Waiting for the Train

day three and we jumped on the high speed rail into taipei (only thirty minutes!). we decided to start our trip in taiwan so that we could visit dan’s friends but i left hoping that we’ll be able to get back there soon to do some more exploring. we had a great time wandering around – the food was so good, the people were lovely and it was super easy to get around. the only down side was the intense heat! it was so hot that we didn’t spend push ourselves to see everything and go everywhere.

on our first afternoon we had delicious sesame and peanut noodles from a little store just downstairs from our apartment in da’an. we wandered for a while and then headed back to the apartment to get some relief from the weather. dan ended up taking an (epic!) six hour nap while I made travel plans for barcelona and copenhagen in september (if you have any recommendations, please send them our way!) and watched a movie. after dan woke up from his nap, we headed out for a late dinner, worried that we wouldn’t be able to find much open. thankfully we ended up having a really lovely evening. we found a delightful izakaya on a side street near our apartment and had fresh beer, delicious grilled zucchini and mackerel (for dnna), and beef tongue and chicken cartilage (for dan). i’ve been really surprised by how much Taiwan feels like Japan to me. the streets, the public transport (high speed trains! amazingly punctual and clean subways!) and the izakayas. we really could have been in tokyo sitting in that lovely cozy wood panelled bar. given that Dan was fresh from such a long nap, we kicked on at wa-shu, a cocktail bar not far from our apartment. a negroni for Dan and a yuzu sake cocktail for anna and we thought we’d worn ourselves out enough to sleep through the night. it worked! even dan managed to sleep through the night after his super nap.

our sightseeing in taipei was limited to a morning we spent at the national palace museum. the collection is enormous, and full of very beautiful pieces, but i was unprepared for the crowds of tourists and we got burnt out fast. we decided to head for songshan instead, a hipster pocket of taipei. the streets are cute and tree-lined but again, we were felled by the heat. we found a great spot for noodles and then stopped in for a pineapple cake at sunny hills (sooo good) before heading home to siesta. we watched a huge thunder storm roll over the city from our apartment and waited for the temperature to plummet before we headed out again.

as proof that the world is a very small place, one of dan’s friends (vince) from his jiu jitsu school back in new york is also travelling at the moment and landed in taipei the night before we left for shanghai. we met up for drinks at ounce, a very cool speakeasy with a delicious old fashioned and then had dinner at a nearby izakaya.

our last morning in taipei and we got a very local breakfast nearby our apartment. after packing up we decided to finish up our time in taipei in the most taipei way possible – at din tai fung. the wait for a table was crazy but we got a table with just enough time to inhale some xiao long bao before heading to songshan airport (surely the most conveniently located airport on earth – it was just a few subway spots (and a few dollars) from our apartment).

it was only a quick flight over to shanghai and we breezed into the city on the mrt to chris’s apartment. i was so tired i skipped dinner and headed straight to bed while dan and chris headed out. zzzzzzzz.

Day 2 in Taiwan and we again started the day by going in search of breakfast. Things went slightly less smoothly than yesterday as the cafe we chose had no English menus and required you to write out your own order in Mandarin. Thankfully a young woman took pity on us and wrote out an order for us. I’m not exactly sure what we ate but it was tasty and so cheap and it was fun to eat in such a local spot.

Breakfast done, we headed home to meet Claudia and drive to Taichung, about an hour south of Hsinchu, with plans to visit the National Taichung Theatre and a gallery. We ended up in Taichung before the National Theatre opened so we headed over to a nearby Mitsukoshi for an early lunch. The theatre is a really cool space to walk through and it’s full of cute cafes and local things to buy. It’s totally worth a stop. Next up we made a brief detour for coffee before heading to the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts where we saw an exhibition of works by Taiwanese artists. The Chinese calligraphy was particularly beautiful to see. 

Claudia needed to get back to Hsinchu to pick up her son from school and so Dan and I decided to dash off to the Hsinchu coast line. We’d planned to check out the fish markets and perhaps do a 17 km cycle along the shoreline but we arrived too late to rent bikes and the fish markets were closing up.

We wandered for a while as the sun set and then headed back to a night market we spotted on our way out to the marina. It was my first time at a Taiwanese night market and although we started small, I was totally overwhelmed by choice (and sweat). We tried sticky rice with mushrooms and chickpeas, grilled cumin lamb, tiny fried quail eggs (for Dan), fried sweet potato balls and the most delicious and flakey spring onion pancake. The markets were buzzy and crowded and while the vibe was a+, we were so hot and sweaty we headed home and crashed early (definitely both still jet lagged). Tomorrow, on to Taipei!

Hello friends and family, welcome to our little travel blog, we hope to be able to post stories and photos along our trip here.

Anyways, this is Dan writing the first post (but dont worry Anna will also be writing in her own voice as well).

After quite a bit of trip planning and Anna finally sitting her bar exam, our trip began with a

Our trip officially started with a 1:30am flight from NYC to Taipei, a 15 hour flight, me and Anna’s official longest flight together (yay?).  Both of us normally find it rather difficult to sleep on planes, but we were fortunate enough to get an entire row to ourselves allowing us to stretch out our gangly arms and legs.  In fact there was enough room to allow us to take turns sleeping flat whilst the other took on sitting duties, acting as a pillow.

Upon arriving in Taoyuan airport we took the MRT (the local subway transit) to the HRT (high speed rail transit) where we zipped to Hsinchu meet Claudia and David, both friends from college who graciously offered a place to stay.  The 50km journey on high speed rail took us approximately 9 minutes.  Amazing.

Claudia graciously picked us up and took us to where we’d be staying, her parents apartment (who were currently on a trip) just upstairs from her own.  After dropping off our stuff we immediately focused on the task at hand, getting food!  A quick googling of breakfast options led us to Shandong Breakfast.

The reviews were all chinese translations so we were a little worried that ordering would be a challenge, but it turns out the son of the owner spoke pretty good english, but more so was super kind and gracious and suggested to us everything to order, we ended up with a pretty reasonable amount of delicious food, but more miraculously one of the dishes involved an omelette, and not only was Anna able to tolerate it, she in fact enjoyed it?  Is this the start of a new era for Anna?  Probably not, but stay tuned to find out.

After breakfast we walked back to our place where we subsequently overnapped for a bit before Claudia came back.  Finally waking up around noon we headed for lunch at the Chenghuang Temple, as Claudia says, a temple for ghosts that has also turned into a makeshift street food area.  We had some delicious meatballs, soup, and local noodles, then topped off with some amazing Taiwanese shaved ice.

After eating we spent most of the rest of the day pottering about before having some quick beef noodle soup at Claudia’s and then passing out heavily jet lagged.  Day 1 complete!