Far From Formosa II

June 25-27, 2016

After a nice breakfast at the Pacific Business Hotel and a relaxing morning, Tim and I walked to the MRT station and took the red line to the exit for the National Palace Museum.  Ai Ai was waiting anxiously for us.  We were about ten minutes late, and I'm sure she had images of us wandering lost in the bowels of the MRT.   She'd given us a phone to use, but neither of us heard it ringing.

Once reunited, a taxi driver took us from the MRT station right up to the door of the National Palace Museum, which saved us a walk in the hot sun.  Ai Ai has tremendous skills chatting up the taxi drivers here, and they are very accommodating.  From the entrance we passed crowds of tourists following their designated "flag on a stick," and found the ticket office upstairs.  All bags had to be placed in lockers - didn't want any national treasures disappearing.  Ai Ai picked up a couple of audio tour sets for us, and we rode the elevator to the third floor as suggested by a docent.

No photography was allowed, but hundreds of relics from B.C.E. were on display throughout.
Lots of ceramics, bronze pieces and jade artifacts.  Many of the items were carried out of China during the Chinese Civil War, when followers of General Chiang Kai-Shek were restricted to the island of Taiwan.

rice burger

We had a nice lunch at the museum cafe.  Ai Ai had a rice burger - the "bun" was made of rice, not the burger.  This is a popular meal in Taiwan.  Ai Ai bought Tim a pen with the Chinese symbols for his new Chinese name, Huang Ti ("emperor").  A lovely garden graced the front of the museum, which closely resembles the Forbidden City in Beijing.  Very interesting place.

Once back to the area near our hotel, we took a walk through the very modern, fancy mall that is part of Taipei 101.  With 101 floors, Taipei 101 was the tallest building in the world before Burj Khalifa was built in 2009.  It seemed that every high-end retailer had a store here, including Tiffany's, Rolex, Chanel, etc.  Ai Ai gave us time to walk around while she went to put in our names for dinner at the very popular Din Tai Fung restaurant.  This eatery with its famous steamed dumplings is one of the most efficiently-run restaurants I've ever seen.  The waitstaff all communicate via headsets, and the glass-enclosed kitchen reveals workers in white from head to toe creating dumplings with great skill and speed.  The dumplings were delicious.

Crowd of people waiting to get in to Din Tai Fung

The next morning we enjoyed breakfast
at the hotel, then took the train
back to Taoyuan.

We arrived early afternoon, and had a quick video chat with our nephew, Ai Ai's husband, then got cleaned up for the evening.  We enjoyed another game of chinese checkers (this time Pao Pao joined in!)  We piled into two taxis to go to dinner at a restaurant called Hot 7.  We had six of us for dinner, and I learned that Taiwanese use the same hand sign for six as the ASL letter "Y."  The chefs here cook on large griddles in front of the diners, much like Shoguns or Benihanas in the US.  But cooking is serious business here - Ai Ai's family was appalled when we told them how some cooks at Sagano's in Brighton throw food in the air for diners to catch in their mouths!

Highly-skilled chefs, no hijinx

The food was interesting and delicious - even the tossed salad with crushed chocolate cookies on top.  The grilled chicken was tasty and tender, and I even ate some green-lipped mussels.  The dessert was a pancake with, I think, a red bean paste inside that was very tasty, and the chef made special cartoon pancakes for the two obvious out-of-towners in our group.

"Cookies and green"

Mickey Mouse and Heathcliff?

Afterward, we walked a few blocks away to a Karaoke bar, with Ai Ai's mom kindly taking me by the arm and guiding me along the street.  Unlike the American bars where everyone in the place listens to the singers, this place rents out little rooms.  We piled onto benches around the big center table, and Ai Ai and her sibs jumped right in, lining up song after song.  They all had excellent singing voices, including their mom, and sang some lovely Taiwanese ballads.  Tim and I sang a couple of American tunes, which had really lame videos of white people hanging out near a dock somewhere, not at all related to the songs - very amusing.

Jack channeling Michael Jackson

It was a very enjoyable evening with some lovely people who truly felt like family by the end of our visit.  We are very thankful for their generous and warm hospitality!

Our chariot awaits