Taipei

To end our holiday we spent three days in Taipei, having managed, with some difficulty, to find the car rental on the evening of arrival to drop off the car. Public transport from here on. Sat Nav didn't quite work as planned, or rather what was entered wasn't quite the right address. As ever, Thibault and technology came to the rescue. Despite our very late evening arrival, Thibault managed to find us a restaurant still open and close enough to our hotel that we could just dump our bags  and get straight out. And on top of that, a very good restaurant. The odd bit being that it was a Spanish tapas restaurant. Not really what you expect in Taipei, but that  is globalisation for you. And to be honest, although a little pricey, it was as good a Spanish meal as I have had.

And our hotel was nice, modern and in a great location, so no complaints there.

 First morning we decided to go to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. This is one of Taipei's main tourist attractions and rightly so. It is a grandiose, bombastic monument to former leader Chiang Kai Shek and certainly on a par with any of the other monuments of similar nature, to Mao, Lenin etc.If only for scale. It is actually even quite tasteful in truth. And I guess the guy did preserve them from Mao so on a scale of deliverance from suffering and death he probably deserves something more than a modest cemetery plot. And there is nothing modest about this.

It is the scale as much as the quality of any of the buildings that impresses - the sheer empty space.

 

 The memorial hall itself, in which sits a statue of the great man, is at one end. What slightly ruins things from a photographic viewpoint is that the whole middle section of the steps up to it are undergoing renovation. At a distance this is fine - it just looks like a neat white patch below.

But up close it is unsightly and more importantly prevents one taking the most grandiose shots both from the bottom of the steps and at the top over the Square.

 

 As it happens we were around for the changing of the guard. This is of course meant to be a solemn ceremony. But I am afraid it is just a hoot. Imagine a slowed down version of the Village People's "In the Navy" and you about have it. Truly one of the campest things I have ever seen. And I have seen both Erasure and the Pet Shop Boys!

Underneath the Hall is a museum devoted the great man.

This was his office. Well its a lot nicer  than mine.

Eschewing, tempting as it was, the Museum of Drinking Water, we also made a brief visit to the National Museum of History, but this was under serious renovation and so rather restricted as to what to see. Although it was one of the very few museums where I was tempted by the gift shop.

Lunch was at a highly rated seafood restaurant, but one which didn't really cater for English speakers. Frankly it wasn't great. Its signature dish (apart from wonderfully elaborate sushi creations which were for large groups (and wallets)) was a rice dish in the shape of Taiwan. More a visual than culinary experience.

It was also one of those restaurants where you could pick your ingredients from the display outside.

After lunch we headed into the hills. You can get a cable-car up from one of the metro stations so that is what we did. Having passed this weird statue which Thibault insisted was depiction of a local tradition of rearing deer on the breast-milk of young maidens....

The cable-car did give us good views across the city

From the cable car station (fortified with a tea flavoured ice cream (no, don't bother)) we set out in the high humidity on a walk to a nearby temple through local farms.

The temple, in addition to offering free tea and cold water (very much welcomed in this heat and humidity) also afforded fine views across the mountains.

Our walk also revealed a fair amount of wildlife. Unfortunately the wildlife below is not representative - the mosquitoes were less visible but their presence was much more keenly felt!

 

For dinner we found a highly rated restaurant (which was very difficult to find - it was above shops with a well-hidden entrance), but its speciality was duck, which both tasted good and looked amazing as it was sliced up for us  at the table.

The following day the restless youngsters decided we should go hiking in the mountains outside Taipei. By the end of the day I came to the conclusion that Thibault was just trying to kill me off for the life assurance. As you can tell, he failed, which can only be testament to my powers of endurance.

Attempted murder weapon No 1 - the Hike.

So, of course it is hot and humid. We go to the visitor centre for an idea of what would be a good hike in the area and it seems Thibault reckons the one to do is 2.4kms.  That's fine, despite heat and humidity I can cope with that. 2.4kms horizontal that is. But it turns out this is vertical - 2.4kms up a mountain. It is just endless stone steps, getting steeper as we went. This is the only photo I took - in the foothills. I was too exhausted trying to keep up as we ventured higher and higher. It was just hairpin foot path all the way up.

I am ashamed to say that by the end Thibault was carrying both his own rucksack and mine, with its precious water supplies. I should add that it was also all through woods, so there were no viewpoints to take a breather in, or to take a photo from. Now I understand what Bridge over the River Kwai was like.
But eventually we broke the tree line and go to more of a plateau with the peak ahead. Unfortunately, by this time the mists were starting to descend.

And the mist descended more and more. So having got to the point where we might enjoy a view from the mountain, it had disappeared.

Up at the top we met with some other hikers, all of course fit young people. Plus me. Just having avoided the coronary that Thibault had no doubt been waiting for expectantly.

Murder weapon Number 2 - Asphyxiation by poisonous gas

Now what this hike offered on the way back down on the other side were sulphur vents. Signs warned you not to linger too long for fear of poisoning. I didn't feel Thibault hurried me past these as fast as he might have done....

Having got back to civilisation we went for a wander in an incredibly bleak culture park.

Murder weapon Number 3 - the Massage

Having endured all of that, Clarissa thought I ought to try a massage, which is a big thing out here. She seemed surprised when I said I had never had a massage (well beyond the foot massage I had had with them the night before).  I pointed out that a chap my age, who hasn't done sport, just wouldn't do this sort of thing, well outside dodgy massage parlours.

So this was going to be a full body massage. I had imagined a massage would be a relaxing sort of thing whereby you would get a bit of rubbing up and down from a dusky young maiden. Let us just say that my masseuse had almost certainly got her training from 10 years with the North Korean secret police interrogation centre. And if only she had left me the option of betraying everyone I love most dearly I would happily have done so in exchange for less elbow work on my shoulders. Alas I wasn't given the opportunity and so had to endure the torture as stoically as I could. I am proud to say I didn't cry even when she attempted to remove my toes...

Having failed with every attempt so far Thibault did the decent thing and gave up, taking us for sushi instead. Very highly recommended place, and we had to eat at the bar which was fine. Except they didn't give us seats. You just had to stand to eat your food.

Following which we had agreed to meet a couple of the people we met while hiking at a cocktail bar. Well in the end only one guy turned up but we had a jolly evening drinking overpriced and absurdly gimmicky cocktails, often in the most ridiculous of containers.

Yes, a cocktail came on this.

Next day and we had breakfast in a noodle bar. Highly authentic

After the kids had some fun on an arcade game...

...we headed on to the National Palace Museum. If you like Chinese art this is the place to come. Beautiful Museum, contents very well presented and they were utterly gorgeous.

But wonderful as the Museum was (although also amazingly cold - vicious air-conditioning), it was our next stop that was the highlight of the entire holiday. A small cafe called Go Mango, which only really served desserts and drinks. And specialised in mango products. I had the biggest mango thing they had on the menu, a glorious amalgam of mango, jelly, ice cream, shaved ice and other things. Heaven!

A business idea with my name on it. Literally

So then on for a little bit of a walk before our final dinner.

I had suggested to my companions that they might like to leave me to my own devices and have a romantic last meal on their own, but they failed to take me up on the offer. So last night together then. We plumped for a Chinese place with a reputation for dim sum. The place looked really cool, but the food was not the best of our holiday. 

And so back, on to the super efficient and spacious Taipei metro, to the hotel for early start home next day. A very enjoyable trip despite the rather desperately wet weather. But hopefully that is an excuse to come back again and see some of the places we only saw as ghostly outlines in the mist...