Taiwan Week #2 Recap

Dear Ty and Blake— 

I’ve been the worst letter writer lately! I wanted to share photos from Taiwan with you, and it took me forever to sort them, and I kept getting interrupted and hung up on that project and never actually figured out what to write! And also I couldn’t even remember what I had already told you about and what we did after I talked to you. And now I’m 100% out of google storage and I hate google storage. Bah. Pretty much I’ve just been a jet-lagged mess since we got home from Taiwan!

So here’s a recap of Taiwan week #2:

Monday: We went to an awesome Buddha museum. The grounds were beautiful and lined by several super tall pagodas. We got to practice our calligraphy. Michael became friends with a monk. The monk gave me a gift basket and took our picture. I thought it was so nice of her! Then Michael explained that the basket wasn’t for me to keep. It was just for me to use to make an offering. Still—a nice gesture. There was a really cool art exhibit inside and ancient relics—including a Buddha’s tooth that had somehow multiplied. Don’t ask me how. 

Later we took a ferry out to a little island (maybe?). That’s where the man sang the entire Star Spangled Banner to me at the 7-11. I hope I never forget that moment. We walked out to a beautiful beach where Michael was told by a lifeguard that the waves were too big and dangerous to swim. Michael disagreed. We rented bikes and rode along the coastline past amazing outdoor art, a BMX-type bike track, and two huge piles of old mattresses. (What the?) That night I witnessed trash collection in Taiwan. It’s sort of like an ice cream truck in the US.  The garbage truck drives through the city playing loud, happy music, and people come out of their homes and businesses carrying bags of trash. Amazing.

We took the ferry back across the water and went on a really cool night walk through the city to see some outdoor art and architecture. Dad was tired and DONE, but Michael and I convinced him to let us make one more stop to go see some RAD pagodas that were built out on a pond and are protected by an enormous tiger and dragon. Definitely worth the visit!

Tuesday: We went to an English art museum. In Taiwan. There was English art (mid), the world’s largest violin exhibit (cool), and probably the best natural history animal exhibit I’ve ever seen. The taxidermied animal looked totally real. 

Later we visited an old military fort and a few cool temples. Michael bought a “power soda” in a bottle that looked like a bomb. We found a really yummy place fore lunch—with maybe Dad’s favorite Beef noodle soup of the whole trip. The menu included items like “spicy snail meat,” “fish ball soup,” and “rice with nothing to go with it.” They washed all the dirty dishes outside on the sidewalk in big plastic buckets. Taiwan is wild.

That afternoon we went to and *AWESOME* store that was recommended as a cool spot to shop. I could have spent hours there looking at al the amazing Japanese-inspired designs. But Dad said we didn’t have time to stay. DANG IT. I still want to go back. I did buy myself a very comfortable pair of flip flops, and Michael found a cool little bag for his kendama there.

We moved on to another cool temple. I’m sure I don’t really understand the religious practice at these temples. But it seems like at the temples there is a shrine built around a central figure, and the central figure might be a god with specific powers? So people will come to the temples and leave offerings at the shrine and pay respect while they ask for specific blessings. They will light candles and incense, buy stacks of fake money, leave flowers, fruit, and baked goods. It’s so interesting. One of the shrines we visited that afternoon must have been over romantic love, because young people were coming in and leaving fast food, boba drinks, candy bars, and the walls were covered in wedding announcements.

The highlight of the day for dad was going to visit one of the people he baptized on his mission. We took a taxi out to the house and got there just in time to meet a young woman outside the property. She knew Dad’s friend and opened the door for us and called him out. Dad was so excited to see his friend and reconnect, and this friend seemed surprised and delighted himself! We visited for a little while and then went off to try and find another friend, but were not so lucky. We found a couple of older men sitting out on the sidewalk and asked for their help finding the address we were looking for. They didn’t have any helpful information, but they were super excited to be included in all the action happening on their street corner that night. 

We finally extracted ourselves from the conversation with our helpful new friends and went to find another yummy place to eat. This place had “assorted meat and organs,” “tails,” and “bull pizzles” on the menu, but the soup and eggs and cabbage were more to my liking.

