But don't let my little adventure in the rain make you think that I'm having anything but the best time here in Taiwan. In fact, I'm really sad that I'll be flying out to Japan tomorrow. Here's the run down on what I've been up to since I got here on Monday afternoon.
I met with my friend Ivy at the airport and her father was kind enough to pick me up and welcome to me Taiwan in style, an S Class mercedes. Since Ivy has been giving me a fantastic tour in Taipei, I'm not very good with the names of places. The international airport where I arrived is located about 50 minutes drive from Taipei itself. First we drove out to a warehouse owned by Ivy's family, which is only about 20 minutes from the airport, headed towards Taipei. This place was amazing. Attached to the fairly large warehouse is Ivy's family's second house, where they normally entertain suppliers and customers from overseas. To give you an idea of how impressive this house is, here's a brief list of it's main features:
- 5 lane 25 metre pool
- Tennis court
- An avery the size of my apartment
- A disco ball (!!)
After a brief stop here we headed on in to Taipei and checked into my very nice hotel. The best part about travelling to a place like Taiwan is that virtually everything is different. I felt all giddish every time I saw something that you wouldn't expect to see in most places. For example, I acted like a giggling idiot when I saw the traffic signals for pedestrians here. Similar to Australia, when you can't cross there's a red man standing still. But, when you can cross, the man turns into an animated green walking figure. There's a countdown in seconds as to how long before the lights change again, and as you get to the 10 or 20 second mark, the man actually starts running!
I spoke earlier about how crazy traffic was in Hong Kong. Quite frankly, Hong Kong seems quite safe and reasonable by comparison. It took me a few hours before I could get used to it, I had to repress the urge to scream every time a scooter shot past us at a very close speed. I'm surprised that Taipei does not have more drivers in the professional circuit; you wouldn't believe the things their cabbies can do!
After checking into the hotel, Ivy and I went back to her office breifly before taking a short walk around the neighbour hood so I could continue freaking out as cars passed within 1cm of me at 50kmph.
Ivy's company has an important supplier and his family in from Singapore at the moment, so a fair bit of my travelling has been in a 'tour group' with Ivy, so we met up with them
After our arrived I was ushered into a private room, where all 9 of us sat at the table reserved exclusively for us. Ivy's father was pretty excited when I told him I'd love to drink with him, and I lived to regret it. He offered me some 1978 Cognac (60.2% acl/vol!!) and, when Taiwanese people drink, there's a lot of toasting. I polished off about 5 glasses before the end of dinner and felt rather concerned that I would embarass myself momentarily.
The food was fantastic. I was told later in the evening that the restaurant (and that private room) was frequently visited by the current President of Taiwan. I felt like a movie star. The Cognac alone was AU$500/bottle.
Following dinner we headed out to a Karaoke 'bar'. I will definitely put some photos of this TWELVE STORY building up as soon as psosible. Seriously, there are 12 floors filled with Karaoke rooms, but the whole place looks as fancy and expensive as some of the most expensive hotels I've ever seen.
Karaoke was heaps of fun and I wasn't lost for English songs that I could have a shot at. My first (and only half-decent attempt) was My Way, by good ol' Frankie. Allthough Ivy's father cannot speak much English, he knows the words to this song like the back of his hand and we ended up doing a duet together. It was tremendous fun. I switched from Cognac to Taiwan Beer (it's a sort of light draught, very very nice!), and got myself nicely toasted.
At about 1am (I think?) we all headed on home and I checked back into my hotel. The hotel has some pretty impressive electronics that I proceeded to muck around with for an hour or so. There are over 100 channels (all free to my room), including a couple of very-illegal-in-Australia adult channels. The bed has speakers placed above it in the roof and there are a couple of music channels (one English, one Chinese) that you can select. All of the lights in the room can be controlled from a panel located next to the bed.
The hotel also featured the first electronic toilet that I've come across in Asia. If you haven't seen these before, it's basically like a regular toilet but it also features a seat warmer and, a uh, how can I say this.... 'squirter'. Before you ask; Yes, I did use it. And Yes, it was invasive and weird, but surprisingly effective.
Enough about that...
This morning after waking up I headed out to meet Ivy and her supplier friends for a traditional Taiwanese/Chinese breakfast. Sold at a street corner vendor this breakfast included a type of rice soup with fresh seafood (including oyster), deep friend tofu, grilled pork, battered fish, and more. It was simply incredible and very satisfying.
I have to wrap this up shortly, but there's one more thing I'd like to point out. Anybody thinking of travelling to Asia to shop - don't go to Hong Kong - go to Taiwan. This place is incredibly cheap for an Australian. A 600ml bottle of coke cost me the equivelent of 95 cents, and a 20 pack of cigarettse costs just $2. Electronics are incredibly cheap and I plan to pick up an iPod Touch duty free on my way out for about $100-$150 less than retail. 750g hard drives are $300 cheaper here than they are back in Australia. I came to Taiwan with the equivelent of AU$300 (about NT$5,000) and have so far spent only about $50, including some souveniers at Taipei 101.
It's time for me to go, but there's so much more to tell you about. Here's a note for myself:
- Taipei 101
- Friendliness
- Getting lost in the rain
- Toilet restaurant (bet you're waiting for that!)
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