Journal Entries:
Quick Links: May 13, May 14, May 15, May 16, May 17, May 18, May 19, May 20, May 21, May 22, May 23, May 24, May 25
5/13 (US): Everyone arrived at Buffalo airport at 5am. We first flew to Chicago, then San Francisco, then Nagoya, Japan, and finally 27 hours later we arrived in Taipei, Taiwan. Andrew and Sadie slept the majority of the trip thanks to cold medicine. Drew and Michelle struggled to sleep but eventually Drew found comfort in Tenpao’s shoulder (we have pictures.) The food was horrible but surprisingly Andrew at all of it. After arriving in Taiwan and working our way through customs, we were picked up and driven to National Chiao Tung University. It took approximately 45 minutes, from the airport.
5/14 (Taiwan) – Same Day as above – 10pm – Ten minutes after we arrived we were escorted by four graduate college students to the night market.
By far the best part was the fact we got to ride on the back of their scooters. We flew at a speedy 35mph through stray dogs, tour buses and a large amount of other scooters. They took us to Chiao Tung’s famous night market. There were students and scooters everywhere within the blocks of neon lights, small market stores, food stands and a rotten fish smell. We found ourselves sitting at a “Taiwan BBQ.” It was a giant “U-shaped” flat top where the cooks arranged the food right in front of you. We sampled soups, red tea, pork, chicken and beef. We think… After a tour of the campus, sipping the market tea, which consisted of milk, tea, and chewy balls (no jokes made about that), we took some group pictures and arrived in our rooms at 1am.
5/15 (Taiwan) - Despite Tenpao’s promise to awake us at 7am, the phone ringing and door pounding began at 5:15am. We then set out to the market again, only this time on foot and behind the 10 yard distance Tenpao kept from us, for breakfast. But alas it was closed for Mother's Day? Our faithful leader Tenpao, then lead us to a stand which had some unappetizing sandwiches which we planned on pretending were peanut butter and jelly. Fortunately, he bought us eggs with corn like an omelet. After breakfast and finishing the last minute plan for our presentation, we all had an opportunity to use the internet in the management building’s computer. This was easier than imagined since their keyboards are exactly the same. We had a quick lunch of ice cream in the sun and it was off to our first presentation. We tried to keep ourselves loose while the students, including our tour guides from the previous night, continued to file in but, we weren’t to pleased to find that they wanted us to use a microphone. Drew, stumbled a bit at the beginning while Sadie listed off the beers offered at her bar to confounded faces, Michelle talked about relationships to some giggles and Andrew confidently went through his portion to our surprise.
Then we were quickly whisked away to the Science Park in the most luxurious of vehicles, which smelled of urine. After we got up stairs we were given a private presentation and finally discovered what a Science Park was. It is a planned high tech community to encourage the growth of those industries in Taiwan. We rode back to the university and walked around for a little while. After checking out the vending machine we discovered something shocking, SARS in a can. Intrigued, we purchased one and found it to be similar to root beer with an added tingle in the lungs. We went back to our rooms and thankfully had enough time to take a nap before our VIP dinner.
Following 10 yards behind Tenpao once again we walked a short distance across the extremely humid and damp campus into a cafeteria. We made our way upstairs to find another cafeteria, where the humidity and smell was almost unbearable for a New Yorker. Fortunately we were in a room the students called “VIP,” and were air-conditioned. We sipped on green tea, cranberry juice and orange juice until the many different entrees started coming out. The soup had whole small fish in them, which made it awkward to chew. There was a complete dragon on one entrée that was made of carrots. The shrimp were boiled in front of us and were still in complete form, head and all. A few other entrees of fish and other seafood came in complete form and if in front of Drew, left that way. There were tofu, noodles, rice, yellow watermelon, and a large variety of vegetables, many we have never seen before. While we were unsure of the food and our newly acquired skill of chopsticks, we were relieved when the students English was very good. So good they even got Andrew and Tenpao’s picking on each other. Andrew’s Chinese name is Too-Dan, which either means asshole or rookie. We aren’t sure which. After informal good-byes we were off to another presentation.
