited the beautiful Longshan Temple which was established in 1738.

We’re walking lots and enjoying the sites. It was a big weekend in Taipei with the Gay Pride Parade and Halloween celebrations around the city.  As we returned to the hotel from dinner this evening, we first noticed this Ramen Noodle Shop with every variety of packaged noodles imaginable – then we noticed the World Series being broadcast on the T.V. screen in the window.

It’s been a good weekend here. We have two more days in Taipei before we move to our next spot – Hualien.

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!

 

 

 

We’re staying at the Mitsui Garden Hotel in Ginza and they have decorated for the season. The weather has been mixed with both sunny and rainy/cloudy days but it’s been warmer than we expected with daytime temperatures in the lower 70’s and 80’s so it hardly feels like fall.

Tuesday was a pleasant sunny day and we took the Metro to the Asakusa Stop to see the Sensoji Temple. It’s the oldest temple in Tokyo said to have been built in 628. Even with the crowds, it’s a nice complex to walk around.

The Tokyo Skytree is one of two towers visible in the city. The guidebook says that it’s the tallest broadcasting tower in the world.

Also visible around town is the Tokyo Tower.  Shown on the left side of the photo below. With lights that change colors nightly, it looks a bit like the Eiffel Tower.

On Wednesday, our last full day in Tokyo, we walked to teamLab Borderless, a digital art museum. It’s described as “a world of artworks without borders, a museum without a map.” Artworks move in and out of rooms and at times intermingle without boundaries.  We spent nearly two hours exploring the various “trippy” spaces.

Images and colors change constantly – it’s a unique experience and very popular. We bought tickets 3 months in advance.

Coffee packets are provided in our hotel room but it took a couple of days to discover how they were intended to work. Larry determined that the “wings” fit over the edge of the cup and hot water is poured through the “filter”. It actually makes a decent cup of coffee.

Tokyo has been quite a fun adventure for us. We’ve spent our days here discovering neighborhoods, searching for delicious food,  and learning about Japanese culture. Tomorrow we’ll take a train to the airport in Narita, about one hour from here. From Narita, it will be a four flight to Taipei on Scoot Airlines.

We took another stroll to see the lovely shop windows – each one is carefully curated.

 

We are keeping busy here,  partly because it’s so easy to travel efficiently around the city by Metro, bus, or walking. Yesterday, instead of taking the Metro, we (sort of accidentally) opted for the bus. This gave us the opportunity to see more of the city than we would have on the metro. We use our Suica (transit pass) as we board, and the screen at the front of the bus tells us the route in both Japanese and English.

Our destination was across the river to see the newer Toyosu Fish Market. It’s a huge complex…mostly a wholesale warehouse. There is a small museum and a place where people can view the tuna auction  – though that would require an early morning (5:30-6:30 a.m.) visit.

There are some restaurants in the complex and we ate a delicious sushi lunch there at a quiet little restaurant. The sign outside said that they had been operating for 50 years.

Back in the city center, we walked around the Kokyo Galen National Garden Plaza in front of the Imperial Palace.  We learned that there are around 2000 Japanese Black Pine Trees in the gardens and they are spectacular to see.

On the way back to our hotel, we walked through Hibuya Park where there was a Fall Gardening Show. We watched this gentleman create an arrangement using tiny forceps to add small succulents to his arrangement. Creative and quite amazing!

Arrangements look like this:

We got some good ideas for clever fall container plantings.

People in Tokyo are very well dressed and shop windows are fun to see.

Dinner last night was at a funky little izakaya (Japanese style tapas) restaurant with tiny portions. It was more expensive than it should have been. The restaurant was atmospheric and colorful which counted for something.

After dinner, we were still hungry, so we went to a nearby Family Mart for fried chicken squares (Famichiki) to complete our meal. We’ve read that there is a sort of cult following for kombini store (AKA convenience store) fried chicken. Each convenience store brand has its own contender.

The weather is pleasant. We have just a couple more days of adventure here, but we’ve only scratched the surface!

 

 

 

 

 

The unlucky part of this is that after dinner on Saturday evening, we realized that Larry’s credit card was missing. We tried to reconstruct our day to decide where it might be…left at a lunch spot in the Tsukiji Fish Market or dropped on the street at an ice cream stand. On Saturday morning we left the hotel early to retrace our steps to find the missing card.

The Fish Market market was super crowded…even more so than the day before. We arrived at the restaurant and they recognized Larry and had his card. We were very relieved!

Nearby we stopped at the Tsukiji Hongwan-ji Temple.  It’s a large complex and with a different vibe compared to Buddhist temples we’ve visited in Thailand. Shin Buddhism is practiced here.

After our visit there it was time to search for lunch. We were lucky enough to find a delicious bowl of Ramen at a tiny restaurant. We made our choices  and paid using a self-service terminal located at the door just inside the restaurant (the kiosk is slightly visible in the photo below.)

The bowl of noodles was delivered to our table within a few minutes.

We mastered the Metro system and made our way to Uneo Park – maybe a bit like Central Park in New York City with museums, a zoo, and more. We were lucky enough to be there for the Dahlia Festival. The blossoms on these flowers are extraordinary!

Night times streets are colorful and surprisingly less busy compared to the crush of people during the day.

We are happy here and feeling very fortunate.