Wednesday: We went out to the Gaomei Wildlife Sanctuary where we walked out on a long boardwalk out to the water. From the boardwalk we could see tiny little crabs and slugs in the sand, and at the end of the dock there was a man out in the water with a big rake-like thing collecting the crabs in a bucket. I tried to take one step off the boardwalk to get a little closer to the crabs, and immediately had someone blow a whistle at me. Sheesh. There were some cranes at the sanctuary too, but I couldn’t get out close to them.

Later we drove out to the Zhong She Flower Market in Houli. It was this cool place with fields of flowers and I was in photo heaven. There were girls dressed up in pretty dresses to do photo shoots and they had fun things set up in the flowers for fun photo opportunities—like a fake piano in the middle of a flower field. There was also a big koi pool and Michael had a great time feeding the fish. Dad was of course ready to go before I was!

Off we went to see another cool temple. This one had an enormous happy buddha statue that almost looked like it was playing peek-a-boo from the side of the building. So many fun things to explore and discover! That night we went to a fun museum of illusions and had a great time solving puzzles and looking at optical illusions. There was an optical illusion that you could walk through. It was like walking over a bridge with lights swirling around you which made you feel like the room was spinning even though the bridge was stationary. Weird how your brain can do things like that!

That night we went to see the National Taichung Theater which had cool architecture and the best gift shop I’ve ever seen! I saw a photographer there who took one step too close to the water pool out front and he got the whistle blown at him immediately. Wow. Those guys with the whistles do not miss a beat! We had just enough time to look around before we were called up at our restaurant—Din Tai Fung. That was maybe my favorite meal of the trip, and I kept advocating for us to go back another time! I guess they have locations in the US and it’s quite pricey here, but much more reasonable in Taiwan. It was a nicer place than most of the places we ate. They had waiters all dressed up and a little robot that would escort you to your table. Outside the restaurant you could watch kitchen staff making dumplings and that was fun to watch.  

We parked in the mall parking lot when we ate dinner, but didn’t realize we were supposed to pay for parking before trying to exit the parking lot. This resulted in us pulling up to the gates to exit the parking structure with no option to pay. Which in turn resulted in us causing an enormous traffic jam in the parking lot. I videoed the stream of cars that exited after we finally got out of the way, and it went on for about 7 minutes straight! I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard!

Thursday: We went out to Sun Moon Lake which is the largest lake in Taiwan. We took a ferry out on the lake and to other spots around the lake. We hiked up the hill to see yet another temple and then took a gondola up to enjoy views of the lake. It’s really popular to bike around the lake, but we didn’t take the time to do that. They are strict about no swimming in the lake though, so we weren’t able to get in and play in the water. We went on to visit another huge, amazing temple and then stopped for ice cream (Italian ice to be exact), and stopped in at a yummy bakery that also randomly sold pickleball equipment. 

We drove out to Puli and made a quick stop to see a huge golden statue nestled up in the mountain side and then hustled over to a monastery and museum. Dang it they were both closing at 5 pm, and we only had one hour to see them both. Michael once again made friends with a monk, and she understood the assignment. She zipped us around and gave us a VIP tour first of the monastery. Michael did his best to translate for us. The monk took us to places in the monastery where we were not able to take pictures, but the rooms were absolutely breathtaking! The monastery was a newer construction and was modern compared to much of the other places we’ve visited, and it was really spectacular. Dad had an outdated Chinese term to describe it that made the monk laugh (something dipidiliao?)  She then ran us over to the museum and broke the rules to get us in just before closing—showing us the highlights. And then she loaded us up with free magazines and pamphlets and sent us on our way! We weren’t able to see the cool architecture of the museum because they closed the gates. I was disappointed by that. I guess I’ll just have to go back. 

That night we met up with dad and Michael’s friend Frank who escorted up from the train to our new hotel room (at the Grand Hyatt - WOW!) and then out to try and find dinner at the mall food court which sadly was closed. We settled for some food from KFC and the 7 Eleven and headed back to sleep in our luxurious hotel beds. Heaven!

Friday: We got to eat breakfast at the hotel club room and it was the bomb.com. I’m still a little sad we didn’t get have time to relax at the rooftop pool. Man it was so freaking hot in Taiwan. The pool would have been lovely. At some point I accidentally took a photo of the sun, and it looked just like the searing ball of fire that it felt like the whole time in Taiwan.