To our surprise we presented to a MBA class full of diverse students of all backgrounds and ages. There was Will, who was from Seattle and taught English to Kindergarten classes, Dave from Ireland, and some from Germany, Britain, Ukraine, China and the United States. They asked many interesting questions including our opinions on the Taiwan Straits Crisis, US immigration limits, and what our classes involve. The best part of the whole presentation is when the entire class took us out to a Taiwan bar and drank authentic Taiwan beer all night, literally. More authentic food was brought out, including the leaves of potato plants, raw potato covered in mayo, pork fried rice, more whole fish, tofu, squid, squid mouth and a lot of other treats that were washed down with Sake (rice wine.) While the teachers bailed out a little after midnight, Andrew, Drew and Sadie took off with our new friends Dave and Will and discovered a true Taiwanese night out. Three deep on a scooter and two more close behind we found ourselves outside a Seven Eleven, while different ones, all night. Basically it’s the same concept of a bar crawl in the states, they go from seven eleven to seven eleven, all night drinking cans of $1(US)/$32(NTD) beers. They are spaced a block apart and are on every block, so it’s not that much walking but it’s a whole lot of drinking. We walked around and saw most of the common sites, but the unique part of the night is when we were shown the Pilipino and Vietnamese “slums”. It was quite a shocking experience to see what little space that theses people’s stores/homes/barns consisted of. We all got a chance to drive the scooters with limited success as we all crashed at least once. After driving home with the sunrise we caught a few hours of sleep before we had to be in a class around 9am.
5/16 (Sitou)
After rolling through the presentation we were off to the national forest where we would meet up with Tenpao’s niece and brother-in-law. Arriving Sadie, Andrew and Michelle were not feeling so well and we had a daunting climb ahead of us. This was the travel in Tenpao’s mind when he told us that we should pack lightly. The climb up the mountain seemed never ending, as the signs listing of the distances seem only for encouragement and not accurately portraying the terminus of our hike. Once we arrived at our rooms we found them to be a minimalist’s dream. They were cedar with a loft and 8 fold out futons to sleep on. It started to rain and we dreamed of rest instead of Tenpao’s planned hike. Sadie found a spider on her pillow but instead of flicking it off she smeared it across her pillow. Soon it stopped raining and we were off to explore the park. Our destination was only 3000m away but this was a climbing root covered trail that we had to traverse. During the traverse, Michelle set a grueling pace, and we became very tired, but Tenpao kept on chugging along. Every time we thought we reached our destination, a new sign said 1000 more meters. Eventually we came to the Giant Rock. Drew and Michelle went up there to get pictures and received bananas and leanu from local Taiwanese. They met up with the rest of the group at a concession stand where Andrew was already passed out. Tenpao had bamboo rice and Sadie had some amazing mocha coffee. The whole group then went over to the Giant Tree, it was big but not worth the hike. It started down pouring, so we all got to wear really cool rain coats and walk back to our cabin. We then met Tenpao’s brother-and-law and his daughter at the cabin and went to dinner (except Andrew because he didn’t feel well). We then went back to bed and fell asleep at about 7:00 pm.
5/17 Since we went to bed early, we woke up at 4 AM (the neighbors weren’t so happy about that), but Tenpao was already up. The group went for breakfast, except for Michelle who asked for nothing but rice and any fruit. Easy enough, however Tenapo’s brother in law was insistent on taking everything on the table back (including pigeon) and even asked for a plastic bag to take the hot soy milk back. Nothing like hot soy milk for an upset stomach on a humid day. After some last minute packing, with no help from Typhoon Pat, we were off to Tenpao’s sisters house to do laundry and to check out what a Taiwanese house looked like (they look overly cluttered and dirty.)
Soon we were escorted and dropped of to Wu-Wei High School. When we arrived, we were received as superstars. The students had signs and were cheering and clapping (they loved to take pictures!). We ate the best food we had had in Taiwan. There was cake, apples, jello, cookies, and many other sweet familiar and good tasting things. There was also a student Chinese Classical Band, where the students played and then allowed us to give the instruments a try. We both gave a presentation; we cooked dumplings and rice balls together and then ate with our assigned groupies. We then were allowed to either take a nap or continue to hang out with the overly eager students. You really had no choice. Sadie received a top from one of her kids and showed Andrew and Drew up on her top skills. The landscaping on the campus was beautiful and consisted of fish ponds, romantic tree tunnels, orchids, and a historic bell. Then the crafts began. Japanese paper dolls, Chinese firecrackers, calligraphy, and forced to sing and dance. Eventually Tenpow (we changed the spelling of his name, because you are allowed to do that, and Andrew thinks this way is better) pulled us away from the tight grip of our followers, and whisked took us away to the train.
The train was heading to Kaoshiung, where we stayed at a cockroach infested military hotel. After a room change we settled down and went for a walk solo, because Tenpow ditched us again. We were in search for edible food (western). After a long search, we found a TGI Fridays!!! It was the most amazing food we ever ate in our entire lives (especially the mozzarella sticks). It was also the first time Michelle could legally order a drink in a restaurant, in Taiwan she is 21 (the drinking age was 18 though.) After stuffing our faces, we walked home, and quickly fell asleep.
