Taiwan!

(as per usual click for descriptions)

I had heard from everybody who had been before me that Taiwan was their favorite place of all. But I didn't want to get my hopes up too much because I didn't want to set myself up for disappointment. However, Taiwan lived up to what everybody said. The food was amazing, the people friendly and helpful, the city was clean with good transit, and the women were among the most attractive I've seen. It easily ranks as my favorite country during all of my travels thus far and I would gladly return.

That being said, story time!

First day I had some phenomenal ramen for breakfast at the airport. My flight left 90 minutes ahead of everybody else's so I had some time to spare upon arrival in Taipei. I chose to take the high speed train, as I had never been on one before. It was a bit more, but it was definitely worth the 5USD. Once in the city I went straight to the hostel to drop off my stuff so I could explore and start eating street food. We were staying at the Camels Oasis near Chiang Kai Shek memorial. The place was fairly removed from night life, but near to the MRT Station (subway). It appeared to be an apartment that had been converted into a hostel by the owner, Shaun. The place was very tidy, well-decorated, and comfortable. It had a kitchen, laundry room, two double rooms, an 8 bed dorm and a 6 bed dorm. Unfortunately it only had 1 bathroom with 1 shower, which was the cause of a decent amount of lost time. But nonetheless I would gladly stay there again. Everybody got a storage locker inside the room so you could stash your passport, electronics, and any other valuables you had without fear of losing them or getting them snagged.

Once checked in I went off to explore the neighborhood to get my bearings. Found a bun place and got to use my first bit of Putonghua. As I am a vegetarian, I must be careful about what I eat. Pork is especially popular in Asia, and seems to find its way into almost every dish. I successfully asked whether there was a vegetable bun option, and whether it had meat, and if not, what types of veggies were in it. This bun ended up being amongst my favorite foods while in Taiwan, and for only 35NT (1.08US) it was a steal. Picked up the others from the MRT station once they arrived and showed them the way. It wasn't long before we were off exploring the city.

The first place we went was the Shilin Night Market. Now, when you say night market in Hong Kong, instantly you imagine something along the lines of the Ladies Market, where you can buy "designer" clothing, bags, souvenirs, etc. However, in Taiwan, a night market is sort of a carnival. There are games to play for prizes and dozens of street food vendors.

Rather than narrating the whole trip in this manner, I think I'll leave the rest of it to descriptions on the photos and just cover the in-betweens and things that stick out most:

1. Taipei, though densely populated, is much more spread out than HK. There is more space in between buildings and more green within the city itself. It makes it a lot further to walk places, but overall a much more enjoyable environment.

2. Taipei's public transit is phenomenal. It would be difficult to compare to HK's simply because the populations are so different. But I would say that it works just as well if not better than Hong Kong's. The stations are very open and all of the signs and maps are clear. They even have section views of some stations to help you find the right level.

3. Scooters are a way of life in Taiwan. In fact, there are designated scooter lanes. And at intersections there is a designated area for scooters (as they will inevitably weave between cars and go to the front anyways).

4. I know Taipei 101 is the second tallest building in the world, but I guess I had no concept of how big it really is. The food court at the base has some excellent food and some of the architectural stylings inside are nice. However, overall, I don't feel like the interior lives up to the expectations that the exterior sets.

5. As I said before, the people in Taiwan are pleasant and helpful. Now, the other places I have been when people are helpful it is because they want something in return or it is simply an act to trick you out of some money. It's not that way at all in Taiwan. People come up to you if they see you hesitating about where to go and offer help. When we went the wrong place in Pinglin, some people not only told us where to go to get to the bicycle rental place, but also called ahead, got us a special deal, and gave us a ride there in their pickup truck. Again after the bicycle ride, my friend Paige and I missed the bus back into town, so we were going to go find the bus stop to wait for the next. Some people in a $70,000 (140K USD in Taiwan due to fees) Lexus pulled up and offered us a ride to the next bus stop, which was 20 minutes away, despite the fact that we were profusely sweating. None of these people asked for anything in return, even when we offered it: they just wanted to be of help.

6. Food. This might just be my favorite thing about Taiwan. There are so many street vendors and vegetarian options there it's almost overwhelming. And none of the street food costs very much money. I seldom payed more than $1US for a dish.

