Eating Taipei
Tuesday, February 28th, 2006Hello Everyone,I’ve finally left the US. It feels like I’ve been flying for days. Well, that’s probably because I left on Sunday and I’ve just arrived in Taipei on Tuesday morning. Now that’s far East. It’s wonderful to walk around after sitting on my arse flying half way around the world, literally. Taipei has a very modern airport with all the amenities you’d find in any major western city unless you land at 5am before anything opens. I managed to find an ATM thru many gesticulations and showing the cops my HSBC card, but being a bit discombobulated after a ‘few’ free cocktails and a long flight, I had forgotten the PIN for my primary card. That combined with a total inability to read any Chinese characters written on the ATM which I imagine described fees, amount limits, enter, cancel, withdrawal, OK… made it particularly difficult to get some cash. It’s been far too many years since I’ve been on the global trail and even tho my instincts are still good, I’m so out of practice for navigating unfamiliar foreign lands. Fortunately, I had a backup card and remembered that PIN. I hate arriving in a country without the proper linguistic preparations, but since I was relying on my friend that speaks Mandarin, I figured I’d be OK. Unfortunately, we got separated when the set of golf clubs she was delivering to a friend didn’t show up with the rest of her luggage. NEVER CHECK ANYTHING! I arrived with my carry-ons intact.
Well, we checked into the Grand Hyatt 
, on the right, where C’s friend is the Director of Finance. He took us up to the Grand Members Level for breakfast on the 25th floor. YUM! Nice backpacking, eh? It was a gloomy, cold and wet day akin to a fall day in Seattle, but we were undeterred. We walked around with our Grand Hyatt labeled umbrellas trying to blend into the local scene and found the most excellent mall food court at Taipei 101
the tallest building in the world at 508m. It was like an eating frenzy. After 3 years of South Florida “Chinese” “Food”, I feasted on buns, soup, dumplings… as if I had just wandered out of an Anglo/Latin desert (eventho it hadn’t even been an hour after breaky).
Ok, so I figure it’s time for something a little more cultural and a little less culinary. So, we decided to go to Sun Yat Sen’s Memorial Hall where they have a huge statue of the founder of modern China in the grand entryway and hundredes of pictures depicting his achievements in life including, not actually his gun, but a picture of it. 
See if you can read the English translation of “The handgun used by Dr. Sun Yat Sen” (including the type of gun). Tip: if you right click any picture you can view a bigger image of it.
We managed to stay up ’til 22:00 (9am in Miami) before passing out after a hotpot dinner with sirloin, pork, live shrimp, live crabs, oysters, scallops…. What a yummy day!
We woke up early and decided to hit the street stalls for breakfast
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I’m going to hop in the shower and I’m off to the National Palace Museum and the Shinlin night market to do some shopping because I forgot my winter jacket, hat, gloves… at home, DOH! Alright, that took a lot longer than expected! I may not do this very often.
Jai Zhien,
Ray
Kane