Week 10 - China and Taiwan

Typhoon Fanapi - You can barely see Taiwan in the white storm! And this is right now!

The UK expo exibit, with my new UK passport (or VIP entry as I call it)

At the gates by the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial
Shanghai's beautiful Bund overlooking Pudong (The building we drank at is the one just under the blue building on the right; it has the white cone on top)
One of the monsters on the Caoling trail

Trekking through Toroko Gorge on a small suspension bridge

Nehowma!!

Welcome to our blog from the epicenter of Asia's famous Typhoon which is just getting ready to hit Taiwan. We are now in Taitung, which is on the east coast of Taiwan and getting ready for a direct hit - don't be alarmed, despite this being the biggest storm and only Typhoon Taiwan has had this year, we are very safe. But the mood is very cool and despite some people being deadly frighted of the typhoon, most shops are open and people are just going about their business despite the 60mph (100kph) winds outside this internet cafe. But to try and reassure you from any fears, we are heading straight back to our hotel for shelter after this blog is finished.

So what have we been up to this past week...

Shanghai > Taipei > Fulong > Taroko Gorge > Taitung

Since being in Taiwan, let me tell you a few cool things we have been finding about the place.

Firstly the country has a very tropical feel; after all this is an island in the Pacific. Lots of palm trees, greenery, gorgeous mountains and beautiful beaches.

Secondly, its quite a bit like Japan in a way. Its obvious to see that the decades of Japanese occupation has rubbed off on Taiwan in a good way. People are extremely honest; back to the scenario as in Japan where you can leave your wallet and phone on the table when going to the bathroom in a restaurant (although we haven't tested this ourselves :D). A.so, the Taiwanese dress very well-Japanese like and generally things are very clean. Being that Taiwan is part of China and they speak Mandarin, this is a comparison to the Chinese.
Lastly - be careful with Taiwanese market food.... more told below...

Saturday: (Street Food) - Speaking of market food, in Xian, before our flight to Shanghai, we went for some delicious market food. A big white fish, cooked in a tasty dark sauce. Enough to feed us both for about $3! Then we caught our flight to Shanghai; unfortunately after the delays, we only made it to our hotel at about 12:00, and being that we didn't see anything fun nearby, we crashed for the night.

Sunday: (The Bund) - We saw about the only cool thing in Shanghai - The Bund (its the picture with the city background -absolutely gorgeous). Well, I lied a bit, the only other thing that is cool in Shanghai in our opinion is the World Expo (you will hear about for Monday). Shanghai is probably the worlds biggest city, which at face value, perplexes me that we didn't like it. The main problem, is there wasn't much to do.. strange I know. The sites were very poor, temples, etc, but one main reason is there is not a bit bar/restaurant area. Or maybe we didn't find it, but we searched hard. on Tuesday you will see we actually found a street with about 5 bars - which was exceptional by shanghai standards, but it was no where near as cool as Beijing or Xian. I'd probably say Shanghai gets a 5 compared to Beijing's 9! However, one cool thing we did Sunday night after seeing the Bund (essentially like the promenade along the river) is go to Cloud 9 Bar in the Jinmao building. The bar is on the 87th floor with excellent views of Shanghai and one good thing in favour of Shanghai is you can actually see the city from a distance as where in Beijing its very smoggy.

Monday: (The World Expo or previously called the World's Fair) - I went to this 10 years ago in Hanover Germany and let me tell you, the Chinese know how to throw a party! This place was phenomenal. The general idea, is every participating country builds a cool unique building and then advertises for its country inside. It was wild and right up our intrepid alleys! One more thing about shanghai, it rained every day we were there! Luckily during the expo, after monsoon like rains, it cleared up at about midday. So we really enjoyed the place. There was so much to see, we spent about 13 hours there and may have seen 1/3rd! Firstly we went and saw 2 of our remaining Asian countries - India and Nepal - At the India tent we had our first taste of Non-Local food on the trip! Precisely 2 months!! And yes, the Indian food was to die for!!! So tasty! After the rain subsided, we wanted to see our countries and the cool thing was if you show your passport you get to jump the 1-2 hour line! Britain's was very cool and its the one you see pictured. We next went to Russia's which was decent; then on to America's. I don't mean to sound unpatriotic, but ours was probably the worst of the 3... On the bright side, is Marina and I were able to jump the line/queues with our passports... which was priceless! All in all we saw about 25 different countries. Our favourite was probably Chile who had buy one get one free glasses of wine - and it was yummy- can't wait for Chile now!!!

