After finishing all the needed paperwork and finding a scooter last week I didn’t think it was necessary to spend the rest of the week in the city. Why not go do something fun before starting orientation. I hadn’t seen Sean in exactly 100 days (funny how that worked out to be the perfect number) so I was beyond excited to spend a couple days with him. I was able to leave two of my bags in Taitung and took the train into Taipei. I miss the small, unpacked trains I took last year. With limits on foreign travel, everyone is using their summer break to visit Taitung so the trains are packed. I was lucky enough to slide my large suitcase between the last row of seats and for those who know me well it shouldn’t surprise you that I slept most of the way to the city.
Like with other forms of public transportation in Taiwan, everyone is required to wear a mask and to even get on the platform your temperature is taken. It’s understandable why Taiwan has control just by visiting one train station because everything is so well organized. If someone doesn’t have a mask they can either buy one at the Family Mart or one can be provided. If you refuse a mask I think the fine can get upwards of 1,000$ USD. So no one is going to be making any “political statements” by refusing to wear a mask.
I was met by Sean at Taipei Main Station, standing under the statue of the tin man that became our meeting place in the large lobby area of the station. He not only was dressed to the nines, but had everything planned for my trip including a birthday dinner, a bar, and surfing all before I returned to Taitung. Like everything we plan something always goes a little askew, but with Sean’s ever present good luck it turns out alright.
The taxi trip to Sean’s apartment was a lot. I’d like to say I know the city pretty well at this point, at the very least the neighborhood Sean lives in. I know when a taxi man in his 60s is pretending he doesn’t know his way around the streets and takes an obtuse way to get to any said location. One look at my big suitcase and the taxi man must’ve gotten excited because Sean and I had to call him out twice for taking a longer way, giving him the directions in Chinese to him (clearly not a regular tourist). The trip, which usually costs around 160$ NTD or ~ 5 USD, cost us 250$ NTD. Sean politely asked me to get out of the cab to get my bag while he talked to the taxi driver, I think hoping to either complain or shave off some of the fair because of the taxi driver taking a longer path than necessary. With his annoyance directed at the taxi driver Sean left his relatively new phone on the seat of the car. Literally he got out closed the door and checked his pockets right away and started chasing after the taxi. He then called the phone which the driver picked up and instead of literally turning around because he couldn’t have gotten too far, he left it at a police station 2 miles away. At least it wasn’ t lost, but it definitely wasn’t how we wanted to spending our time traveling to a police station in really hot weather.
After finding the phone we returned to Sean’s apartment. Having been on the train I opted for a shower to get dressed nicely for the surprise dinner Sean had reservations for while Sean prepared some snacks. After getting dressed I was surprised to find that the snacks which I assumed would be a run to the 7/11 on the ground floor was actually a cheese board set with brie cheese, real corn chips (I still don’t know how he found them), blueberries!, wine grapes (these crazy grapes in Taiwan that do really taste like wine and are huge), champagne, another cracker, and a homemade tzatziki sauce. I was in heaven having only eaten breakfast and it was nearing 4:30 not because of poor planning, but the fact that the train is 4 and a half hours and couldn’t take my mask off on the train (Taiwan requires the first couple days out of quarantine you still wear a mask all the time just in case on top of the all people wear masks on transportation). Sean found a nice table and chair set from Ikea for the balcony so we enjoyed the sunset before heading to an Italian café restaurant for the night.
The waitress at the restaurant was surprised I asked to sit outside. It looked like a courtyard in Europe, I was in love with the décor and environment. Sean then laid out the rest of the options for the night: we could have dinner and go to Taipei’s Smith and Wollensky’s (probably spelled that wrong) for their massive chocolate cake and listen to jazz at the bar there or I could opt for a cake at the bakery next to the café and then after our meal go to a new cocktail bar he went to the week before. Seeing as I ate more of the snacks than I intended the idea of a large cake slice that Sean and 3 of his friends had trouble finishing before, I went for a bakery cake. How can you not want to try the Black Tea Mousse and Apple cake? It looked too pretty to eat. We returned to our table outside and the bakery brought the cake to our table fairly quickly. There was a little bit of a misunderstanding I guess because Sean had attempted to get them to bring it after the meal and with candles so they offered countless apologies and took the cake back. The food was amazing though especially after the quarantine food I keep comparing everything too. We got truffle fries to split (let’s be honest I ate most of them) and I got what came to be a roasted Chicken and it was marvelous while Sean got a tempting salad. After the dishes were collected, they did bring out the cake again this time with candles. The only trouble was because we chose the seats outside, the wind kept prohibiting the flame to actually catch on the candles. It would catch and then sputter out as the baker walked to the table. It took three restaurant employees trying to hold their hands around the cake to protect it from the wind with Sean and I saying it was alright and that they tried until the stopped and let us start to eat. The cake was as good as it looked. It tasted, well like black tea, but the cake portion was almost like a carrot cake with the middle being the inside of a brown better with cinnamon apples. Definitely a good pick.
