Taiwan travellogue, Day 1 Part 1 (Taipei)

This was a family trip that had been in the works since last year. With the easing of the Covid-19 restrictions in the country, my wife and I had discussed at length about the next family trip. The last one that we had with our daughter and son was in 2017 when we spent about a week in Japan. There were discussions about prospective destinations but eventually, everyone agreed unanimously on Taiwan.

Agreeing on the dates was the next issue. Initially, we thought that the first half of the year would be an ideal time as the weather in Spring or early Summer would still be cool enough while avoiding the rains and typhoons that would come later. But....I had already committed myself to The Old Frees' Association's Centenary celebrations which would last until the 21st of October. I had to write Centenary, the book on the history of the Association, and then oversee the book's production. Then came the OFA Centenary chess tournament at the end of September and the annual dinner in October. Thus, there was no way that I could excuse myself without doing a botched-up job.

Thus, the first opportunity we had was two days after the annual dinner. Our son joined us at the railway station in Bukit Mertajam, while our daughter joined at the Kuala Lumpur Internal Airport's Terminal One. We were a foursome again for this seven-day family trip to Taiwan, jetting off on Batik Air at one o'clock in the morning of 24 October and arriving at Taoyong International Airport, Taiwan at 5.30am.

First order of the day was to search for the Lucky Land booth at the airport to try our luck at their lucky draw. There were four of us but only my daughter managed to win a Taiwanese Easycard with NT5,000 preloaded. That's MYR700 free extra money for our family to use as we travelled around the land in the next seven days! Then off to the Klook counter to pick up three other pieces of Easycard. The Easycard, by the way, is accepted for travel on their regular train services, Taipei Metro (MRT) and both intracity and intercity buses. In addition, the travel card is accepted at 7-Eleven and FamilyMart outlets. We had lots of meals purchased from these convenience stores.

From the Taipei Man Station, we took an MRT to the Ximen station which was a stop away on the Bannan blue line. Before we checked-in at our Airbnb unit, we had a spot of breakfast in Ximending. This is a popular pedestrian area known for its trendy fashion boutiques, restaurants, street performances, movie theatres and vibrant nightlife, but at nine o'clock in the morning with almost all shops closed, it was a rather quiet place.

But one shop was opened, selling rice noodles. My son said this was quite a popular shop in Taipei and indeed, there were many people milling around to buy their paper bowls of rice noodles. Unfortunately, there were no proper tables for sitting. People either stood to eat or they sat down wherever they could find space. The fare is supposed to be oyster rice noodles but I'm dashed if I can make out even a tiny piece of oyster in it. Rather, I saw only small bits of pork intestines in the noodles. And yet, there were so many people.

Breakfast completed, we walked about 10 minutes to our Airbnb apartment. Quite a nice apartment, this. Floor space was small, the compact apartment measuring not quite 18 feet by 24 feet, excluding the balcony. The two bedrooms were on split levels and there was a shared bathroom. The kitchen was well equipped if anyone wanted to cook there. The nicest touch was the massage chair for sore bodies and sore legs. I really needed that! My only concern was that there were too many sharp edges and corners in the living room. I bruised myself twice or thrice on the corners of the table in front of the sofa set. But overall, this apartment was excellent value for money.

We set out to explore the city at about one o'clock. There were two or three places in our itinerary on the first day. The first was lunch, which was supposed to be one of the two Ichiran Ramen outlets in Taipei. But while walking to the Ximen MRT station, we came across this shop selling a version of tofu similar to something I saw in Ipoh last year. We simply had to try the tofu here in Taipei because we noticed that it came with all sorts of toppings like in Ipoh, including pearl barley, red and green beans, sweet potato balls, peanuts, tapioca and even taro paste. Taro is what we would call yam back home in Malaysia.  Nevertheless, I still considered it a novelty but at the end of the day, I would prefer a simple version like Penang's tau hwa without any extra ingredients and comes with white or brown sugar syrup.

Our attention was also diverted by this small ancient structure which we learnt was the Nishi Honganji Bell Tower (西本願寺鐘樓), one of the oldest symbols of the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. This used to be the site of a temple, the Nishi Hongan Temple ((西本願寺), the largest and most well-equipped Japanese-style Buddhist temple in Taiwan during that era. The original bronze bell was cast in the 34th year of Meiji (1901) by skilled artisans of the Osaka Bronze Ware Association in Japan. Nobody knows where it is today and the clock tower now displays a replica. Next to it was a hall where we viewed a small exhibition of schoolchildren paintings.

These diversions aside, we proceeded to the main branch of Ichiran Ramen in Taipei. Imagine coming to Taipei to taste Japan's biggest chain of ramen restaurants! But why Ichiran in Taipei? It's because we had missed this chain in Japan six years ago and this may be the closest we'll ever get to eat in this restaurant or their branches anywhere in the world. Ichiran is supposedly bigger than Ippudo and their tonkotsu ramen is also claimed to be better. Well, the claim is quite justified because we totally enjoyed what turned out to be their basic bowl. 

My only comment was that we did not know what to expect and did not order their ramen with all the trimmings. It was just a basic bowl of ramen with bits and pieces of meat and chopped vegetables. No seaweed, charshu or egg in sight. My son had the foresight to order an egg bu the rest of us did not. Anyway, the reputation of the tonkotsu soup was not unfounded. It was really good even without the added trimmings. I simply slurped everything up.

To be continued....