Tuesday: (Happy Hour) - After a nice sleep in - and that it was raining; we chilled for the day and hit a happy hour. Looking for a bar in our guidebook we stumbled upon the street of bars I mentioned above. Well it was about 5 tiny bars and 1 had a few people in it... But the cool thing was they had happy hour. Now China is not as cheap as before and in many places prices and be like London - at least in Shanghai and Beijing...

Wednesday: (Roxy 99 and Wax Bar) - Arriving in Taipei, Taiwan, we headed for their famous night market! This place was pretty cool and Marina and I decided to indulge in some of the market food, which was probably not such a good idea (look down to tomorrow's comments)... Maybe Taiwan isn't as clean as I think it is.. :D Afterwards, we stumbled upon a fun and lively university area of Taipei and met a local expat who knows Nathan Davie from Ottawa (one of our friends from London) and he showed us around for the night hitting some of the fun nightspots.

Thursday: (Hooters) - Today, the hangover was not the problem, but the market food was creeping up on us.. Nothing more than stomach pains, but I would say we are very lucky to make it 2.5 months without any real food issues. So after doing our usual round of sightseeing, we decided to have our first Western food on the trip! Given that Taipei has a Hooters there was only one place to go.. This was Marina's first trip to a Hooters and she does like chicken wings so that was my sell. The funny thing about Taipei's chain is the girls do performances like hoola hooping and getting the crowd involved, it was pretty entertaining and it was great to have chicken wings and a burger!

Friday: (Fulong Beach) - we headed out to the west coast, despite the typhoon warnings, we wanted to do some hiking before the storm hit. That may sound like a crazy or stupid idea, but it worked out well. We did a big of hiking on the Caoling Trail and wow, we saw some seriously big spider many right on the trial in big 10 feet (3 meter) webs across the trial. Pretty cool and scary so after we chilled on Fulong beach. Then we caught a train to possibly the best site in Taiwan: Toroko Gorge. We arrived at dusk and the views of the gorge and adjacent mountains were superb! We stayed at the Catholic Hostel in Tienhsiang and after a few minutes, I saw it - a hand size black spider in our bathroom - this think looked like it could eat a small child! So being the typical city boy, I told the owner to kill it... That night, I can tell you, we wondered how many were under the bed... :D

Saturday: (Taroko Gorge) - This was arguably one of the nicest natural sites to be seen anywhere! We woke up at about 6am to do our hikes and clear out as it wasn't a good place to be stuck for 3 days during a typhoon, I'm sure the spiders would even agree... We did about 10 miles (16km) of hikes that day, up the tops of close to 2000 meter (6600 feet) mountains which we even saw 3 monkeys. And after we felt great. With little time to the next bus departure, we quickly grabbed our bags and speed walked to the bus station. After a bus and then a train and then a taxi, we made it to our typhoon hide out city of Taitung. I was certain the typhoon would not hit today despite the television warnings and I was right. So we went out to the Kasa bar and had a great time talking with David the owner from Texas, Claire, Cody and Henry.

Now in Taitung, the storm is getting bad outside, but our hotel is about 500 meters (1600 feet) from the beach so we are a decent way inland ;)

Next, well we aren't sure exactly. It just depends on Typhoon Fanapi and how brutal she is... We are hoping to go to the Green Island next and then down south to Kenting, for some,, hmm scuba diving, but I don't think that will be possible.. so who knows.. :D

Until next time,

Zaijian!

D&M