추석 translates to chuseok or Korean Thanksgiving. This was a four day weekend (September 19-22 this year) in which most Koreans celebrate their vacation (time-off) with their families. It's a time to honor your ancestors with food and family time. For Diane and I, we decided to take advantage of the long weekend and take a trip to Taipei to visit our friend Lisa! If you want to travel, chuseok is the perfect time to do so, with this, please please please plan ahead. It is to your advantage to book tickets ahead of time to save money. We booked our tickets about a month in advance, but this was already too late. Most people had already booked tickets to fly to other places like Japan and Hong Kong, so those places would have been more expensive if you hadn't already booked flights. We booked flights for Friday since we don't have classes that day to return on Wednesday morning to make it to class. We were lucky because Lisa was willing to house us, but otherwise airbnb is a great tool. My friend David stayed at a hostel called "Now Taipei" which he highly rated. As long as enough research and preparation is done ahead of time, affordable and quality housing can be found! Prior to traveling (couple days before), we did some simple planning because Lisa had already decided what main attractions we needed to hit. She works at a hotel in Taiwan, so she took two days off to take us around. That means we could go on our own and get lost the other two days. Interesting enough, we also found another group of exchange students who were going to Taiwan so we got their Kakao IDs and kept in contact in Taiwan! Were we worried about the language barriers in Taiwan? Not too much because Diane and I could both read Chinese and she could speak enough Mandarin to feed us! Here is a recap of Taipei:
Day 1 (Friday): Flew in to Taipei with Cathay Pacific airlines (really awesome airline) for 2 1/2 hours. Landed and we were welcomed by our awesome host, Lisa. She got us in a taxi and took us home, she also gave us EasyCards which were used to pay for transportation (Taipei MRT and the bus) as well as 7-eleven purchases. Side note...7-eleven is huge in Taiwan, they serve a lot of cold and hot foods 24 hours. After we figured out the MRT, which was really simple because you could easily differentiate the directions since both lines are right across from each other. In Korea, you have to pay attention to which line you're walking to because you may have to walk back since they are in different areas. Since we got in around 1 pm, we had the whole day to explore. Lisa told us to go to the Tamsui night market and to eat all the foods with lines of people. Before the night market, we decided to go explore Taipei Zoo, got to see a couple of lazy and adorable pandas. There was a large variety of animals spread across a large zoo, but we didn't get to visit them all because the humidity made us pretty tired. But we were excited for the delicious food that we heard so many things about! Got on the MRT to Tamsui station and walked a bit, we tried to find a station to buy tickets to take a ferry to the Fisherman's Wharf as instructed by Lisa, but we decided food was priority. We got there around 5:30 pm and there weren't any lines, a little confused, I picked these dumplings (8 of them for less than 2 USD)! Then lines started to form! We found a place serving this bomb Chinese burrito/wrap goodness and decided to go back and find the ticketing station. We walked back and forth twice and finally found the spot, but they had already stopped selling tickets. So for future reference, if you're ever at Tamsui, walk along the river until you find a booth (it's kind of labelled, just have to look hard at the sign, which should say 漁人碼頭.) The ferry ride would get you a better view of the skyline. We looked forward to the adventures following within the next days!
Day 2 (Saturday): Lisa's Day-off (1)! We met up with David and Lisa took us to a nice cafe for lunch. Before lunch, we stopped by 7-eleven and she showed us which drinks to try - Taiwan has a large variety of milk and juices! (I hate milk...but I could drink the flavored milks.) After lunch we walked through a department store for a bit and then took another food break. She introduced us to a very yummy dessert called 豆花 which is a tofu pudding in sweet soup and you can customize the toppings such as red bean, mochi, etc. There were other desserts such as a custard filled donuts that were crispy and ice cream with cotton candy shapes on top. We went up Taipei 101 and saw the view from the 89th floor. We found that this was the best day to go because the weather would decline within the next couple of days. After coming down, we headed to Din Tai Fung!!! This was my first time and I loved it (I miss it right now.)! EVERYONE MUST GO TO DIN TAI FUNG. We headed to a different night market after that and looked around shops; streets full of clothing, bags, shoes, accessories, and souvenirs similar to those in Korea. Then we sampled some street food to top off the night!