That's about all I care to type for Taiwan. I could go on for days with stories of it, but this is already a novel so I'll leave it at that.

Expect more small updates during the month of June while I backpack China. I won't have access to Facebook or YouTube in the mainland, so this will be my primary means of communication.

Countdown

It's crazy how fast this semester has gone. Only one week remains of classes. I've made a lot of good friends from all over the world and I hope I can stay in touch with them the next few years, maybe even visit a few.

This Friday I leave for Taipei, where I will stay for four days doing sightseeing. Everyone who has gone thus far said the people were the friendliest and most helpful that they had met in Asia. We'll visit Taipei 101, the world's former tallest building until it was surpassed by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Also going to some night markets, eating lots of local cuisine, and most likely hitting up some scenic areas.

Upon return I'll settle into finals before embarking on my monthlong expedition into mainland China. Starting in Beijing I will zigzag my way south seeing all of the major tourist sights (Great Wall, World Expo, the Bund, Terra Cotta Warriors) in the first 12 days before going off the beaten path. I am hoping at some point to find a homestay in a village. There are a couple mountains I'd like to scale as well and a ton of scenery worth seeing. And food, of course. I will be making a stop in Chongqing specifically to try their renowned hot pot.

It should be an enlightening experience and I am sure to meet some interesting people.

Meatless Mondays and Milk

If you have known me for any amount of time, you know food is really important to me. Being in Hong Kong has made me look at what I eat more than ever. What I mean when I say this is that I am now more aware of the origin of the food that I eat. For example, tropical fruits such as bananas, pineapples, and coconuts are significantly less expensive here than in the United States. Why is that? Because they are grown in this region so the transportation costs are much lower. Another example of this is the inflated prices on foods grown in the U.S. and elsewhere.

One of the implications of this is the lack of dairy in my diet now. Because approximately 90% of the Asian population is lactose intolerant, it simply isn't practical to have a strong dairy industry here. As such, cheese and milk is imported, meaning a higher cost, which in turn means I am not buying it because I enjoy saving money.

I have read many articles about how cutting dairy out of your diet can make you feel more alert and lively as it contains a considerable amount of tryptophan, but never believed that I would be able to give it up. But here I have almost entirely done just that. This isn't to say that I don't miss it, I would love to sink my teeth into a cheese pizza or some cheese enchiladas. But I certainly do notice that I have more energy and am more alert than usual. I must say, although I may not swear off dairy entirely just yet, I will be taking this dairy restricted diet back home with me.

P.S. Stumbled upon this article. Interesting idea with meatless Mondays. Obviously I think any step in that direction is a good thing. What do you think?

Cambodia and Thailand

I've now been back over a day from Thailand and Cambodia. Sort of strange to settle back into one place after being mobile for 8 days constantly. The photos above all have captions, so I'll just talk about a few things that stick out in my mind about the trip.

Cambodia:
The food was amazing, honestly some of the best that I have ever had. Amok seems to be a popular dish available at all restaurants. It's a sort of thick curry with vegetables and egg in it. The hospitality was also some of the best I have seen. Either people are genuinely friendly or they're really good at scamming. I like to think it's the former.

Phnom Penh was not at all what I was expecting in a capitol city. No tall buildings, and poverty everywhere. The ground was littered with trash wherever you went, people just threw things away on the ground when they were finished with them. It was really a stark contrast to any other cities I had seen. Siem Reap was somewhat dirty, but nothing compared to Phnom Penh. It's really hard to imagine living in such a place. Are people there happy living like that I found myself wondering? I can't imagine myself being happy living in such filth all the time.

Driving in Cambodia is also an experience. They drive on the right side of the road like in America, but there are literally no traffic laws. People commonly drive in the wrong lane. Honking is constant, and isn't used angrily as it is in the US, but rather as an alert to other drivers that you are there. The taxi ride from the border town of Poipet was my first taste of this, and my taxi was a British style one (driver on the right side) so he couldn't even see when he was passing the other drivers. Not that he cared too much, as autos frequently pass with just feet to spare before a collision would happen.

Overall though, Cambodia was worth if if only for Siem Reap, the food, and learning about the Khmer Rouge and a side of history seldom seen in the US.

