28 Feb 2009 - Walking in Taipei

Day 2 was spent touring the Red line on the Taipei MRT. I must say, I love the Taipei MRT. I thought the Hong Kong one was great, but Taipei was even better. As usual, people stay to the right on the escalators (same as Hong Kong), but in Taipei, they queue outside the doors and allow passengers to exit before entering. That's not all. There are 'Priority' seats on the train. These seats are ONLY taken by old folks, adults with young children or disabled (and unknowing tourists, usually singaporeans). Even when the train was full, no one would sit in those seats. You don't see inconsiderate adults falling 'asleep' on those seats. I also liked that at each station, the driver would actually get out of the train, and watch for the signal from the station conductor (the dude with a flag and whistle) that all was boarded before he shut the doors and moved off. You'd think that this would slow down the system? No way. trains came at 1 minute intervals during peak periods and less than 4 minutes during non-peak. Wonderful!!!

That's what Ximen looks like early in the morning (about 8am) before everything opens.

That's the Red Playhouse (see Day 1)

The main Ximen Ding square in front of the MRT. The picture doesn't do justice to how huge the place was.

view from the MRT on the way to Danshui. Danshui is the last stop on the 'Red' MRT line, the northernmost station. Its actually a little town built near the wharf. It came highly recommended as the place with excellent old-style taiwanese street food, though due to a wardrobe malfunction, we didn't get to walk the actual street. We did manage to hit the sights though.

A 20min bus ride from the MRT station led us to the Fisherman's wharf. This beautiful bridge was the first thing we saw. The bridge is actually called 'The Valentine's Bridge' and supposedly, wonderfully romantic at night.

View from the bridge. The dock as you can see is still bustling, with ships coming in fully loaded with the day's catch.

Those massive concrete blocks are break-waters. I really liked their shapes. Reminded me of jacks, if a godzilla were to come to play with them.

We were extremely blessed with wonderful weather. The sun was out, but it wasn't hot and there was a lovely breeze coming in from the sea. I actually got sunburnt from sitting out on the wharf (you really don't feel the sun because of the wind and the temperature)

Ah snacks. Dried shrimp fried with garlic and chilli. Really tasty.

This was my favourite snack. Cuttlefish balls. Not the usual stuff that's found at 'old chang kee'. These were hand-made from freshly minced squid. You could feel the squid chunks when you bit into one. Non of that finely ground processed fish-paste with squid flavouring.

I think that was supposed to say Fisherman's association or something. It was part seafood restaurant, part dry market with locals selling souvenir snacks.

A couple of stops down the road (back towards the MRT station) was this place called the Hong Mao Chen (Red Haired Fortress... there was also a Red Castle, but we didn't go. Why so many 'red' buildings? I guess the Taiwanese like to use brick to build their structures), also known as Fort Santo Domingo which was first built by the Spanish in 1629. Over the years, the Dutch took over the structure, then the Ming, then the Ching, then the British, the Australian, and finally the Americans (You can read a little of the history here). Going up to the fort, you can see why the location had such strategic significance.

Gratuitous Flower photo. Macro shot using a 50mm + 25mm extender

Old school kitchen. Check out the bellows used to blow on the fire to get it hot.

Old school dining room. I can just hear the grinding of the upper class eton accents.

Thats the 'Hong Mao Chen' from the outside.

I wish I had taken notes on this photo. The detailing on the Galleon was amazing.

La Muff? oh come on... I had to take this photo.
Who wants to eat at la muff? I hear it can be quite delicious.

That's Ximen at about 1pm. The difference between the photo taken earlier is astounding.

Mid-day snack. Donut.

Post-Mid-Day Snack. Right across from the hotel, there was this shop selling pork-rib noodles. It was really good. The Pork-ribs were melt-in-your-mouth savoury.

Gong-Fu master. No, he wasn't promoting Ip Man (which coincidentally opened in the cinemas that weekend). I honestly didn't know what this dude was doing. He wasn't begging nor was he performing. He just stood there with his sign (maybe he was protesting the horrible fashion sense of the younger generation).

After heading back to the hotel to correct the wardrobe malfunction, we headed back out again. Our next stop, the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. Although it was already on the itinerary for the tour (day 3), we figured we spend a little more time exploring (anyway, we had an hour to kill before heading to the National Palace Museum. The entire area was imposing. Two huge structures flanking the main memorial hall, with a massive gate structure in the front. The National Theatre Hall and the National Congcart Hall were absolutely beautiful. If only they had built something like this in Singapore, instead of the damned 'Durian'.

National Congcart Hall. Engrish.com (btw, this sign was at the exit to the MRT station)

National Palace Museum. There's some history here about Chiang Kai Shek rescuing the Chinese treasures out of China during the Japanese war and also from the book burning communists. I'm not going to write about it, but frankly. I think these treasures weren't the only thing CKS rescued from China. He probably also took out all the beautiful Chinese women, courtesy, manners, graciousness and refinement. If you come to Singapore and see the PRC immigrants that are currently streaming out of China, you'd know what I mean.

No photos inside the museum, so this was the last photo of the day.
PS. Dinner was takeaway Ay-Chung Da Chang Mian Xian.