Day 3 (Sunday): We decided to go to a gorge (a narrow valley between hills or mountains, typically with steep rocky walls and a stream running through it) since we don't have those in Hawaii. We rode the MRT to catch a 2 hour train ride to Hualien. It was great because it was rainy in Taipei, but in Hualien, the weather was sunny and beautiful. At first we were a bit lost because we didn't do enough research as we made a spontaneous decision to go. We found the bus that could take you throughout the trail and figured out its schedule to hit different stops. We walked along the gorge and hiked a trail then walked onto a bridge to get some nice pictures of the view. It was a great experience and everything about the gorge was breathtaking. On the way back we met two engineers who were moved from their home country to the headquarters in Taiwan to work on a project. We talked along the bus ride and had a taste of Taiwanese beer with them! When Diane and I got home, we were welcomed with street food that Lisa picked up for dinner. (She's the sweetest!!!) We slept pretty early after an exhausting and adventurous day.
Day 4 (Monday): On Lisa's second day-off, we were excited to try some more tasty Taiwanese food. She took us to the Toilet Restaurant where we dined on toilet chairs and ate out of miniature toilet bowls, bathtubs, and seat covers. The food was modeled after poop as well. I would recommend this place because it's just too cute. When we got out of the restaurant....we glimpsed a preview of a typhoon. It was windy and rainy as we ran about 30 ft from the restaurant to the subway station. Luckily, we stayed underground for the remaining portion of shopping. There were a number of different clothing and accessory brands. I wanted to find certain souvenirs to bring home but found myself attempting to get a miniature minion doll out of those claw machines instead. After some walking and window shopping, we realized a storm was brewing out there. As dinner time neared, we walked toward the exit for our hot pot buffet restaurant called 馬辣頂級麻辣鴛鴦火鍋; winds as fast as 80 mph combined with pouring rain greeted us. Fortunately, we had to run about 40 feet only to get to the warm restaurant. THIS MEAL was the most unforgettable of my life, they served an unlimited selection of meat, vegetables, soft drinks, teas, wine, beer, fruits, cheesecakes, pastries, and the best part.....Haagen Dazs ice cream. This is a definite must-have during any weather (typhoon weather seemed to be a popular time to go). After feasting, there wasn't much left to do besides head home and hope for better weather.
Day 5 (Tuesday): We crossed off most of the things on our list, even typhoon. The remaining item was visiting the jiufen which inspired the area used in Spirited Away. A bus took us here after about an hour and a half, we walked quite a bit, but it didn't seem as populated probably due resulting from the effects of a typhoon. I would definitely recommend going at night and researching the various activities you can try to do. We met up with Lisa after she worked and she took us to a yummy ramen place that served fresh-cut noodles! Of course, this was followed by night market shopping where I attempted to haggle for cheaper prices. I saved about $2 that night! That night we received an email saying our flight would be delayed, which meant we would not be able to make it back to class in time.
Day 6 (Wednesday): Our original plan was to arrive back in Seoul at 10 AM on this day and get back to school for class. But this quickly became part of the Taiwan trip as we spent most of our day at the airport. We woke up to say bye and thank you to Lisa and her mom for hosting us. They bought us breakfast from a local fast food restaurant (so delicious)!! They also called a taxi for us so we got to the airport about 2 hours earlier than the original scheduled flight time. We met up with two other exchange students who on the same flight. We tried to check in, but they told us about the delay and that it would be even more delayed since the typhoon caused the flights to be pushed back. China Air gave us meal vouchers to eat at the restaurants in the airport. After we returned to the check-in to get our bags checked in, we received more meal vouchers because the flight was pushed furthermore. We walked around the airport quite a bit and discovered a few wonders such as the gaming zone and the Hello Kitty themed gate. After a 12 hour delay...we boarded the plane and made it home around midnight. THIS TRIP WAS AMAZING, NONETHELESS. This was a long post, but if you want the shortened version, just click on the 'Misc' tab and look at pictures! Also, this link (Diane's blog).