Discovering Formosa : Day 1 - Taipei and Keelung

The Portugese named the island "Ilha Formosa" or 'Beautiful Island' way back in 1544. To see whether the island indeed lived up to its name and greatly helped by the publicity it garners on its many live show productions and travelogues, we decided that it was to be our next holiday destination. This time though, we decided to take it easy by leaving our backpacks behind and join in one of the Group Tours.

So just before dawn on the 14th of May, we found ourselves looking out for the pink shirted ASA tour leader at Terminal 1. Checking in was a breeze and the flight just took over 4 hours. On getting onto the the top deck of the tour bus at Taoyuan Airport , our Taiwanese Tour Guide, Sony, introduced himself and from then on was personally responsible that we had a good time there. Of course, all commentaries was in Mandarin with a smattering of Hokkien, so that ensured that I barely understood half of what was said. The easy way out was to turn to Vicky for instant translation, but sometimes I allowed myself to hear the whole speech and then try to figure out by context, or just let it slip by and catch forty winks instead. Yeah, I took lots of short naps on the trip.

Our first destination was the Taoyuan train station where we caught the high-speed train up to Taipei. From there, the tour bus took us to Ximending (or West Gate 'Ding' as Janet Hsieh calls it), the youth culture hub of Taipei. The weather was sunny and breezy, just the right condition to stretch our legs. Our first stop there was the famous Oyster Mee Sua.

Here's how you use the card High-Speed Train

Oyster Mee Sua

Streets of Ximending

Sights at Ximending

For a quick bite before dinner, we settled for 'xiao long bao', dumplings, fried rice and vegies at a local restautrant. It felt like dinner but Sony quickly reminded us that the main course would be on our own at the Mioukou night market in Keelung. This concept of multiple meals in a day would be a common theme throughout the trip, so much that the trip basically revolves around this few activites - eat-see-sit-sleep. No cracking your brains on how to get to the next destination or worrying about missing your next ride, just follow the leader and worry only about what to eat at the next stop.

Next we headed for Keelung, a port city north east of Taipei. This was where we were spending the night, the Laurel Evergreen Hotel. The hotel was only a 5 minute walk away from Mioukou Night Market, so we had the luxury of taking in the sights and scents before we plunge in for our very first Night Market fare.