Made in Taiwan

I think the title of of this entry is how most of us think about Taiwan. However, when I asked David if he had any overdue business trips that we could do in the October half term, he said Taiwan was top of his list.

Like Phuket, it had never been on my original list of must see destinations, but whilst in Borders, I browsed through a couple of travel books and was very surprised to see that it clearly had fabulous scenery and a good few places worth visiting. The more I read, the more interesting it became, so we booked our flights. A Taiwanese friend of Adam's at school was dispatched by his mother with a bunch of tourist brochures and information, so after lots of reading, we planned to spend our week there dividing our time between Taipei and an area of outstanding natural beauty on the east coast, The Taroko Gorge, where we planned to do some walking.

It was hard to know how to pack. David always remembered being hot there and the BBC weather forcast was showing temperatures much hotter than here. But shortly before we were due to go, a Super Typhoon that wreaked havoc in the Philippines parked itself in the sea between the two countries. We waited - should we go, or was it going to arrive in Taiwan when we did? It slowly downgraded itself to a tropical deperssion but didn't move much, so off we went.

The night before we left, David lost his mobile phone, so the first morning was spent trying to buy a local SIM card, so he could contact the office and clients. As the children hadn't learnt useful Mandarin sentences about mobile phones at school, this proved quite challenging - especially as we're not residents. We also found, on arrival, that I'd managed to forget to pack any pants or socks for Hannah. We did manage to do some sight seeing the first day, but spent much of it shopping. There's nothing like trying to find stuff in a city you don't know, when you don't speak the language. Hannah ended up with a couple of pairs of very expensive, designer pants and socks as, on day one, that was all we could find for kids.

We then headed off to the tourist information office at the main station to get train times and book our tickets to the Gorge. On arrival, the staff told us that the typhoon was causing torrential rain on that coast and that many trails in the gorge were closed to due land or mud slides or the risk of them. This didn't sound ideal hiking conditions, after some thought, we abandoned that plan. The TI staff kindly offer to call the hotel I'd already booked and cancel on our behalf. They even negotiated a discount on the cancellation fee for us!

Armed with yet more leaflets and our guide book, we then spent time trying to sort out an alternative destination for those 2 to 3 days. It felt like a return to our back-packing days, but we soon concluded that most places of interest that weren't in the east, would take several hours to get to and from and that there was more than enough in and around Taipei to keep us busy and give us a good variety. Adam was devastated as it meant we didn't go on the train, but when we saw reports of landslides in the local (English language) paper the following morning we felt we'd made the right decision.

The next day, the weather was still cool and mostly wet so we spent another morning shopping for warmer clothes for all of us. Sometimes nice items were made less appealing by oddly translated phrases on them, such as "Pink Poke" or, on a children's top "JUNIOR COWer"??? We also found, at a night market, a selection of cheaper pants and socks to add to Hannah's collection, although she hated the style of the pants has stated quite categorically that she will never, ever wear them again, because they look like boxer shorts!

We visited temples, night markets, museums, a former gold mining and now scenic tourist area, an area of hot springs and paddled in a river that was like a hot bath. The kids enjoyed several visits to a restaurant near the hotel where you choose your food and cook it in a pot of soup on your table. We caught an old, local branch line train (the Pingxi line) along a lovely wooded gorge and visited some waterfalls. As is a tradition in these particular villages, we set off a lantern after first writing our wishes on it. See the video clip of this event.

Sometimes, the highlights weren't what we expected - in a Ceramics museum in a town outside Taipei, the children joined in a children's ceramics workshop and made bowls - the whole thing was conducted in Mandarin and although they didn't understand anything much, it didn't stop them having fun! We went to the Science Centre, a great place for children, but arrived after the ticket desk closed due to a mistake in our guide book. A member of staff kindly let us in for free and took us to some of the best bits and we had the exhibitions (all very hands on) to ourselves!

Whilst we tried to negotiate our way to the scenic Pingxi branch line (using 2 trains to get there), a platform attendant, in answer to us asking him if he spoke English, told us "no English, but sing" then, much to our surprise he launched into a loud rendition of a song in English. We (and a few nearby Taiwanese) applauded at the end, as we felt we should, whereupon he then started on Swing Low, Sweet Charriot! Fortunately, at this point, the train arrived and some kindly locals ensured we didn't miss it.

Finally, right at the end of the week, the weather improved and the clouds cleared and we finally made it up Taipei 101. At the time of writing, it is still the tallest building in the world.

Here it is, towering above Taipei at dusk.

Our memories of Taipei will be mixed between the wonderful people - surely some of the most friendly and delightful anywhere - and the impressive temples and stunning scenery. While other memories will be of the everyday architecture - the buildings that the vast majority of people live in. Here the architecture goes seriously downhill in design, if not, apparently, in price! Grey, functional and unloved, rather like many of China's less appealing buldings put up in the communist era.

And the food - not all of it was to our taste, but we had many good meals there, but so often whilst walking around, there would be an overwhelming stench of something from the street stalls that smelt very seriously off. We discovered this was known as "stinky tofu". I have no idea what is done to it, but it could be seen boiling in some noxious, dark liquid - the idea that anybody could bring themselves to eat it defies belief, but presumably people do. To anyone who has smelt the durian fruit in Asia and likened it to bad drains etc, stinky tofu makes durian smell positively delicious!