Taiwan - Taipei

The next few days were spent in Taipei. This was nice for me as it was a bit of a slower pace which allowed for some recovery. Due to the great(and ridiculously cheap) public transportation system, we were able to get from our accommodations in New Taipei to Taipei City with ease. With a network of buses and subway lines you can get most any where you could want to go in the city at almost any time.

We went to a hot spring that I completely forget the name of but it was obviously the oldest and most famous other wise we wouldn't have bothered to go. It was a neat set up with the hottest pools at the top with the lower pools getting progressively cooler as the water trickled down. After which we went for a delicious Japanese ramen dinner that looked like this.

Sunday morning James took me to the English service at the church where he attends the Mandarin service and I really enjoyed it.

It was Chinese New Year and so seeing that this was an important date and we were staying with a Chinese family we got treated. They took us to a restaurant that was serving a special meal for the holiday. Let me tell you it was quite the experience!

We walked in to a room full of Chinese, we were the only foreigners and we sat down to a ten course dinner. That's right, ten! We started eating and the food kept coming. When we had gotten the first five course and were close to getting full we asked about where we were in relation to the end. They let us know that we were half done. It was something else!

We also made the obligatory trip to Taipei 101, which is the tallest building in the world, had we visited two years ago. Alas it is now only the second tallest, but it is still pretty tall. As it worked, it was cloudy the day were went up but seeing as we would have no other chance to see it we took a ride in the worlds fastest elevator(Seoul Tower claims to be, but is slow in comparison) to look in to clouds. Another part of our 101 experience was a beer float as a result of a buy one get, one free. It is just like a root beer float except that instead of root beer it is beer and instead of tasting good it tastes peculiar.

This is a damper, Read all about it here.

Taipei is the real deal. It has enough sights, activities, shops, and people to have the title, "An Ideal City". I would agree, Taipei is certainly an ideal city.