Taipei-Dream Parade and Raohe Night Market

Drew went to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan for two weeks for a work trip. The first part of his trip was for a conference, so he got to go to a few dinners and events, one of which was at Taipei 101, the tallest building in Taipei, and second tallest in the world, the tallest being the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. 

The building is supposed to look like sprouting bamboo, which represents flexibility, rapid growth, and strength, all good traits for a financial hub. 

Drew's view from the top! This building dwarfs every other building in the city. 

Drew also got to explore some more remote places, like this artistic village, where everyone was learning how to swing dance! 

I traveled to Taipei to spend the weekend with Drew. It was good timing, as neither of us had been to Taipei before, and free accommodation is hard to turn down! I got in really late Friday night, and our friend Andrew was also planning on coming to spend the weekend in Taipei, as it is only an hour and 20 min flight from Hong Kong. However, Andrew surprised us by bringing along our other good friend Tiffany. So it was a best bud reunion in Taipei, and we had a great time! 

The first order of the day was to find something to eat. So, we went to the nearby Main Train Station, as they had tons and tons of restaurants on the second floor of the station, recommended by our Taiwanese friend Tina. The station itself was old and in desperate need of renovation, but the food was amazing, a theme we'd see repetitively throughout the trip! 

Drew and I have always been a fan of bubble tea, and it was actually invented in Taiwan! They really like the soft, chewy texture of the tapioca pearls. Needless to say, we drank as much bubble tea on this trip as we could get our hands on!

Lunch consisted of 3-cup chicken, a chicken stock soup, pickles, edamame, and flavoured rice. Yum!

Tiffany had a delicious noodle dish and a chicken cutlet.

Dessert was a cream puff made at a cafe called Papa Beard. Never saw a cafe make only cream puffs, so I had to try it. They took the puff and filled it with cream right before your eyes! It was the best I'd ever had. 

While most Taiwanese people drink tea, coffee shops are starting to make headway. 

On our walk around the city, we found a lovely park with beautiful pagodas. 

The park also held the Taiwan National Museum. Didn't go into this one, but the building is pretty. 

This is the Presidential Office Building. The architecture in Taipei was interesting. Most of the city is actually quite ugly because when the Nationalist Party fled mainland China when Mao's Communist Party was taking over in 1949 after the Chinese Civil War, aka the start of the Cultural Revolution, lots of people fled to Taiwan. They needed new housing fast, so they built these really ugly concrete structures, which no importance placed on aesthetics. So, most the city is nothing special to look at. However, a few of the governmental buildings, such as the Presidential Office were obviously built with more care.

We somehow ran across a wonderful event called the Dream Parade, totally unexpectedly. The parade was the creation of an intentional artistic community where all of the residents are required to participate in the parade, making floats, costumes, and dance and drumming routines.  Also, if you own a property within the community and then want to sell it, you can only keep 3% of any profits made. The rest is given back to the community to support events etc. The community sounds really interesting, and the resulting parade was great as well. It was modeled after Mardi Gras, Rio's Carnival, and Burning Man. People were literally dressed in anything you could think of, and there were tons of kids doing drumming routines. This parade was quintessentially Taiwanese, which is known for freedom of expression and doesn't have the same censorship and propaganda as what you see in mainland China.

The parade ended at this large road section blocked off at either end. This large gate was at one end of the road, actually in the middle of a roundabout. It must have been a gate and a part of an ancient wall. 

After the Dream Parade, we walked on to another park, which held the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial. This was the gate leading to the Memorial. Gorgeous huh?

Also in the park was the National Concert Hall and the National Theatre. They were beautiful matching buildings with traditional Chinese construction.

This is the actual Chiang Kai-shek Memorial. It was closed, so normally the doors are open and there is a statue of the famous man inside. Taiwan has an interesting relationship with Chiang Kai-shek. Tina, if you're reading this, please comment on anything that is inaccurate or misleading, as you are the obvious expert here. Chiang Kai-shek was the leader of the National Party during the civil war with Mao's Communist Party, so once they lost the war (and many people blamed him for that loss) they fled to Taiwan, establishing a new government there. However, it seems like he got a bit paranoid, because for the next almost 40 years, he imposed martial law, imprisoning anyone who seemed to side with the Communist Party back in mainland China. This time was known as the "White Terror," and I'm sure a lot of people blame Chiang Kai-shek for that as well. So, it's a love-hate relationship I guess. Nowadays, Taiwan still has a very interesting relationship with mainland China. China considers Taiwan a part of China, and Chinese citizens considered Taiwanese people to be Chinese. However, Taiwan considers itself to be its own republic, and a Taiwanese person will always say they are from Taiwan, never from China. Mainland Chinese people need a special visa to enter Taiwan, so clearly the borders are not wide open. Not sure about the other direction, ie., Taiwanese visiting mainland China. 