After another one of Tenpow’s early wake up calls, we were whisked away in taxis on our way to Fo Gaung Shan Temple. Covered in millions of Buddha’s of gold and white and the sound of ringing bells, we ventured through all the different museums, gift shops and shrines. It was there that we purchased rings with a rotating center which kept us occupied throughout most of the trips. There was a large “happy” temple and a smaller “mercy” temple. It was a very modern and commercial, but we donated our money and received pins anyways. The taxi drivers then brought us to a cliff that overlooked the harbor. We were able to see a cruise ship, many large industrial boats, and a great view of the city. Our view was quickly ended though as it started pouring rain.
Our next presentation was at Sun Yat Sen University, which turned out to be right on the Taiwan Strait. It was beautiful even though, much to our amazement, the beach was closed. We went on an tour that showed us one of Chang Kai Shek’s many beach villa’s, a jet made by Lockheed Martin, a large tunnel through one of the mountains, and a forest full of 800 wild monkeys. We did get to see the ocean eventually from the university. It was a pier, which consisted of reclaimed land and a wall protected by what looked like enormous cement jacks.
For dinner that night we were taken out by one of Tenpao’s college friends. Then we walked around the street and the girl’s and Drew purchased some things for themselves and their friends. After one more night in our scary rooms we were off to Taipei the next morning.
The train ride was long but bearable and Andrew got some good photos of Drew, Sadie, and Tenpao sleeping. Once we got to the city we checked into our youth center and were pleased to find bathrooms that we could use and feel cleaner after. Then it was off to the 101 build were Tenpao ditched us for good, going to stay with his sister for the weekend. Approaching the building it was hard to grasp just how large it was but once we were very close the size was overwhelming. The bottom four floors of the building were upper-class mall. On the fifth floor we purchased our tickets to the top for 320NT. After taking the world’s fast elevator, 37 seconds for 84 floors, we stepped out to a gorgeous view. The entire city of Taipei was laid out before and Andrew took numerous pictures. After about a half hour and a brief debate to take the stairs we went back down and explored the mall. Since we had got up so early and very tired we returned to the room and went to bed early.
For Saturday we were scheduled to take a tour with the original students from NCTU who took us out our first night. We met them at the train station at 9:30 and our tour began. They took us too many shopping district but we the only thing that was purchased was a second memory card for Sadie’s camera. We had some “Italian” for lunch, which was interesting, but not quite the same as home. Hopping back on the subway, we were off to see the largest memorial in Taipei, Chang Kai Shek’s. The size was enormous and could only be encompassed by three large buildings, two devoted entirely to museums. There was a children’s festival going on outside and we were able to see a few dance moves put on by the children’s moms. Next we went to a Buddhist temple and participated in a prayer session with incense. Then after some pictures and good-byes we left them and returned to our room.
According to Tenpao the largest night market in Taiwan was right next to our train station so we went there after dinner. Drew and Andrew didn’t stay long and returned to the hotel to find that they didn’t have a key. After about an hour they finally decided to approach the front desk and found it was very easy to get a key to the room. Sadie and Michelle returned a few hours later after their shopping was done.
Tenpao wasn’t supposed to see us until Monday but he missed us so much he decided to go to the zoo with us. We met Tenpao at the subway station at about 9:00AM and arrived at the zoo at about 10:00AM. There, we saw animals such as monkeys, owls, zebras, emus, bongos, etc. Fortunately for us, the weather was gorgeous (good tanning weather!). We stayed there until about 1200 noon. Tenpao treated us to a break from Taiwanese food with lunch at McDonalds (which was jammed packed). By this point in the day, Tenpao was about ready to ditch us once again, but he was nice enough to direct us to how to get to the palace museum. For the first time, we had to communicate to the taxi driver without Tenpao, but we arrived at the museum with no problems. The museum was a gift shop and a gallery of Taiwanese artifacts (aging back 8,000 years). The older artifacts were especially interesting, however, as a whole it was not one of the most stimulating attractions. At Taipei 101, Andrew spotted a Ferris wheel, which he was proud to report is the second highest Ferris wheel in the world after listening to the information phone. So, the Ferris wheel became our next destination. Interestingly, it was located in a shopping mall. We had to go up five floors to even purchase our tickets (where the ground of the Ferris wheel was located). The ride took 17 minutes to make one round, but it was extremely fun as we could once again admire the city from above. We were once again craving western food, so we were off to Pizza Hut. However Pizza Hut wasn’t as American as expected (a good portion of the pizza in the buffet was seafood related, for example “Surf n Turf Pizza”). By this time, the day had been pretty long, so we decided to make it an early day and just buy some drinks and head to bed early.
