The great things about Taipei are as follows:
Eating is a sport. Ever since landing in this wonderful city, food has been the number one topic of discussion with every one of my family members. Every street is filled with pastry shops, restaurants, and food stalls. There are regular meals and then snacks. It's so bad that I'm pretty sure I've gained 10 pounds in the first weeks here. I've developed a strategy. Knowing that dinner is pretty much the time where I gain the weight, I have a decent breakfast, a light lunch, a small afternoon snack and then eat like a starved fat kid at dinner.
Transportation around the city is so easy and cheap. Not only is the bus and subway network around this city expansive, it's super cheap. 15NTD (or $0.50 CDN) for the bus and 16 - 20NTD ($0.55 - 0.70) for the subway, it makes the TTC look even more like the joke that it is. With about 8 subway lines in operation, all the main tourist attractions are reachable by the clean and reliable system. Another two lines are planned to be open within the next year or so - including one to the airport. There's something to be said about a city that embraces public transportation. And if public transportation isn't your thing, cabs are even cheaper. A 30 min cab ride in the city costs about $15CDN. Blows my mind.
Spending time with family. I've always been used to having a small family unit in Canada. For a while, it was my mom, my brother and myself, then it was my grandmother, my brother and I. Now it's just my brother and me. Here, I'm exposed to a different part of my family - with two living grandparents, my dad and stepmom (and her family), 3 uncles, an aunt and a whole bunch of cousins and great uncles/aunts that I have dinner with every other night. I've heard some great stories, learned a lot about my family's past and really felt the bond that holds this family together.
The not so great things:
A limited social network. Back home in Toronto, I had a great and stable social network. It's hard to adjust to not having any friends in a new city and without having a workplace to meet new people. I've tried starting random conversations with people at Starbucks, but have been met with weird looks or giggles. I swear, I'm not trying to pick you up - just trying to have a conversation! Hahaha. To be fair, I can see why they are taken a bit off guard, I would be too. Thankfully a few friends have tried to connect me with people in Taiwan, slowly but surely, I'll start building my network here.
Bad driving. The stereotype that Asian people are bad drivers has always bugged me because I feel like I'm a pretty good driver. But having experienced some near hits from scooters and sideswipes from other cars, I understand where this stereotypes come from. Signalling, lanes and looking before you merge is rare here. Driving here requires a strong constitution and being a passenger means gripping firmly on the handles near you. Buckle up.
Navigating around with my limited Mandarin abilities. So my Mandarin has never been all that great. I'm able to speak conversational Mandarin and even that is spotty at best. I can read as many characters as a 5 year old kid and writing is even worse. Slowly but surely, I'm starting to build my language skills and once I'm done the majority of my travelling, I'll be returning to Taipei in September to study Mandarin full time for three months.
I hope to post more about my time here in the next couple of days. There's only 18 days left before I take off to Tibet and then do some travelling around southeast Asia. That will be an experience of a lifetime.
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