Thailand:
We tended to stick to touristy areas of Thailand, though we did venture off a few times to see a bit more, and we walked around most places our last day rather than taking taxi or tuktuk. Speaking of which, the system of taxis/tuktuks is quite frankly the most corrupt thing I have ever seen. You're never sure if you're going to be scammed. Our first day we wanted to see a couple sights. We ended up getting dragged all over Bangkok going to the Tuktuk driver's sponsors so he could get free gasoline. If you are unfamiliar with what a sponsor is, it's a business that pays tuktuks to bring tourists there to try to sell them things. We went to three tailors where we were barraged by them trying to sell us custom tailored suits for 100USD. As a group we tolerated it because we had extra time anyways, the aircon felt good, and it made everything significantly cheaper (especially when combined with the fact that it was Buddhist holiday). The overall cost of the tuktuk was 20Baht, which split three ways meant that we spent 0.22USD for a whole day of driving. Not a bad deal.

Red Shirts. The media portrays them as a violent mob, but that is not at all what I saw of them in my time in Bangkok. On the contrary, they seemed to be friendly people who just wanted a more democratic system of government for Thailand. When you spoke to them they seemed happy that a foreigner wasn't afraid to speak to them considering how they have been portrayed. That being said, I cannot speak for all of them. As with any group, there are some radicals, such as those that broke into the government building. This did put things in perspective a bit, making me realize that these people are indeed pushing for a revolution, and as such can sometimes get out of hand. Nonetheless, I think that they have gotten a bad rap from the media. I am glad that I met redshirts during my time in Thailand. Not many people get to be somewhere in a time of potential revolution.

Architecturally, Bangkok was phenomenal. With Thailand being 95% Theravada Buddhist, you can see a lot of this style in the temples throughout the city. Incredibly elaborate details contrast sharply with simple floor plans. Seeing Wat Phra Kaew was a sensory overload with dozens of such buildings all gathered together.

Animal Cruelty. I'm a stickler on this, obviously. The first I saw of this was near the River Kwai with the jaguars. Later on, my group wanted to go see the Tiger Temple, which is operated by Buddhist monks. I did a bit of research and was appalled to see some of the violence displayed by monks and other caretakers towards the tigers. I had settled beforehand on not going in when it came to that part of our day tour, and my friend Bryan also decided that he would stay outside and wait. I am glad I did stay out, as some of the others who went saw the abuse firsthand.

We met a lot of interesting characters everywhere we went. One of the more interesting was a girl from Hamburg who had taken off 6 months after graduating with an English teaching degree to backpack the world. She had seen central and south America and a plethora of other places. She said she seldom stayed more than a few days in one location before feeling restless and bored. Bangkok was her last stop before returning home and she seemed curious as to how living in one place was going to be after that long on the road. Talking to her made me even more excited about this summer.

Overall I'm glad to be back in Hong Kong, where it's not obnoxiously hot, I don't get harassed all the time to buy things (except massages), and where I can trust a taxi driver not to scam me.

Smugglers' Ridge Hike

(click to access the Picasa album)

Basically you start up north at Pineapple Dam and hike 4.5km south along the ridge. During the first part you encounter some World War 2 defense trench and bunker ruins, which are really neat. They were put there by the British in the 30s to defend Hong Kong. Some of the defense trenches are named after British streets.


Further along you climb up to an amazing view of Tsuen Wan (an area of HK). You are probably about sixty stories up at this point.

And even further along the trail joins what is known as the "Monkey Trail," which is by Golden Hill. Along here there are tons of macaques. We even saw some jump into a pool of water and swim around!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE2ZPm6wK30

Afterwards all went out to a vegetarian restaurant called "Sino." They use soy to make fake meats such as duck, beef, chicken, shrimp, pork, etc. It's very realistic, but I opted for a mushroom-potato-tomato mixture instead.

A Less Exciting Update

Midterms have rolled around. Three next week, and then on the following Tuesday 31/3 I will be heading to Bangkok and Cambodia for break.

And since it's Thursday, it's go-out-and-try-a-new-restaurant day! I have a big list of vegetarian restaurants that I've been going to each Thursday. So far I have yet to be disappointed.

Been spending a lot of my free time planning the summer's backpacking. Thirty days seems like a long time, but it's nowhere near enough to do this country justice. I won't even be able to explore the western half. But, my Tour de China does take me by such scenic places as  Jiuzhaigou, Zhangjiajie (look familiar... it should if you've seen Avatar), as well as several major cities, and some more historic places. And I have a good excuse to come back, not having seen any of the western half.

