Zoo, Maokong, Rally, Ximendeng, & Shilin Night Market, Taiwan

Sunday January 8, 2012

Today we had breakfast again at the usual spot before heading to the Taipei Zoo with Joe's dad. It is located just southeast of Taipei. On the metro ride over, Joe found a great sign.

There were flamingos when we first walked in.

The main attraction was the pandas. Joe's Dad had never seen them before. In 2008 the zoo accepted 2 pandas from mainland China, a gift that had been rejected by the then president Chen Shui-Bianca in 2005. The pandas are named Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan which together means 'reunion.' The offering of pandas is an old Chinese diplomatic tradition, but the supporters of Taiwan's independence view it as something like a Trojan horse. Dad was upset that they were just laying there with their butts facing us sleeping. They had a large room to explore and they weren’t.

The most popular attraction before the pandas was the koala house.

Tortoise

Penguins! I love penguins.

We also saw lynx, elephants, rhinoceros, etc.

We took the Maokong gondola, a 4km cable car from the Taipei Zoo up the green hills to Zhinan Temple and Maokong in the Erge Mountain Range. It finally reopened again in 2010 after repairs. Since it was free for Dad he decided to ride with us, which is surprising since his fear of heights is getting greater with age. I hate that the weather sucked so badly today. Pictures didn't really turn out in the rain-covered car.

At the Zhinan Temple stop it turned to a complete fog. You could not see 10 feet in front of you, much less the car in front. On the way to the Maokong stop it cleared up a little.

Maokong is one of Taiwan's oldest tea-growing areas and is famous for teahouses, temples and romantic night views of the city. On my first trip here we came shortly before New Years 2008 and could faintly make out Taipei 101 in the distance while the family played cards and drank tea.  We ate some lunch in Maokong before heading back down since it would not have been fun walking up the rural mountain street in search of a teahouse in the rain. On the way back down we got a car with a glass floor!  In this view the glass wasn't be covered in raindrops.

Views of Taipei beyond.

Looking back at the gondola after we exited.

Dad & son.

Somehow Joe's dad convinced him to go to a 'parade' near the Presidential Office Building in the center of Taipei. As we walked by MANY policemen toward a stage setup near Chiang-Kai chek Memorial Hall we started to get a feeling there was something lost in translation.

Dad brought us to a political rally! The presidential election is about a week away. What Joe had not understood was that the president and his new vice president nominee were marching to this stage from Taipei 101. Most of the older crowd, like Joe’s Dad, was waiting to hear the president’s speech at the final destination. He would speak for about an hour and then other political rally festivities stuff would happen; hence the misinterpretation of festive atmosphere for festival.

For some reason Jackie enjoyed watching Joe be as uncomfortable as she was as the only white person there.

Dad gave us an out to leave before the parade made it there. We took the opportunity and walked through 2-28 Park and hightailed it over to Ximendeng, a trendy young shopping district where we recalled Joe's cousin stopping for noodle soup at a crowded place after just finishing a huge lunch of dim sum nearby. We were determined to find this place again. The Red House Theater is one of Taipei's older buildings. The wooden, octagonal structure was originally a public market with many lives since then.

We searched down Ay-Chung Flour-Rice Noodle House, which has had a large crowd gathered out front since 1975. This stall serves rice noodles in delicious soup with added slices of pig intestine.

After that we went to the Shilin Night Market, the city's biggest and oldest. Joe recalled this food market being located under a large covered building that you could see from the metro stop. We walked the narrow lanes that sell mostly clothes, but are peppered with snack stalls.

Now that is some big Asian sausage!

and Joe had to order some!

We found the public market building, but weren't really sure where all the street food was located. We later found out that the 'food court' downstairs was the new location. The old covered pavilion had been deemed a fire risk so the food stalls were relocated here in August.

Here are Chinese lanterns at the temple front, which of course had food stalls.

Yonghe City, Taiwan

Thursday-Saturday January 5-7, 2012

Every 2 years we make a trip back to Taiwan to see Joe’s family. This will be my 3rd trip since we were married in 2007.

Thursday we dropped Chance off at the vet at 8am for the next 9 days. We walked .7mi from our house to take 2 buses and the light rail to the Sea-tac airport. There is no way we would have thought of taking public transit like this on the east coast, but you really can’t beat the round-trip cost of $7 instead of a pricey cab fare or an even greater fee to park at the airport for that long. We flew from Sea-tac to Tokyo, a 10 hour flight. This was Jackie once we were through security at Seatac airport waiting on our flight as we watch other flights take off.

The long flight was a perfect way to catch up on our movies (even though Joe has seen a lot of them already on his many business trips). Moneyball, Larry Crowne, Friends with Benefits, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (up to the final few minutes). The flight from Tokyo to Taoyuan International Airport was close to 3 hours. We arrived late Friday night, January 6, 2012. That is a full 24 hours of airport time. We shaved off 2 hours from the Detroit flight to Japan plus having to take a third flight from Charleston to Detroit. I went straight to bed and Joe stayed up for a bed visiting with his Mom.