While our last day in Taiwan was upsetting, it was also the last day of presentations. While we had shown much improvement from the beginning of the trip, it was still a great relief to not stare into a bunch of peer’s eyes that spoke broken English and was thinking, “why do I care about this?” Must be how professors feel. Anyways we were off to Taipei National Chen-Chi University. We bid the Youth Center a farewell that would be permanent after tonight and walked to the train station where we would meet Tenpao at a later stop. The University was smaller then the rest we had seen, and the elevator was less then safe. However, we were greeted with the normal warm shot glass of water and given a brief tour before we were presenting. The presentation went without a hitch and the kids even opened up to ask us some questions. Not a bad way to end.
We were now off to the Fisherman’s Warf. While the suspensions bridge was stunning in itself, we were able to walk around and check out boats and even get asked to sign for a political rally of some sort. Before we would head home to the Youth Center we climbed up to the Grand Hotel. This is where Nixon stayed during the Asian Diplomacy in the 1970’s. It was unfortunately a little out of our budget to stay there but we still wandered in to take lots of pictures and get a bus ticket for the next morning, when we would head to the airport.
We began the process of getting from Taipei to Tokyo. First Michelle and Sadie took a taxi to the Grand Hotel, while the boys walked, because of luggage. From the Grand Hotel, we took a bus, and then a train before we hopped on a plane to actual Tokyo. At Tokyo we went through customs, then on another train, where upon arrival we dragged our luggage an easy twenty minutes walking before we arrived at Juyoh Hotel. Juyoh was probably the most intimate of all the places we had stayed. There was private rooms about 4x8 feet, give or take some. They had futons, air conditioning, a television and a window and that’s about all you could fit. There was a common area down stairs where all the guests could access the Internet and socialize. There were people from all over the world and it was really interesting to meet some of them, not that we ever sat still long enough to really get to know them. Soon as we set our luggage down and took a breather we were on a bus to a down town area where we would hope to find some dinner. We found a quite little restaurant and found it very humorous when no one spoke any English and the server kept trying to talk to Tenpao in Japanese, even though he obviously knew none. The Japanese food was much more appealing to us then the Taiwanese food. Nothing against the Lazy Susan, but we were a lot more comfortable picking out our food. After dinner the light sprinkle had turned into rain, and we tried to “sight see,” but everything was dark and closed. So we found our bus back to the hotel and called it a night.
We woke up early to Tenpao who would only be a tour guide for one day in Japan. We walked back to the train station and found it to be a spider web of different trains. Andrew took to it naturally being Canadian and used to Toronto’s train system. We were on our way to the Empirical Palace and a temple but stopped off in a little coffee shop for pastries and coffee. We then crossed the street to Arkasusa Temple. We walked through the woods, cleansed our hands and mouths before entering and witnessed a mass blessing. We were all very amused at the gift shops and how commercial the temples had become in both Taiwan and Japan. We then took the train again to the Empirical Palace. This was probably the biggest of all disappointments. Not in the Empirical Palace but in the fact all we got to see was gardens and old guard shacks. We never really assumed you wouldn’t be allowed in at all, and was hoping to see something more substantial. Still its something that not many people can say they actually saw. Learning quickly at the train stations we took them again to a technological square. There were hundred’s of little stores with every kind of gadget from IPODs, to Laptops, to electronic pets. We all spread out and soon were on our way back to Juyoh to find some dinner. We went to a main mall area and found probably the best meal the entire trip. It was cheap and very filling.
This was our last day on the trip and our only free day in Japan. Early the night before we all decided that the Tokyo Fish Market was a definite. While how early the boys wanted to go was discouraging. Everyone agreed. At 5am we were on the train and on our way. It was so AMAZING! A definite for anyone visiting Tokyo. There were fish heads, guts and other products lying everywhere. There was squid, tuna, prawn, crabs, and anything that is possibly in the ocean here. Red fish, blue fish, small fish, huge fish, dead fish, alive fish, even Dr.Seuss would have a hard time describing it. You could literally get lost here, and in fact we lost Tenpao. We wandered around for a couple hours, just being amazed at how much there was and finally decided to get breakfast somewhere. The coffee was outrageously expensive. After arriving back to Juyoh we all took showers because we smelled like fish, and then were off to walk around Tokyo and shop. We found lunch at a little diner and went back to the market that was rained out, the first night. Michelle bought ninja stars and a sword and had them mailed back home. The rest of us bought small knick-knacks here and there and enjoyed the sights. There were home made candies and all sorts of good sweets. The last of our stops would be the Tokyo Tower. It is an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower but is thirteen meters taller. Just like the Japanese to out do the French. It was beautifully lit up at night and you could see Disney Land off in the distance. We then went back to the hotel; antsy about the eighteen-hour flight we had to endure home to Chicago the next day.