Boracay, Philippines

I won't post any on here just because it's a lot more difficult than just syncing stuff to a web album, but I shall talk about the journey.

Woke up for a really early morning flight, headed to the Hong Kong airport to hop on our plane to Manila. All was uneventful. We knew we had a 1.5 hour layover (not very long) in Manila, so we'd have to be on top of things to make our flight. What we didn't know was that Manila airport is not all one facility. In fact, it is actually 3 separate facilities about a 20 minute cab ride apart from each other. We arrived in terminal 3 only to find out that we had to go to terminal 2 to catch our next plane to Caticlan. All 7 of us boarded a van and we started heading that way. Traffic in Manila is absolutely crazy. It didn't look like there was any order at all to the highway, just a bunch of cars competing for spots at intersections, maneuvering as best they could to pinch in between others. After about 10 minutes I got to wondering whether mine and Markus' flight was the same as the others', as we had booked separately. Checked my itinerary and found that, no, it was not; we had landed in the correct terminal and needed to head back to it in order to catch our flight (this was 40min til, check in typically ends at 15 til).

So we hopped out of the van, flagged down a taxi and ran across traffic to get to it. Luckily everyone in Philippines speaks very good english and is helpful. Also lucky the traffic going the other way wasn't bad. We managed to get to the airport, talked to security and they let us cut line and showed us the way to check in to get our tickets. After 2 more security checkpoints and loads of running, we finally got to our terminal just a couple minutes before boarding ended. The plane was a prop-plane, fairly good size. Flight was beautiful. Looking out into the blue sea and seeing all the islands was a very good introduction to the place.

As for the others, they found out upon arrival at the other terminal that they actually needed to stay at terminal 3. They missed their flight, had to rebook, catch a flight into Kalibo and take a cab to Caticlan. They showed up about 7 hours after us.

Anyway, we arrived at Caticlan airport, which was absolutely tiny. Security and everything was very relaxed there. Hopped on a tricycle (the cabs of the Philippines) to get on the ferry to Boracay. Riding a tricycle through town really gave you an idea of the living conditions of people in the area. It was worlds different than anything I'd seen before. To give you an idea, a "cab" ride ran 50 Philippine Pesos, which is about 1 US Dollar. The buildings were all open to the outside and looked very dinghy.

The ferry was really pretty and you could see across the water the island we were going to spend the weekend on. White sand beaches, palm trees, perfect blue water that you could see over 40' into, it was really phenomenal. Once we got to the beach we bumped into our other 3 friends who had arrived the day before. They showed us to the hotel, the Ocean Breeze Inn, which was nestled a good distance into a residential area past station 3 (the southernmost station on the island). We were greeted with juice and genuine friendliness by the staff. Settled in and headed out to explore the beach and check out a few bars by station 2, which is the main station and has the most stuff.

We spent most of the weekend walking the beach, exploring some local shops, fending off vendors, and trying new food. I developed a bit of an addiction to fresh squeezed pineapple juice. Everything was very inexpensive, you could get a meal for 70-100PHP, beer was 35PHP for a San Miguel (locally brewed) during happy hour.

The next day we all booked a sailboat to go island hopping and snorkeling. Total cost of the boat and snorkeling combined: 450PHP per person, plus an additional 200PHP for entrance to Crystal Cove, which had some really neat caves on it. At one point in time one of those persistent vendors was chasing us in a rowboat trying to sell us ice cream. A bit later we got to the snorkeling area. Unfortunately the water was really rough. Most of the people weren't able to make it back to the boat; I actually took off my snorkeling stuff because it was so difficult to use with the waves. It was really pretty, though, swimming among tiny jellyfish and other varieties of fish and coral. Got to Crystal Cove and checked out some caves before hopping back on the sailboat to enjoy the sunset at sea. Bit of barhopping that night once we got back, all in all a great day.

The next day we spent most of the day just lounging around the beach or swimming in the ocean. We were all pretty exhausted from the day/night before. Enjoyed our final sunset in paradise.

Headed out a few hours earlier than we should have the next morning just to avoid flight problems. Markus and I were able to catch an earlier plane so we didn't have to spend much time in Caticlan. The plane was absolutely tiny, a 19 seater open to the captain's cabin. It flew really low, good scenery the whole way. Everything was fairly uneventful all the way back to Hong Kong.

