Jan 31 to Feb 1 - From Houston to Taipei

We left Houston and headed to Taipei via Los Angels. It was a long flight, however, the interactive entertainment system on China Airlines definitely helped. There were many movies and music channels you can choose from and we saw quite a few movies.

We got in Taipei on Feb 1 evening and had some trouble with Fei’s entrance to Taipei. We finally arrived the Rido Hotel(麗都飯店) at 12 Midnight after a bus and taxi rides (according to Peggy's written instructions). Rido Hotel is located at Hsinyi Road(信義路) and Xsinsheng South Road(新生南路), which is very convenient. It is a small hotel without fancy lobby.  However, it is very homey.

To our surprise, it also provides free breakfast, drinking water, soda, coffee, tea, fresh fruits, umbrella, daily newspaper, magazines and Internet.

Feb 2 - Taipei City Hall and Shiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall

One of the purposes of visiting Taipei is to apply residence card. We were in Taipei City Hall(台北市政府) at 9AM in the morning and got our residence card around 11:30AM. The process was extremely smooth and efficient. The customer service at Taipei City Hall was great. I was so pleased that I asked for ways to provide positive feedback to their services.

Fei’s sister Ying Tung took us to a local Taiwanese Restaurant for lunch and visited Fei’s brother-in-law’s law office.












After we left his law office, we ventured out to try the local bus system to get back to the hotel. It was surprisingly easy to get around and it only costed us NT15 for each ride.

Taipei's bus stops are mostly located at the intersection of major streets. Such as HsinYi-Xinsheng stop(信義新生站) is located at the intersection of HsinYi Road(信義路) and Xhinsheng South Road(新生南路). If you can identify your target's relative location to a major intersection, then you shall be able to find out which bus route is going to that particular intersection and then that will be your bus.

After a brief rest, we went to the ChungHwa Telecom(中華電訊) Home office to purchase a SIM card for using the 3G cellular service in Taiwan. Again, we were extremely impressed with their customer service.

Then we visited the nearby Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall(國立中正紀念堂). It was a large memorial Hall with a huge square surrounded by Taipei Opera Hall(國家戲劇院) and Music Hall(國家音樂廳). It is a very impressive memorial hall.















In the evening, we met with Winnie Chen (Paggy's sister) and her father at TingTaiFung(鼎泰豐) for the famous Shanghai food.

For the first day in Taipei, we did a lot.

Feb 3 - Taipei 101 and Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall

The 1st agenda was to visit the Daan Forest Park(大安森林公園) across street from the hotel. It was a sizable park with lots of green and trails for people to exercise or just wondering around. It is definitely wonderful to have such a huge green park in the center of Taipei.














After the visit to the park, we want to visit Taipei 101. Unknowing to us that Taipei 101 opens their door at 11AM. Therefore, we have to re-route to a dancewear tailor shop (recommended by Corrina and Edward) for ordering dance pants for Tony and shopping dance dresses for Fei. After phone call, we found out that they just moved to a new location before the Chinese New Year. We have to take a taxi to the new place and ordered 2 pants for Tony. Since they had not set up their display, Fei was not able to find anything. However, through their recommendation, we went to a nearby dance shoe store and bought dance shoes for both Tony and Fei.

Then we went back to visit Taipei 101. From the bus stop we have to pass by the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall(國父紀念館). We went in to visit and saw a free Chinese Writing Exhibition(書法展). Nearby, there were a lot of people doing preparation for the Lantern Festival with lots of huge lantern decorations.


Taipei 101 was just like people described as a huge and fancy shopping Mall. You can find almost all the worldwide famous stores in there. We walked around and did window shopping. However, we had a wonderful lunch in the food court at the basement.















Then, we visited the famous Eslite Bookstore (誠品書店 - recommended by JC) close by Taipei 101. It is a six stories huge building full of different books.





























With Ying Tung's invitation, we went to Tung's Beef Noodle Restaurant to have their famous beef noodle soup.


After having a huge bowl of beef noodle soup, we had to walk around to help to digest it, therefore we went back to Yongkang Street's(永康街) Night Market. Fei was brave enough to have Ginger Yam Soup from a street vendor. We also scoped out Jane Kuo’s father's old LaoChang Beef Noodle Soup Restaurant in the Yongkang Night Market area.

Feb 4 - Presidential Palace and Visit with the Yangs

We took a bus ride to visit the Presidential Palace(總統府) in the morning.  This was the only landmark we could still recognize after 33 years. The surrounding area had lots of changes; however, we could visualize what we remembered 33 years ago.

We scheduled a gathering with our old friends John and Sue-mai Yang for lunch. They took us to a Japanese Restaurant and then we went to visit their house in Naihu. John already retired and he is focusing on collecting antiques. Their house is decorated with all different types of collections.