The night wasn’t over yet. Sean really tried to fit in everything he could to make the day fun after the boringness of quarantine and paperwork. We headed to a bar called Ounce. From the street you can’t tell it’s a bar, instead it actually looks like a bakery set with business cards and everything. However, when you walk up to the worker and ask for Ounce he will open the wall and you walk into a speakeasy kindof themed bar. We were sat at the bar and got to talking with the bartender, a 23 year old guy from Hong Kong named Maurice. The concept of the bar was that they made the drinks specifically for the people and therefore, didn’t have a menu to order from. Sean went first and told him his favorite kind of alcohol, how he was feeling and answered some follow up questions about salty vs sweet and his taste pallet. I didn’t know what I would say (thank god Maurice spoke English because I was having a hard-enough time coming up with a good response in English). I went with saying I enjoyed vodka (which I guess isn’t a full lie but I just haven’t tried enough drinks to know what I truly like outside of cheap things you get in college). I ended up with a raspberry drink. It was like Maurice knew me in the short conversation we had. I’m pretty sure it had an egg in it to keep it all whipped because there was a froth that stayed the entire length of the drink instead of dissipating after a while. Sean got some lemony, sour drink which wasn’t half bad.
We talked about movies with Maurice and even got into politics about Hong Kong (he is working on becoming a UK citizen now). After finishing our drinks Maurice asked if we wanted to try something more “interesting.” He then backtracked hoping he didn’t insult us and rephrased it by asking if we wanted something more unique. This time he asked our favorite ethnic food. I went with Thai food because I have been craving basil chicken (who knows where or when I can get that) and Sean went with Mediterranean food. That’s where Sean went wrong. Thai food got me a drink almost like a pina colada in the sense that it was coconut infused but had harder alcohol and banana leaf in it. It tasted almost like Hawaiian Salad even with Vermouth in it. Sean, on the other hand, got a drink that is almost like a whiskey but wasn’t. He used some syrup to make it have a smoky taste and I tried it to see if I would like it more than Sean, but I couldn’t drink more. That’s the downside of having made friends with the bartender at a bar where they make personalized drinks, it’s almost as if you a turning the person down if you don’t finish or don’t like a drink. So like the gentlemen he is, Sean waited for the ice to melt and drank the watered-down version.
The first day was definitely the most jam packed. Friday was mostly spent in Da’an Park while Sean attended classes. I had planned to get one of my favorite drinks, Nut Milk, but opted not to walk far in the heat. We had a workout and then went to the night market for some different foods. The night market was the closest I’ve ever seen to being empty probably based on the lack of tourists. We were hounded by people to try things and kept having to turn it down. We came with specific foods in mind: Sean wanted this sausage dish while I was waiting for the seared mushrooms. After finding our individual foods we got some drinks and walked back to the main entrance where we finally came across the dog outfit we saw so many months ago, a Chinese dragon costume. Sean’s family got a new puppy and Fionn doesn’t know yet, but if it gets sent in time he is going to be a dragon for Halloween now.
Sean definitely planned the best trip to Taipei because I ended my small visit with my first trip to Yilan, a county under Taipei known by some as Taipei’s backyard. It’s primarily known for how much it rains, but during the Midyear conference last year the ETAs from Yilan reported on their beach, Waiao Beach. The beach is one of few black sand beaches. After an issue with directions which left us turning to just getting an Uber we arrived at the beach and rented surf boards! It was a set rate for the entire day, literally from sunrise to sunset you could surf. We got our own table and chairs under a tent too! I’ve never once surfed before and was a little nervous because I am scared of the ocean with its riptides and many animals we still don’t know everything about. However, Sean and Xueying (a friend I’ve made through Sean) were amazing teachers. They brought me in the water and showed me how to get on the board, balance and when to paddle for a wave. It wasn’t until I had somewhat of an idea of what to do that they went and got their own boards.
After spending the entire day in the water I was actually getting pretty alright. I can stand up and even got better at predicting which waves to go on. I felt hindered by the crowds because sometimes people were in the way and even though right of way means a person already on the wave can go, it didn’t feel right slamming into someone so instead I opted for rolling off the board or jumping down before I needed to. It surprised me I was even having these thoughts because it was my first time surfing and yet I seemed to have more of my shit together than some of the other people on the beach. Being the competitive person I am I did realize early on there was no competition between Sean and I surfing. He literally is made for the water and could surf while holding the go pro in his hand. I could barely handle keeping my board next to me and filming on the go pro without even attempting to ride a wave.
I definitely see myself surfing again in the future, probably more like the near near future soon.
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