The Best of Times in Taipei

HFM Goes Global resumes after catching the early morning flight from Seoul to Taipei

Sleep deprivation is typical transiting places, and taking an 8 AM flight is guaranteed to mix you up, especially when you work the night shift the day before. My strategy to stay awake and work until departure changed into a 3 AM cat nap, then a panicked 4:30 am bus and airport train that got me to Incheon Airport with only an hour before departure! Fortunately, the airline was courteous enough to expedite me and the few other travelers showing up late to swiftly check-in and make the flight. I took my middle seat on the full plane and slept most the short flight sitting up in a daze.

I picked a hotel near the central station, arrived early, dropped my luggage and got my first taste of the sweltering heat that defines East Asian summers; Taiwan’s is particularly hot and humid, with daily highs around 90 F, dank humidity, and unpredictable monsoon storms. Taipei has some interesting mitigating measures in place to make life enjoyable for the average soul however, with most high rises built with overhanging second floors to shelter pedestrians from sun and rain. It’s subtle, but so smart. A world class metro awaits underground, air-conditioned and often with a mall complex to idle in, similar to Japan. Thus, even with the oppressive heat, people were out every day in great numbers even if involved battling the elements. So would I, then.

Another taste I got was that of the vegetarian buffets that would define my dining here the next month. Load up a plate with delicious, healthy veggies, fungi and mock meats and pay like $2 per kg for the privilege. By the end of the month, I was on friendly terms with the staff as the foreigner who came daily and got a plate twice as high as the rest. I actually had two near my hotel and would alternate between them daily, sometimes hitting both on lazier days. Finally, I’ve found a place where vegans have it good, and that’s just the buffets! There were loads of veg. restaurants around the city, from simple to fancy that I got to expand my palate with. Truly loved expanding my awareness of true Chinese & Taiwanese cuisines. My favorite discoveries here were bitter gourd, radish cakes and grass jelly, which went wonderfully in my twice-daily bubble teas to mix things up.

Getting around and getting by in Taipei was very easy as well, with a high level of English awareness, and a lot of English print to make basic requests, do transactions or stumble into surprise conversations with fluent speakers. Not that I felt particularly confident talking to most local people though. I did learn a little bit of Chinese on Duolingo, enough to make me want to try harder, though the pronunciations are deeply challenging to me, compared to conversational Japanese or Spanish. There’s always charades to fall back on at least.

Actually transiting around was super easy and fun, the best I’ve had. Taipei’s subway (MRT) and buses were well-connected, clean, cheap and fast. But for me, the real treasure was the best bikeshare program I’ve yet seen implemented, Taiwan’s YouBike. It has great station density, is affordable, connects easily to one’s phone without a membership requirement for visitors. They are well maintained, with lights, bells and a basic 3 speed system. It felt pretty safe to me: there are leisurely, yet useful, bike paths along Taipei’s myriad rivers, one can ride the sidewalks legally, though it’s not always so spacious. Fighting it out in the streets with traffic wasn’t so bad either because of the ubiquitous mopeds forcing drivers to be aware of small vehicles and keep speeds low. Everyone’s riding them, even families with small kids! I rode my bike all over Taipei and never really felt unsafe. Taiwan has a strong bicycling culture too and I’m grateful for the effort of those who’ve made it such a pleasant place to ride around in. I hope to return one day with my Surly for a full circuit of the island.

A highlight of my entire trip will be Claire from Tokyo dropping in on me for a long weekend to start her Summer holiday. As a former teacher here when first starting out her international journey away from Britain, Taipei was a well a lot of fond memories. With her school season up and some time in reserve before a cycling trek about Japan, it was good timing to come see her old haunts in Da’an district. As a vegetarian and hardcore cyclist herself, she was well suited joining me to tour about town. Probably my favorite time of her visit was our trip to the Wulai hot springs and natural area, where we walked around all day, I showed off my “Beijing Bikini” and we cooled off in the evening with a dip in the river, the flow of which was mixed with geothermal vents. It was so relaxing, and then we added on an hour-long night time bike ride to make it back! It was a pretty big bummer for both of us when her time was up, but at least we got to really form a bond on this trip that endures, grown from a chance meeting in Tokyo. She’s off now to ride her bicycle about Japan and attend the Fujirock festival. I’ve told her that my FOMO is real. Perhaps I’ll make it for 2024’s?

Speaking of Tokyo, Nick and Yoshi dropped in for a couple days on a work trip right after Claire left. Too brief a time, unfortunately, but I enjoyed a night out in the bustling markets with them and her coworkers, a low key evening hang at Da’an Park that morphed into watching free interpretative dance late at night at the Memorial Hall Square, and lastly a quick jaunt through the Fine Arts Museum before they flew out. After their departure, I found a summer park festival a block over near Maji Square with bands and a gaming convention occurring simultaneously, as a super cool bit of serendipity to buffer out one fantastic Saturday.

I also had a great connection with Ellen here, who recommended some fun veggie restaurants, joined me for a crazy hike up and down the Datun mountain range in Yangmingshan National Park. Altogether, she’s a very bubbly and fun personality to be around. We’ll be meeting again in Tainan! Altogether, it was a lot of quality socializing, and that’s not including the random banter with locals. After the hermitage of Korea, it felt good filling my extrovert soul up.

All these happy times with friends happened because of the place Taipei is and its culture. Taiwan is ranked as one of the freest countries in the world in terms of civil liberties and democratic process, something that students, again, led the fight for 30 years ago. It is also considered a refuge for the LGBTQ in Asia. The tradeoff is being threatened by China, and with the shadow of their suppression of Hong Kong, and also Russia’s war against Ukraine in mind, I knew this year was when I wanted to visit and see what life here was like, in case it was ever too late. And my impression was, talking to a few local people and observing the revelries of summer weekends, that people pay no heed to China’s aggression. I hope Taiwan never suffers a fate like what has happened to Hong Kong or especially Ukraine, which we must continue to commit to helping.

I’ve had such a blast in Taipei, and composed most of this article on the scenic train to Hualien along Taiwan’s eastern coast, where I’ll pick back up with more photos and writing to cover a second month’s tour around Taiwan, visiting a variety of locales at the breakneck speed of one per week versus this one month of comfortable exploration and cultural osmosis.