On Saturday January 7, we had breakfast at the World Soybean Milk Magnate, our usual spot in Yonghe. We searched for a My Fone store so Joe could get a prepaid 3G cell phone plan for his iPhone while we were here in Taiwan. The first store we went to wasn't open until 11am so we went over to the National Taiwan Library for a little while until they opened.

The 10 day phone plan has been great. The GPS has saved us from getting too lost quite a few times.

Dad made a great lunch at the house. He even peeled all the shrimp shells just for Jackie before cooking them.

We aren’t doing as much in Taiwan this trip as we did 2 years ago when Matt joined us and Joe’s Dad’s health was better. If you want to get a better idea of what Taiwan is like and how beautiful this island can be read our old blog we did for that 2 week trip in late 2009:

http://joeliangtravel.blogspot.com/

2011 RECAP

This has been one eventful year! Our big news at the end of 2010, was our move to the west coast to state of Washington. 2011 began with many goodbyes (at least for now). We played cornhole in Raleigh and sumo-wrestled in Charleston at our parties with good friends who are terribly missed. 

It was hard to leave beautiful Charleston, SC, great friends and a full-time paying job in this economy, but it has all seemed to work out for the best. Jackie stuck around the east coast until the end of March to celebrate her godson Liam’s 3rd birthday and to meet her new nephew, Ryan Shugart.

The end of March we began our 9 day, 3,000+ mile drive across the United States from Charleston, SC to Bellingham, WA. We enjoyed barbeque in Memphis, Cadillac Ranch art in a cow pasture near Amarillo, Texas, trains passing thru plateaus and badlands in New Mexico, but the Grand Canyon was the highlight of our southern trip.

We drove part of Historic Route 66 through Oatman, Arizona. We enjoyed driving up part of Highway 1 along to the California coast to see Morro Rock, sunbathing seals on the beach and as close to Big Sur as we could before the road was closed due to landslides. Joe’s highlight was driving through Monterey, 17 Mile Drive, the infamous Pebble Beach Golf Course, and Carmel. We spent a full day exploring San Francisco concluding with a romantic dinner in Sonoma. We blogged about our journey across country and have tried to keep up writing and photographing our latest adventures in Washington.

We lived in the furnished first floor of a house in Bellingham, WA, 30 miles south of the Canadian border and 90 miles north of Seattle until the end of May. It was great for Joe being so close to his office and the endless outdoor activities to keep us preoccupied.

We finally settled down in our long-term rental house in Mill Creek, 25 miles north of Seattle. Jackie began working for GGLO, an architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design firm that focuses on multi-family housing and retail. She loves it so far and considers herself extremely blessed for finding such a great job so quickly.

This year has truly felt like we’ve been on vacation! We enjoyed the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival,

hiking Deception Pass, and April Brews Day in April. In May we went to a Mariners baseball game, hiked Teddy Bear Cove on Chuckanut Drive,

and took a daytrip to Vancouver.

We celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary camping on San Juan Island in the Puget Sound.

In early July Joe’s pregnant sister, brother-in-law and their 2 sons came to visit. We took them to the Olympic Peninsula and Vancouver.

In mid-July Joe’s old co-worker Tu came for a visit and we went to the Portland International Beer Festival and Voo-Doo Donuts. Near the end of July we went camping for the weekend on the Olympic Peninsula, exploring the Dungeness Spit, Lake Crescent & Hurricane Ridge.

In August we spent a few days with Jackie’s family in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It was really nice to see Jackie’s Grandma doing well and holding her great-grandson.

After that Joe’s cousin Nikki came to visit for a few days. We went hiking in the North Cascades Mountains and attempted to see Mt. Rainier.

In mid-September the Wrights and Moyers came to visit from San Diego and Tennessee. They went to the Olympic National Park and explored Seattle with us, with Pike Place Market, the Underground Tour, a Mariners game, and Alki Beach being big hits.

Later in September Joe, Jackie and Chance hiked to the fire lookout tower on Mt. Pilchuck, the largest mountain in the Cascades near our house.

We have been fortunate enough to have some extra income (DINKS), which has allowed us to purchase new toys and take fun vacations. In May we bought hybrid comfort bikes and try to ride often. Jackie strives to become a true Seattleite and bike to work by next summer. As summer ended we bought a single 15’ kayak and longer tandem kayak. Joe has paddled near San Juan Island with seals and saw Orca whales.

In October Joe was given an opportunity to work for a few weeks in Eindhoven, Netherlands at the DAF Truck facility on a similar 2013 emission truck program he’s been working on in Mount Vernon, WA. On the weekends he was able to visit in the Netherlands De Haag, Delft and Haarlem and the Rhine Valley in Germany. Jackie visited for a long weekend for Joe’s 30th birthday. We visited Brussels and Bruges in Belgium.

Joe also toured Bastogne, Belgium. It was a truly invaluable experience that we’ll never forget.

We hosted our first Thanksgiving with Jackie’s parents and brother Andy visiting from NC. The weather in Seattle has officially turned to mostly rainy days, but we were still able to explore a bit and cut down our own Christmas tree. It will be tough to be away from friends and family for our first Christmas, but look forward to starting our own traditions and memories. We wish you all the best this holiday season. We welcome any visitors, but advise that summer is the best time to come. There’s never a dull moment in the Liang household as you have read. God Bless!