We also had a chance to visit Ximending(西門町) shopping area in the evening.

Feb 5 - Fu Jen University

In the morning, we went to Irene's father's memorial service in a Chinese Church. It was the 1st rainy day we had in Taipei. We decided to visit Fei’s old school – Fu Jen University(輔仁大學). Fu Jen is in the suburb and we had to take a long bus ride to get there. We wondered in the Fu Jen campus in light rain and had different kind of feeling.

We found the Philosophy Department building and took some pictures to mark her return after 40 years.

Feb 6 - National Museum and Shilin Night Market

Today’s schedule is to visit National Museum(國立故宮博物院) in Shilin(士林). It was a place with rich culture and treasures. It is just like any other national museum that does not allow photo taking. We were there for almost a day and saw lots of valuable treasures.

Later, we browsed around the Shilin night market (士林夜市). It is very unusual to see so many vendors selling different foods, clothing and everything you can imaging . With so many vendors, we just could not even choose which one we could get stuff from. We browsed for fun and did not get anything except some hot shawben(燒餅).

Feb 7 - Danshui & the National Taiwan University

We took Taipei’s subway to Danshui (淡水). Tony was intended to rent a bicycle to ride around Danshui. However, due to the lunch appointment with Yee Tung (Fei’s sister), we did not have enough time to do the bicycle ride. Danshui is a town where Dashui River meets with Taiwan Strait. It was a beautiful and relaxing morning.

We had lunch at Xinli Restaurant(新利飯店). It is owned by Yee’s husband and is the best Fuzhou cuisine(福州菜) in Taipei. As guests to the owner, we were in the VIP room sitting at the table which could hold 24 guests. We only have 7 people for lunch. All dishes were delicious with unique tastes and it was one of the best meals we had in Taipei.

In the afternoon, we went to the National Taiwan University(臺大) to see what Tony missed for 41+ years. The campus still have similar surroundings, however there were a lot of new buildings and facilities. We found 2 math buildings, one is the new math building and one is the old math building. The old math building was the one Tony spent a lot of time when he went to math department some 41+ years ago.

In the evening, Winnie Chen and her father invited us to the LaoChang Beef Noodle Soup Restaurant which is the restaurant used to owned by Jane Kuo’s father. We had a good dinner and then went to Winnie and her father’s house. We had a very nice visit.

Feb 8 & 9- Cheng Kuo High School, Botanical Garden & Taipei Lantern Festival

There is no room service for breakfast on Sunday, we have been directed to a nearby coffee shop for breakfast.

After breakfast, we visited Cheng Kuo High School(建中) and the Taipei Botanical Garden(植物園). When Tony went to Cheng Kuo High School, he passed Taipei Botanical Garden twice daily. It brought back a lot of memory.

By the way, Fei also went to Cheng Kuo Associate High School, and she had to come to this location each year to participate school Olympic. She also remembered the sports field in the middle of all classrooms.














We visited Yee Tung’s new house in the afternoon and then Cheng Tung invited us to have a wonderful dinner at 榕榕園.














After the wonderful dinner we went to nearby Sun Yat-sen Memorial to see the Taipei Lantern Festival(台北燈節) with the intention of walking off some of the weight we gained. There were a lot of people in the memorial square to view the lantern exhibitions.

Originally, we were planning to go to Sun Moon Lake on Monday, Feb 9. However, we could not confirm the trip with a travel agent in Taichung and we had to postpone the trip to Tuesday and we had an easy schedule for Monday. We went to JungHo Soybean Milk (永和豆漿) restaurant to have some shawben(燒餅) and soybean milk(豆漿).

At evening, John and Sui Ming invited us again to Kao Chi(高記) for some rice ball(湯圓) for celebrating Lentern Festival (元宵節).

Feb 10 - Sun Moon Lake

We took the high speed train(高鐵) from Taipei(台北) to Taichung(台中). The ride was very enjoyable and smooth. It takes only 50 minutes to travel the distance. If we remembered correctly, it took about half a day 40 years ago to travel the same distance.

From Taichung, we took a bus ride to Sun Moon Lake(日月潭). It was Fei’s first time to visit Sun Moon Lake. We were able to ride the local bus to hit all attraction spots. We were doing fine until the last leg, we mistakenly walked for more than 30 minutes to get to the next attraction spot. With the long walk plus delayed photo shoots, we missed the bus by a couple of minutes. In order to make sure that we can be back to Taichung to catch the scheduled high speed train, we had to charter a boat ride to bring us back to the bus station. When we got back to Taipei, it was only 9PM. One thing definitely impressed us is the transportation. High speed train, subway, bus and taxi make Taiwan the most accessible place for visit.