First stop of the day was to go to the Top of Taipei 101 (the tallest building in Taiwan) to see panoramic views of the city. And also a celebrity basketball player sighting. Another cool temple (how many is that so far?!) and then out to the National Palace Museum. 

We spent time in the gift shop looking for souvenirs, and Dad found a piece of art he was excited to bring home. He had been looking for a scroll like the one he brought home from his mission. He found a print instead that depicted a man returning after 30 years to find his friends (I think?!). He was delighted by the find since he was returning after almost 30 years to Taiwan and was looking for his old friends. The museum had all kinds of cool treasures. We got to see the famous rock that looks like a piece of meat, but we missed the famous piece of jade carved into a cabbage that was out on tour. 

That night we ate at another nice restaurant known for its Duck. They actually brought the whole roasted duck out to the table and carved it in front of us. The waiter first carved off crispy pieces of skin for us to dip in sugar and eat, and then he sliced up the rest of the meat on a platter. It seemed to me better than the duck I ate at the previous restaurant. We were at the restaurant to have dinner with Dad’s friends—a couple he had baptized on his mission and their two sons. It was a really enjoyable meal and they were so generous to invite and pay for us. Dad was thrilled to meet up with old friends and I enjoyed having an opportunity to ask a whole bunch of questions I had about Taiwanese culture. Michael had a chance to practice translating for me! Lol. 

Saturday: We checked out early from our fancy hotel (sigh), and went straight to the temple (LDS temple this time!). What a stark difference haha! We met Dad’s friends at the temple—his old mission companion who lives in Taiwan, and the man they baptized. They both had brought their families to meet us. We did a temple session there. I got to do my first session with translation headphones! It’s certainly a different experience to be on the other side of translation services! After the temple we went to the distribution center to buy the new garment sales (hooray!), and then we went out to eat yummy Thai food. I was absolutely loving all the new flavors of food I’ve never had before. 

Dad’s friend had arranged for us to stay in a large apartment owned by another friend, and his mission companion’s family stayed there with us as well. We dropped our things at the apartment and then went out for some “arts and crafts” at the creative park. They had arranged a craft for us to go and carve some wooden keepsakes. And then we went out to eat again. And then back to the apartment for dessert! Ah! Fun and relaxing day. For sure this was the highlight of the trip for your dad to be able to reconnect with his friends.

Sunday: We went to church and dad had the opportunity to bear his testimony in Chinese. Michael said he must have received the gift of tongues because he hadn’t been able to speak Chinese so well the entire trip! We went back to Brother Wong’s house where they treated us to a yummy home cooked meal. They made potstickers from scratch! We got to try out Brother Wong’s massage chair too! They returned me to the apartment to rest, and then Michael and Dad went out with Brother Wong to try and track down the rest of dad’s friends from his list of people he was hoping to contact. They were unsuccessful in making any more contacts, but I think they enjoyed their adventure! And then Brother Wong’s wife brought us all dinner she had made! I can’t believe the kindness and generosity they showed us. I’m sure Dad will write to you about some of the stories that Brother Wong shared with us.

Monday: Our last day in Taiwan. Boo.  We went to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall to see the cool building and learn a little about the leader. We got there just in time to watch the changing of the guards at the top of the hour. I enjoyed watching them march in lockstep and twirling their rifles. Inside we got to see Chiang Kai-Shek’s military medals and his fancy old cars. 

Then we went out get one last mango bing, and we had a mixed fruit bing along side it! They were huge! And we also found a brown sugar boba drink as well. Dad suggested we go to a place called Don Don Donki to shop, and then he couldn’t get out of there fast enough! He described it like a Chinese IKEA that’s designed to trap you inside. Lol. At the mall I stocked up on Taiwan food I wanted to take home and bought a big bag of pastries and then we sadly headed to the airport. Brother Wong was kind enough to pick us up and drive us to the airport where we did our best to rearrange our luggage to fit all of my grocery souvenirs! Sadly I wasn’t smart enough to pack my jars of curry past in my checked baggage and it all got compensated at security. Bah. 

The plan was to try and stay awake as much as possible on our way home so we would be tired enough to sleep when we got home. But the plan didn’t work well for me and I slept a lot. And then I got home and slept some more!

Ok, well that was a marathon travelogue.  I’ll start working on another email with some details of what the family has been up to the last couple of weeks. 

Love you!

Mom