Wednesday

Wednesday

Well, we pulled it off. We were too late to see Paul last night, so he came over this morning. He told the story that our hotel was haunted, since it was on the site of an old prison. Then there was a knock on the door, and Paul said, “It must be a ghost”. Ann opened the door and Ellen was standing there. We had arranged for her to get here yesterday from Seattle, and she was going to spend a few days with us and then travel a bit on her own with her friend, Sam. Ann was totally flabbergasted. After 4-5 months of careful planning, secret emails, clandestine checks, laundered money, hushed whispers into the phone, and careful shushing while Skyping, we had completely left her in the dark about this surprise. It was really wonderful. She had absolutely no idea it was coming.

So we went out for a little breakfast at Flora Café, and were taking pictures, and the Taiwanese family next to us were also taking pictures, so we all started taking pictures of each other and had the staff take pictures of all 10-15 of us. Fun personal diplomacy. No one spoke the other’s language, but all were smiling.

We then went to Teipei101, the largest building in Taiwan. 101 floors, towering over the metropolis, with definite Asian architecture of 8 sections. Eight is a lucky number, so the building had the right “feng shui”. We took the fastest elevator in the world (certified by Guiness) up to the observation deck at floor 98. It was a very impressive view, to say the least. Taipei is situated among 3 rivers and in a valley of large mountains. We could see all around for miles. We saw the exhibit of the dampers which keeps the building from swaying too much in the wind and, I guess, in earthquakes. They have even popularized the concept with the cute little “Damper Babies” who are character representations of the engineering structure. Sort of like IM Pei meets Disney. Of course there were souvenir shops everywhere, from Jade to more Damper Babies to the mall in the bottom floors that you HAD to exit through.

After that, we began a religious expedition. Today being the full moon in fall led to the “Mid-Autumn Festival” of the 3 main faiths, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. We visited a temple of each to observe the customs and to look at the architecture. People were burning incense and offering fruits to the gods/spirits, and in other places the tradition is to burn paper in outdoor receptacles. It looked like any type of paper would do, as most of it looked like old newsprint or napkins. At the Buddhist temple, the incense smoke was overwhelming to me and I had to leave and get out to the “fresh” air (which wasn’t a whole lot better).

As dusk fell, we worked our way to the Night Market, which could have been the Shuk, the 9^th Street Italian Market in Philadelphia, or Pike Place Market in Seattle. The difference was the types of foods and object offered. One does not normally see snakes, live turtles, shrimp and other unknown crustaceans, and other un-mentionables being offered for sale. I saw no fruits or vegetables.

We went back to Paul’s apartment to pick up his roommate, Ken, who took us to Din Tai Fung, a restaurant serving local Chinese food. We had steamed dumplings of chicken, shrimp, and veggies, which were wonderful. There was also spiced cucumbers, stir fried cabbage, and a garlicky spinach-like green which was delish. Dinner for 6, 2000 NTD, or about $60US. The restaurant, as with so many other places here, was brimming with employees, all of them most willing to serve and make our experience pleasant. A lost concept in America.