The journey begins. Two long haul flights with a stopover in Taipei.
Umeko Restaurant - good stop - genuine Asian cuisine and made possible by a very helpful waitress who's understandable English steered us through the menu although the pork was a bit under done.
The language isn't as big a problem as could be, as the Uber drivers have a second phone permanently set to Google translate. Conversing this way is slow and punctuated with large pauses followed by lots of smiling and nodding in agreement or bursts of laughter and shaking of the head and resetting Google for another try.
Downtown Taipei at night is mind blowing with everything that doesn't move covered in lights.
Taipei 101 blew my little mind out of its little socket. It makes Auckland’s Sky tower look like a tree house. It has a separate weather report for the top of the tower. And if you only Google one more thing today - Google ‘Taipei 101 DMC’ - As someone who's had to teach himself physics this has to be one of the best examples of applied physics ever. See the picture of the large yellow round thing. That’s the Wind Damper.
Taipei - polite, clean and efficient - we had to leave the hotel at 6 am - when we got to the lobby, there were two impeccably dressed people to greet us, the paperwork was all ready to go and we were whisked into a waiting cab all without having to touch our luggage. All this accompanied with lots of bowing and smiling. From the officials at the airport to the cleaners who popped into the toilets after every visitor, everyone had a ready smile and a friendly demeanor.
The second leg of the flight seemed less draining and the Russian Steppes below stretched out interminably as we kept pace with the sunset for hours.
Taipei - 7th November
What an amazing city and amazing people. We arrived in the morning and had to wait to check in but the hotel (Hotel Ambience) had a nice cafe to eat at.
Everything is so clean - the hotel lobby, the room, the cafe, the airport and so on.
We found a nearby place for lunch, Fab Cafe (fab for fabricator) - a good stop, an interesting cafe concept of ‘making things’. Something lost in translation perhaps. - Universal laser cutter, 3D printer and 8 thread embroidery machine with a shop next door selling the fabricated items.
Ali had her feet done while I went for a walk. Her feet are suffering from the flight. I felt quite safe walking the streets even though I was the only white face. Taipei it seem is the tourist mecca for all of Asia and I think the tourists were predominantly Chinese. Just a guess from the passport lines at the airport.
I wanted to taste some local cuisine for dinner, Ali wanted Japanese. Ali did the research and funnily enough there were 2 Umeko restaurants opposite each other, one Taiwanese one Japanese. We didn’t see the Japanese one until after we had eaten.
Taipei - polite, clean and efficient - we had to leave the hotel at 6 am - when we got to the lobby, there were two impeccably dressed people to greet us, the paperwork was all ready to go and we were whisked into a waiting cab all without having to touch our luggage. All this accompanied with lots of bowing and smiling. From the officials at the airport to the cleaners who popped into the toilets after every visitor, everyone had a ready smile and a friendly demeanor.
The second leg of the flight seemed less draining and the Russian Steppes below stretched out interminably as we kept pace with the sunset for hours.
What an amazing city and amazing people. We arrived in the morning and had to wait to check in but the hotel (Hotel Ambience) had a nice cafe to eat at.
Everything is so clean - the hotel lobby, the room, the cafe, the airport and so on.
We found a nearby place for lunch, Fab Cafe (fab for fabricator) - a good stop, an interesting cafe concept of ‘making things’. Something lost in translation perhaps. - Universal laser cutter, 3D printer and 8 thread embroidery machine with a shop next door selling the fabricated items.
Ali had her feet done while I went for a walk. Her feet are suffering from the flight. I felt quite safe walking the streets even though I was the only white face. Taipei it seem is the tourist mecca for all of Asia and I think the tourists were predominantly Chinese. Just a guess from the passport lines at the airport.
I wanted to taste some local cuisine for dinner, Ali wanted Japanese. Ali did the research and funnily enough there were 2 Umeko restaurants opposite each other, one Taiwanese one Japanese. We didn’t see the Japanese one until after we had eaten.
Taipei - polite, clean and efficient - we had to leave the hotel at 6 am - when we got to the lobby, there were two impeccably dressed people to greet us, the paperwork was all ready to go and we were whisked into a waiting cab all without having to touch our luggage. All this accompanied with lots of bowing and smiling. From the officials at the airport to the cleaners who popped into the toilets after every visitor, everyone had a ready smile and a friendly demeanor.
The second leg of the flight seemed less draining and the Russian Steppes below stretched out interminably as we kept pace with the sunset for hours.
