DAY 16 - TAIWAN
Hello Fodorites! My wife and I are on a four month trip Around the World (but not in a straight line). We are finishing up 16 days in Japan and it was suggested that I do a progressive Trip Report which I have never done before and I hope I am getting the link set up correctly. We had an amazing time in Japan and we are now headed to Taiwan. So, follow along, give us tips and let us know how we are doing!


Phineas Foggin' It

Looking forward to reading of your exploits in Taiwan. We spent an all too short 8 days there on one of our jaunts a few years ago. Would love to return one day - so many places, so little time!

Make sure to check out the street food at Raohe Street market - the most amazing dumplings!

DAY 16 - KYOTO TO TAIPEI
I'm glad I walked to the Limousine Bus yesterday because it made our experience this morning, very uneventful, just how we like it. We follow the Retirement Travelers on You Tube, John and Bev ,and they say that Travel Day is always an exciting day for them. We're trying to maintain that attitude. I see why they say that, it's that exact mix of excitement and anxiety that makes a good travel cocktail. We had planned on taking the 10:40 Limousine bus but at 9:30 we were in the hotel, packed and said lets try for the 10:10! We made it pretty easily. Grab our ticket and it's a bus just like the Fly Away in Van Nuys. The trip from downtown Osaka to the airport is quite a journey. The roadway had big barriers on either side once you leave Osaka, so you are kind of hemmed in. There is other traffic so I know it's not a strictly bus lane but still no pedestrian is going to wander into this road. Giant apartment buildings, got to be 40 - 50 stories high. Then it turns industrial so many big factories and finally the port! We are surrounded by water on both sides of the road. Loading cranes line the port, we can see ferries and other big ships. Arrive at the airport, which is right in the middle of the ocean. I will leave it to mrwunrfl or tripplanner to explain this! You take a long bridge, now we are at Kansai Airport and off on our next adventure.




OCAT Building, bus terminal in Osaka

On the bus, it's just like Fly Away!

Goodbye Japan, it's been good to know ya

Ferris Wheels, what's with the Ferris Wheels? This is the third one we saw

Ferry Boat

A lot of cranes and containers

Bridge to the airport

Welcome to KIX

Huge airport

Lot's of travelers. Taiwan, here we come!

LIVING ON TAIWAN TIME ( SUNG TO THE TUNE OF LIVING ON TULSA TIME BY ERIC CLAPTON)
If you have hopped over from my Japan TR you will notice that the post above it almost the same as the last post of Japan? That is a literary license I have taken to keep the continuity going in our world travels. Also I'm lazy, cut and paste is my friend. More to come on arriving in Taipei!

DAY 16 - ARRIVING IN TAIPEI
We have arrived at KIX and it's the first time we've had to go see a person at check-in and I believe it is because they needed to see our forwarding ticket on from Taipei. Which luckily I have in my folder of air flight confirmations. Once that is done, it is a pretty standard airport experience, except they take my toothpaste! I have already flown with it out of LA in my dop kit and didn't have any problems, but the Japanese, got me. It's 4 oz. not the required 3 oz., even though it's obvious that it's half used. No biggie. We spent almost all of our yen at the airport on breakfast sandwiches. The China Airlines flight is good, we get fed a pretty decent lunch and the flight is about two hours although there is a time change, we are an hour earlier in Taiwan. Landing is smooth and that's when things kind of start changing from Japan. No problem getting through customs, young unsmiling woman looks over our TWAC, (arrival cards) which we have on our phone, checks passports and waives us through. We have watched a number of "arrival videos" into Taipei, after baggage claim, look for the 7-11 and buy an Easy Card. Maybe this is in Terminal 2? We don't see any 7-11s, don't even see any food stores. I ask a security guard and he sends me to the Sim card station. I meet a nice young man, who explains, he has an Easy Card, they cost $5 but he can't load it with a credit card. OK, then he mentions that his company has their own Easy Card called I Pass, and it's only $3. OK, but I have to load it inside the terminal with cash. I went to a Currency Exchange but they won't take my debit card. There is a cash machine close by so I get some cash.

