Taipei

After 24 hours of traveling we arrived in Taipei, met Audrey and Terrance at the airport and, of course, went to dinner. On first impression, the city is very modern and clean. Even the taxis are spotless. You may notice from the pictures that it's also much cooler than we're accustomed. Audrey won an Olmstead scholarship through the Navy and, along with a six month course at the Defense Language Institute, is studying for a masters degree while stationed here over the next two years. She's taking almost all of her classes in Chinese and is, after only six months in country, able to conversationally interact in Mandarin. As with traveling with Chris, it is nice to be with someone who speaks one of the native languages. Part of her studies include history so it is also interesting to learn more about Taiwan's tumultous past.

For our first meal, they took us to a nice restaurant inside Taipei 101, currently the tallest building in the world. Similar to Thai dining, we ordered several plates of various meats and vegetables along with rice and hot tea. We also indulged in a lovely bowl of sea slugs. I think Terrance described them best as beef Jello - a bit of a beefy flavor with the texture of jello. Nicole was not impressed. I thought they were pretty tasty.

After dinner we went to Jurassic Restaurant, recognizable by several giant dinosaur skeletons crawling all over the building. Oddly, it's also known as the Indian Bar and has several stereotypical Native American decorations. The connection isn't quite clear, but it's popular. While the first floor was virtually empty, the second floor was packed with middle aged Chinese women squealing at a singer onstage while waving their arms above their heads in unison. The singer wore acid washed jean pants and a power suit. His hair was long, blond, and permed. The ladies loved him. Accompanying the singer was a clean cut man behind a keyboard wearing suit and tie. I think the biggest song of the night was,"It's so Easy to Fall In Love" by Linda Rhonstadt, but it may have also been the '80's jingle by Toyota,"It's So Easy to Love Tercel." Not sure.We were quickly ushered to the corner obviously used for hiding, or displaying depending on how you look at it I guess, the white people. Not wasting any time, we ordered up a 5 L keg of beer and a plate of fried bee larvae. Not joking. The keg was brought to the table with its own stand - literally a wood barrel with a spigot. Delicious. The bees arrived shortly after and looked just like fried anything except for the antennae and large bee heads sticking out of the batter. They also tasted like friend anything. Delicious. Nicole was not impressed. I thought they were pretty tasty.
On the wall next to our table was a poster explaining the fire escape procedure. I couldn't read the characters, but the pictures explained the process reasonably clear. In the case of a fire, simply break open the nearest window, construct an elaborate block and tackle device, harness your self to a rope, and lower yourself to safety. Easy. On the way home we saw a billboard with a huge bird sitting inside a pair of jeans. The advertisement translated to,"Even the biggest birds can fit in our pants." Handy. I guess that's the equivalent of a Big and Tall. Burning ghost money is another interesting ritual we've witnessed. The next day we did some shopping - our favorite stop being a specialty tea shop downtown. Initially we were just looking for some nice tea, but eventually found a beautiful tin jar used for storing tea leaves. Over 100 years old and so well machined that the lid slowly descended after being placed on the jar and created a small vacuum seal. I think it was our childlike fascination, but it may have been because it was a $200 item, that prompted the owner of the shop, a delicately older Chinese woman, to invite us to join her for tea. The pictures above shows her workbench of tea preparation equipment. Watching her prepare tea, one serving at a time, was captivating and beautiful. First she poured hot water into a clay pot containing the tea leaves. After waiting a few minutes, she then poured the brew through a dried gourd and into a small porcelain jug. She then served each of us by pouring the filtered tea into an even smaller cylindrical cup. We then poured our individual serving, probably two or three ounces, into a small saucer and, finally, drank the tea. Her presentation made the event seem unbelievably special and we all lost track of time - completely mesmerized by her movements.
After tea, we went to dinner at KaoChi for some dim sum. Although normally a breakfast or brunch meal, it is served 24 hours a day in Taipei. Each order is brought in large, stackable bamboo bowls that are also used to steam cook the dumplings. Using soy, vinegar, ginger, and chili we each made our own dipping sauce for the pastries. Definitely the best food we've had so far - wonderfully delicious combination of sweet and salt. The main servings had meat or vegetables and the deserts had a pudding or custard filling. So good and so not good for you. Mmmmmmm.
After dinner we went to a production by the National GuoGang Opera Company. Chinese Opera....where to start. The first half of the production was great. Although it was entirely in Chinese - even the subtitles projected on the side of the stage - we could follow along well enough. The characters interacted mostly by well choreographed fight scenes including flips, kicks, and weapons. The orchestra consisted of about eight instruments that summed up to, basically, a drum beat, symbol crash, 'boing' noise, oboe-ish sound, violin-ish sound, and a rapid-fire-knocking-on-hollow-wood sound. Generally a repetitive and annoying collection of sounds that correlated to various events that I never quite figured out. The costumes, on the other hand, were beautiful and the presentation, as a whole, was very professionally done.Unfortunately, the second half left us wishing that we had done some homework before the play so that we could at least follow along. There was very little interaction other than long monologues between characters and it was essentially impossible to figure out the relationships. Being an opera, I think they were singing. Hard to tell. The actors spoke in a very nasally, high pitched voice and flicked their beards a lot. There was a beheading and some robe slashing. We tried to keep an open mind, but it was tough.

It's been a unique and entertaining visit so far. Audrey and Nicole are really enjoying the opportunity to spend time together after so many years apart. Three more days in Taipei and then we head back to Bangkok for a week before Hong Kong. I think this is a good warm up to Chinese culture and we can't wait to see Hong Kong.