Taiwan Impression

Sleepless In Hong Kong

Chinese say that 4 is not a lucky number, clearly 04/04 is worse and it was totally true - I’ve had a terrible run today! 😢

The flight from Sydney to Hong Kong was delayed and the connecting flight from Hong Kong to Taipei left without me. :( Apparently, it was also the last flight for the day to fly over the channel. I was stranded in Hong Kong for the night with just my passport and a wallet in my bag. Note to self, I should always put an extra pair of undies in my carry on!

This is part of the fun of traveling - dealing with problems on the go, regardless how well I planned for weeks before the trip. :) I actually have never been left stranded with no luggage before. Sigh, there is always a first hey. I started to wonder what else could go wrong now.

After some negotiation, the airline put me in the Hong Kong SkyCity Marriott Hotel. I’d gave it 5 stars for the facility and the service! It was 12am when I checked in and I have to get up in 5 hours. I planned to watch some movies but after a hot shower, I pretty much passed out. 😃

5 hours went so quickly and before I knew, I was on my way back to the airport - I won’t want to miss my plane again, do I?! I have not been in Hong Kong for at least 5 years and I still don’t like the humidity. I had lots good memories here, mainly the great food! 😃 There was nothing special in the Hong Kong airport. I didn’t expect to queue up for food this early in the airport though. Why don’t they have gyms in the airport? I’m sure people will use them, especially now they ask you to arrive in the internation airport hours before your departure. I walked around the airport for some excise and then hogged on the free wifi. I should soon arrive in Taipei drama free! fingers crossed 🤞

Taipei

I was exhausted when I arrived in Taipei after my unplanned stay in Hong Kong. I was still the first of my group to arrive in Taipei. This time, my luggage finally arrived too! I found a charger and hogged the free airport wifi, no surprise there!

It turned out that my flight from Hong Kong was considered domestic so I arrived in the Terminal 1. Meanwhile, everyone else from my group who flew over from Australia had arrived in the international Terminal 2. There were only 2 terminals in Taipei airport but you would need to catch a train to get from one to another. Grrr, I waited for 30 minutes in the wrong Terminal until one of them called me on Skype. Actually, it was not a total wast of time, I managed to charge my phone and checked my email! 😃

We regrouped, purchased SIM cards, got connected and then, we fianlly left the airport! Yay, our Taiwan trip had officially started! 👍

PC knew Taiwan the best and had plan the whole trip. This was going to be a stress free holiday for me, I couldn’t stop smiling! I was so tired when we dropped off our luggages, but sleep/rest was for the weak, I cleaned up a bit and went out with the group.

This was my first time in Taiwan and yet Taipei felt familiar. It felt like Beijing or Shanghai in the 90s and I loved it. I was in Shanghai in 2010, it felt crowded and dirty then. The financial district was full of overpriced imported goods, LV, Coach, Hermes, blah blah. The residential suburbs were fully of newly built high-rises. I was brought to a restaurant for a thousand Yuan Australian beef. Everything felt a bit pretentious to me. I rather eat my Australian beef in an Australian pub down the road for $25 with a beer. 😻 That’s just me.

Taibei was not as crowded, little old stores can be seen along the streets, there were street stands and many markets, the food, oh, I could go on and on about the taiwanese food! We went to a day and then a night market today. Both markets sold nothing but food. I couldn’t eat street food when I was travelling in China (I always got sick) but it seemed fine in Taipei. The food were mostly traditional Southern Chinese food. We would buy something from one store and share it around, then move to the next store. Just to name a few of the dishes we had: clam omelet, pork rib herb soup, seafood fired noodle, sticky rice pudding (see my gallery link below for photos)… Oh my god 😳, I then managed to wash them all down with some pickled fruit and a cup of ice plum juice! The plum juice was cooked so well, it brought back some sweet childhood memories! I’ve never had the pickled fruit before; its called Ba Le. It tasted like a mix of apple and pear and very nutty. I bought a little bag of the fruit pickled in plum source. They were amazing!

I insisted that we walked the 2 blocks back to Peggy’s house. I crashed in my bed with a smile - I was falling in love with Taiwan! ❤️

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