This whole experience is a bit frustrating, only because we "think" we know what is supposed to happen, but it doesn't turn out that way. But, really isn't this the way of traveling, you have to roll with the punches, even if they are pretty small punches. This does give me a little insight into the what might be the difference between Japan and Taiwan. So now we have our IPass, head to the MRT entrance, get them loaded with $500 NTD (New Taiwanese Dollar). Was helped by a helpful young man at the ticket station and we are on our way. $135NTD to our stop, New Taipei Industrial Park. There are two lines you can use, actually same line, different cars, Commuter or Express. They have different seats, the commuter has standard Metro type benches, and the Express has nice seats. We have been talking to two guys from Osaka while standing in line and they stopped us from getting on the Commuter. That was good. It's a pretty long ride from Taoyuan Airport to our hotel, but it's only a couple of stops. Once we leave the airport we are taken by how green it is here. You travel from maybe commericai / residental to jungle like forests and then back into industrial, then jungle and finally you see the really tall building of New Taipei.

Against the advice of some of my fellow Fodorites, we are staying at the Hyatt Place New Taipei. I have made a deal with my wife that we will stay out of town but I will spring for taxis, which I immediately renege on as we trek about 10 minutes to the Hyatt. I have a feeling it will be the last long trek like this! LOL. Check in is pretty smooth, but, no smiles, no welcome, two no nonsense young women great us. One with a mask so I can't hear much of what she is saying. My wife needs to get meds here in Taipei, maybe, and the young man who is helping her, is very nice. Make it to our room and what a view! We are on the 22nd floor and we can see the mountains and many tall buildings. The plan was to freshen up and go to a night market, we are tired and eat in the hotel, which is another interesting experience, more on that later. So we have arrived at our 5th destination, second country and are relatively safe and sound!


First shot of Taiwan out of the airplane window

My new IPass card, it is very beautiful and worth the $3 I paid. I am going to find, though, that Taipei is much more transactional than Japan.

On the MRT, nice seats plenty of room, most of it is above ground

Here are some of the big apartment houses we see from the train



Now we are in the forest and I'm talking rain forest not hard wood Michigan forest!

Come out of the forest and there is Oz

Front of the hotel, Hyatt Place New Taipei, I thought it was a business hotel but there are a lot of families

Lobby of the hotel, restaurant in the back, pool on the third floor

Our room with a giant picture window. Note in the bathroom, we don't provide any amenities, but we will happily sell you some at the front desk. See what I mean about transactional.

Views from our room

Mountains

We have two busy roads right under our room, but from the 22nd floor it is very quiet. The building that takes up most of the picture is a giant apartment complex and it's sister complex is next to the our hotel

DAY 17 - FIRST DAY IN TAIPEI
So we are here, safely, soundly as I said last post, and looking at the differences between Japan and Taipei. All of these comments are completely subjective, bearing no actual factual information. If Japan is a well oiled machine, Taipei seems to be, "what is oil?" We went to dinner last night at the hotel, the host was helping a couple of patrons, saw us, and spoke into his microphone / head phone, thingy, to a woman standing no more than 10 feet from us. She responded to him, they went back and forth a couple of times, then she turned and started walking toward a table. About half way there, she turned back to us...never spoke to us...and gave us the what are you waiting for look! So we followed her, sat down and she showed us how to order using the QR code. It was so different from any experience we had in Japan.

The Taiwanese seem louder than Japanese, this isn't a bad thing or a negative thing, we live in Mexico 3 months out of the year, it's hard to out-loud Mexicans, ( said with great affection for the Mexican people). So the Taiwanese are louder than Japanese, just in general conversation, seems like more yelling to get things across. Quite a bit more casual in their dress, which is great for us, we are pretty casual, actually felt under dressed in Japan. Quite a bit less English spoken. I learned to say Good Morning to the front desk this morning and they were all smiles. This morning the front desk people were nicer than the check-in crew last night. When I saw nicer, I'm not saying that I need someone to be "nice" to me, because I'm white or American or any of that, but I would like to be acknowledged as a guest for instance, but then I'm comparing Taiwan with Japan, probably not a fair comparison given the extreme politeness of the Japanese. We're going on a walking tour this morning and will add more for our first day in Taipei.


Here is the fancy high rise next store to us

The gates to the first tower...

... I don't know how upscale this is in Taiwan, but seems pretty upscale. There are three or four of these towers close to us.

This is what we see when we walk to the Metro station

And here is our Metro stop

Very modern looking Metro stop