All in all I would gladly go back to Boracay. It was beautiful, the people were some of the friendliest I have ever met and the prices were really low across the board.

Touring and Modern Toilet

Haven't updated for awhile, so here goes:

The day after the Lantau tour we went to check out Kowloon Walled City and Chi Lin Nunnery.Click to follow links to their respective wikipedia articles. Neither are terribly long but both are interesting. Later that night a group of friends and I went out in search of the Modern Toilet, a poo-themed restaurant.

Lantau Island

Won't be getting around to historic Macau pictures, though there is a good chance I will upload a lot more to facebook, so if you are on that you'll get a bigger glimpse of things. This is going to be a pretty picture heavy post as it is.

Went with a tour group to Lantau Island yesterday. If you are unfamiliar, Lantau is the home to the Big Buddha bronze statue as well as Po Lin Monastery. From Hong Kong you must take a 23 minute cable car over the hills to the destinatation. Because Lantau Island is protected from development by the Chinese government, the entire trip there is very scenic.

Macau

This was the first time I had ventured outside of campus, so I just went along with the group on navigating the metro. First impression of it was that it was worlds cleaner than the public transportation that I had seen in Chicago. At every metro station there is a shopping complex with tons of different clothing boutiques, electronic shops, food, everything really. Eventually we got to the terminal to buy ferry tickets to Macau, which ran us about 120HKD if I remember correctly (not bad for an hourlong ferry).

Arrival was marked with confusion. The group was dispersed amongst 3 or 4 different hotels. English isn't as prevalent in Macau but is spoken around tourist areas. Portuguese, Chinese, and English are written on all of the signs. After a bit in the terminal we headed to the Holiday Inn. That's to the left. Wildly nice Holiday Inn. The staff held the elevators and there was a small bar in the lobby and a casino on another floor (which we never got around to visiting). The room had a nifty contraption that you dropped your card into to be able to have power in the room. It also had, for some reason, a large window right next to the shower facing into the room. Luckily it had blinds, but it was still a very unusual feature.

Settled in we all went out to explore. The concierge recommended a Macaunese (sp?) restaurant a few blocks away so we departed for it. Passed by several watch shops and a place that sold bird nests (for soup) as well as the Rio. The restaurant's name was Porto Exterior I believe; I got a vegetable curry that was brain-meltingly hot, but still very good.

The group wandered around Macau a lot. We saw dozens of watch shops, open market areas, a temple (locked to the public at the time), a Ferrari Enzo, and tons of amazing buildings. Entirely too many pictures to upload. Finally headed into our first casino, The Sands. It was smoke-filled and massive on the inside. The main floor was open to the roof with other floors overlapping it very organically. The floors were probably 20'-0" floor to floor so everywhere had high ceilings. The main lobby had an eight-story chandelier over it. This was the only thing we got a camera out to take a picture of (taking pictures in casinos can get you thrown out).

After we left this we wandered around a bit more before meeting up with the rest of the group in front of the Grand Lisboa, successor to the very first casino on Macau. Briefly went through it with oohs and ahhs and wandered on to see more of the city.

(lights out front of the Grand Lisboa)

(market in an alley)

Eventually we ended up at a club in the MGM Grand watching a live band until about 130. Drinks were steep but were definitely worth the entertainment.

I will try to find a way to upload pictures more efficiently before the next post (Historic Macau). This interface is a bit too clunky for my taste

The Journey Here

At last I am getting around to setting one of these up. Have been in Hong Kong not even 3 days and have been constantly on the move, it seems.

Plane ride from KC to Newark was too cloudy to see a lot, but pretty spectacular. Seeing the sun rise from over 10000 feet was one of the most breathtaking sights I had seen (at least until I got to campus). The clouds were fairly heavy all day, though, so not a lot of land visibility.

Layover in Newark was killer. The airport there is massive and very architecturally interesting. Open floor plan with glass everywhere. The Statue of Liberty and Central Park in NYC were visible on takeoff. Plane ride was 16 hours to HK and took us over the north pole. On arrival I got introduced to a bunch of other exchanges. Got invited to a trip to Macau (Asian Vegas). More on that later, though.