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What would you do with once-in-a-lifetime, one week of vacation in Taiwan?


laurenth

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Geiko (and everybody else), thanks so much for the very detailed advice. I'm flying away tomorrow from Amsterdam and, though recent news are a  bit scary, I'm impatient and delighted to discover the island. I'll try to post some information when I'm back.

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I've lived in TW for a year (near Taoyuan) and I would have to say that my favourite part was having a scooter and riding it through the mountains or along the east coast, alone or with friends. Technically you need a license, but shops will rent it to you for 500 NT a day if you say you can ride one. 

 

There's a great surf shop/hostel/beach area called wai ao 外澳, that's about a couple of hours east of Taipei by train. Great for relaxing and some cheap surfing. 

 

The usual tourist spots are nice too but those things I mentioned above are what made TW special for me.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

Glad you had such a good time. Thanks for writing it up. You mentioned your guidebook a couple times as not being reliable. Which one was it?

 

One more stupid piece of advice: on that particular day, it was extremely hot outside, I'd say over 35°C. Inside, it was much colder, which was pleasant at first but rapidly became uncomfortable. Take long sleeves.

 

Not stupid at all! I do the same thing in Hong Kong and Macau.

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@abcdefg, "Le petit futé". I did not mention the non-existing restaurants or cafés in non-existing streets or streets that have nothing to do, etc. Also, the guide refers to some places that  no longer exist, I think (like the "Page One" bookshop in Taipei 101). To be fair, no guidebook can be up to date at all time; and this one was cheap at least.

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Thanks for the write-up, it looks like you made the most of it and had a good time. Also nice to see that you followed so many of the suggestions made in this thread :-) I'm hoping to go to Taiwan again next spring and will refer back to this perhaps, it's been a while and I've forgotten many of the good spots.

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Yes Shelley, I took a few dozen pictures. But I'm not a good photographer, not to mention that I'm the only one in my family who's interested in China, and it's become an in-joke with my daughters that, when I'm back, everybody will have to suffer through a photo presentation evening.

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I like Chinese gardens, so I took Geiko's advice and headed to the lovely 林本源園邸. The whole area is very lively, I liked it a lot. (...) Back to Taipei, visited the Lin An Tai mansion (林安泰古厝) which is perhaps even better than the 林本源園邸. It's much more spacious - in comparison the Lin family mansion feels a bit cramped. The Lin An Tai gardens contains many universes and winding paths to connect them, with strangely-shaped doors creating delightful scenes and ever-changing perspectives. A must see. One can only imagine how wonderfully quiet this place was before it was surrounded by an airport and a 8-lane highway.

 

I was fascinated by those doors and windows too. I realised that some of them had the shape of auspicious things, for example a bat (蝙蝠 sounds like 福) or a peach (it represents longevity) (see photos attached). But there were many other shapes which I can't explain -maybe there's no explanation, they're just beautiful. Oh, and my boyfriend also said that Lin An Tai is nicer than the Lin family mansion. 

 

I only bought two comics, among which 我的青春、我的FORMOSA by 林莉菁, as recommended by Geiko. Only vol. 1 of two was available, unfortunately. I've already read it and it sure helped me understand the situation of Taiwan, including in the light of the conversation I'd had in Shuishe with the Taiwanese speaking lady. In another life, I studied sociolinguistics, in particular language conflicts and endangered languages, and the sociolinguistics/political/psychological situation so vividly described in the book corresponds entirely to other situations I'd had the opportunity to study  - with Chinese characteristics of course.

 

I wasn't able to find volume 2 of that book, either. The best solution I could find was to buy the ebook online. However, in this bookstore, ebooks are not downloadable, either you read them on the computer or through their mobile app, but well. I'm glad that you liked the comic, I still haven't read it, but your positive feedback really makes me want to read it asap.

 

Yet another side note: until now I've studied simplified characters only. Before going to Taiwan, I'd started cramming traditional characters and read vol. 1 (Beginning) and half of vol. 2 (Intermediate) of the De Francis series. I found that the transition was not that hard though, obviously, some characters have proved tougher to chew than others. But on the whole, that change has been interesting and has breathed a new life in my studies. In fact, reading from top to bottom/right to left is strangely fascinating. Now that I'm back, I've switched Pleco to traditional characters. We'll see what happens.

Totally agree with the whole paragraph, and especially the part about reading from top to bottom!

 

Thanks for the write-up, it was great to see the island through somebody else's eyes!

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  • 3 weeks later...

As promised, here are a few pictures taken in Taiwan. I would have liked to edit post #23 and paste the pictures where they belong, but I have no idea how to do that, so here they are in a new post.

 

Day 2: Taipei seen from 象山

 

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保安宫

 

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Day 3: 林本源園邸

 

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Day 4: 日月潭

 

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and the view from the top of the 慈恩塔

 

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Day 5: 林安泰古厝 

 

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And an interesting puppet in the puppet museum

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Day 6: Taipei seen from 陽明山

 

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Hiking the 陽明山

 

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In  the hope you'll enjoy them.

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They are absolutely magnificent. Thank you for sharing, I really like the old architecture. It looks like you had a great time and saw all the best sites.

 

For the future to edit a post you can click on the word Edit that is in pale grey in the bottom right corner of the reply box, when you hover over it, it turns darker.

Make the changes/additions and then click save changes. To add pictures you probably need to use the full editor.

 

Obviously you can only edit your own posts. :)

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