After our park exploration, we went to a night market to stuff our faces with street food. This is a well-beloved past time of Taiwanese people. We went to the Raohe night market, and it was great! We tried so many different dishes; I think we counted 20 in total by the end of the evening. The weirdest one was a pig's blood cake, made from pig's blood and sticky rice and covered in peanut dust. Not a favorite of mine. 

There was also a gorgeous Chinese temple just outside of the night market. I've never seen one so ornately decorated! It almost looked Hindu-esque!

These are dumplings baked in a brick oven, right on the street! There was about a 30 person queue for these, so we knew they'd be good!

Pan fried dumplings!

The last dish of the night was a mango ice mountain, or shaved ice, ice cream, and pieces of mango Yum!

Myanmar- Day 7: Bagan

Before I begin on our last day in Bagan, here are a few more sunset photos from the day prior. 

One really cool architectural features of the Old Bagan temples were that they had internal staircases that led to the terraces of the upper levels. In Siem Reap, the staircases were always on the outside of the temples. In Old Bagan, the staircases were mostly blocked off, but every once in a while we'd find a more obscure, less popular temples where the staircase was open, and we'd go climbing up to the top. The staircases were rarely tall enough to stand upright in, so crouching while being on constant alert for your head's safety as well as spiders or scorpions? was the order of the day. 

Here an old brick stupa and another old stupa that's been covered in gold plate sit side by side. 

This was something of a rosetta stone for several ancient SE asian languages. Bali, Myu, Pu, and Burmese I think? I was sad because I was behind bars. 

A few temples has giant, heavy wooden doors, and door grooves had been worn into the stone floors. 

We always seem to notice the dogs. 

Day 2 in Bagan included mostly more temple touring. We went to a few more obscure temples that day, so we got to go off the beaten track a bit and really explore the surrounding area. 

Looks like an Apsara dancer from Cambodia! 

This was a giant reclining Buddha housed in a tiny little building. Why the space was so small, I'm not sure.

More E-bikes!

The temple in this picture is the largest one in terms of area in Bagan. However, as the upper floors and middle sections were blocked off, the inside was quite boring. The outside, though, is amazing.

This temple was cool because it had this large terrace on the second story. Would be a good place for a party!

While we were always aware about our safety in Myanmar, the only time we ever actually faced imminent danger was near the end of day 2 in Bagan, where Drew almost got gored by a bull. Even now, I am still unsure how we escaped the situation unscathed, but I thank God that we did, for it would not have been pretty. Drew thinks the story is funny now; I'm not quite there yet. But it is a memorable story, and one that needs telling here. Imagine a setting like the one in the picture below, but instead of a herd of goats there was a herd of cows with two cow herders, one in the front and one in the back. Drew was passing the herd on the left hand side, which we had done probably 10 other times that day, while I was about 20 meters behind. About halfway past the herd, Drew must have gotten a bit too close, as one of the smaller females spooked and jumped into the male bull beside her. This bull decided he didn't like how Drew had disturbed his lady friend, so he started chasing after him, horns down. The cow herder in the back noticed right away, and he started running after the bull in flip flops no less, waving his herding stick and yelling at the bull in Burmese. Drew sped off as fast as his little e-bike would go, and was smart to go to the outside of the cow herder in front. She was a women though, and the cow just went right by her. At this point Drew looked behind him and he says the buill was within his reach. He turned forward and kept going as fast as the e-bike would go, trying not to spill over in the sand. Luckily, by that point the back herder had caught up, and was able to turn the bull away from Drew and back towards the herd, after which he calmed down immediately. The path split, and Drew was able to get out the way of the herd altogether, safe and sound. This whole time I was behind the herd watching the entire scene, which lasted about 20 seconds. I think my horrified eyes were the size of saucers, and I felt rooted to the spot, incapable of doing nothing but watching my husband come within feet of a bull's horns. If Drew had actually gotten hurt, the situation would have been quite dire. We were in the middle of nowhere, we couldn't communicate with the herders who only spoke Burmese, and I'm sure the hospital there in Bagan would have been top notch. Somehow the scene was over as quickly as it started, and after a shaky hug we continued on our way. Goes to show danger comes from where you least expect it as well as help. If that Burmese herder hadn't ran after the bull, I'm not sure the story would have had the same ending. And Drew must have a great guardian angel. Grandpa Erwin perhaps? :) 

That evening, we took a domestic flight back to Yangon, and, after a 4 hour layover, took our international flight back to Hong Kong. Overall, it was a great trip. I'm so glad we went now, as it was so cool to see how the country is rapidly changing. They have some growing pains to go through, and it will be fascinating to see how they fare. But I've never experienced so many people willing to help us, complete strangers, in both small ways and large ones. We owe a lot to the Burmese people; they were definitely the highlight of the trip.