michanna

Hello everybody!

I hope this finds you well!

I’m procrastinating writing a post about Taiwan because three weeks of intense travelling is hard to summarize! I started a written diary since I didn’t have much chance to update on the internet and the trip is 40 pages of that journal!

So, I’ll just start with the highlights:
First of all, the food in Taiwan is amazing in its variety, tastiness and price. I am going to have such a hard time getting back to my NZ travel diet after the last 3 weeks there. In the first 2 days there, I ate more food than in 5 days in NZ.

As a result of spending a lot of time with my friend’s family, I ate a lot of home cooking as well, which exposed me to some food I never would have chosen to eat on my own. Goose intestine and heart meat is really quite good. I still hate those little dried fish and shrimp though.

The shopping is also amazing there. I tried really hard not to buy too much, but I failed. You can buy anything there and it’s usually cheaper. I’ll have to go back when I have more money and suitcase room! The whole culture there feels a little disposable, partly as a result of the consumer culture; when it’s cheap and easy to buy things, you can just throw out what you don’t want and it was easy to fall victim to that while there.

Taiwan is a lot like Singapore, but grungier. It made me understand why Singapore prides itself on cleanliness; I know now what it’s comparing itself to. That being said, Taipei didn’t really give off the feeling of being dirty, just overcrowded with underdevelopped pollution control measures.

The Taoist temples there are all amazing. They’re beautiful and elaborate. I’ll post pictures soon but trust me when I say they won’t do it justice.

Now, the highlights of the trip.
I spent a lot of time visiting my friend’s family because it’s been a while since they’ve seen him. Mostly that involved drinking good tea, eating good food and listening politely to a lot of Chinese.

However, we did get a couple of really good outings in. We went to the south part of Taiwan, called Kenting. It’s hot there. I learned to be afraid of riding motorbikes then got over it. We explored the coast, went to a cool native forest and did some snorkeling.

We went to a national park riht near Taipei and did some mountain climbing in a thermal vent region. It’s quite a bit different there than in Canada because the vegetation goes all the way up.

My friend’s dad took us to an Asian-style hot spring, which was really neat. He also set up a meeting for me with an environmental professional from the Taipei government. He even spoke English! It was really interesting how the issues in Taipei are more or less what you’d expect, but their priorities in which ones to deal with are all reversed compared to Canada. Also, their government is terrified of increasing environmental strictures on industry because they can’t afford to lose the business.

I also got to tour one of the Taipei waste incinerators. It was really cool and space-age-y.

That’s enough for now I think. I’ll respond to comments with more detail if desired or you can find me on skype. I should be available a lot this week as I plan for Lori’s arrival and try to get my things sorted out. I still have a lot of business to take care of with respect to my stolen stuff.

Originally published at Teri's NZ Adventures.
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