Hello from Beitou

It may be a bit premature, but after my first full day in Taipei, I have to say that this is the BEST city on earth. It is the perfect combination of traditional and modern architecture, a striking juxtaposition of tranquil scenery and bustling metropolitan chaos, and a blend of eastern and western culture. Taipei is a lot like New York city, in that it has a population of 5 million all packed into a relatively small area. However, the city is surrounded by mountains and tropical trees and flowers burst from planters everywhere. 

 Today, I had the opportunity to visit Beitou, which is one of the oldest parts of Taipei. It houses several hot springs and museums dedicated to the traditional bath houses that date back to when Taiwan was a Japanese colony. The three I went to today were the Beitou hot springs museum, Plum Garden, and Beitou Museum/the Taiwan Folk Arts Museum. The Hot springs museum had been a bath house in the early 1900's, and was later refurbished and designated to be a historical site. 

                                     

The next place, was the Plum Garden. It was a mansion that was owned by a famous calligrapher. It was built in the traditional Japanese style and is gorgeous.

Finally, we went to the Beitou museum which was a hotel/tea house at one time. There we saw Japanese style hotel rooms, a banquet hall that could accommodate 100 people in its heyday, and an exhibit on tea from around the world. There was this really incredible exhibit that consisted of one hundred different teapots, sculpted out of coral, that were the size of my thumbnail or smaller. Each teapot had a different, intricate design, and were of varying sizes. Two of them were as small as ants, and the plaque said that the artist had to use a needle to sculpt those two. 

A rock garden inside of a courtyard

The alcove and inset shelves in the traditional Japanese room

the hotel's hallway

Outside of the museum

Beitou was beautiful, but it was not the only experience of the day. I also got to go to my cousin's high school  while he took a final exam. The campus was fascinating. There were several buildings centered around a large outdoor recreation court. The school buildings have a layout similar to a motel, because they are very tall and have outdoor corridors/balconies that lead to individual classrooms. They also have small gardens tucked away between the buildings and the wall that encircles the grounds, as well as a refreshment store where students can buy snacks. 

Now we come to the part of the post wherein I become like those annoying people on facebook who talk about everything they had to eat for the day. However, I will use the excuse of being in another country, so you will just have to suffer through it. On this, my first day in Taiwan, I had a Chinese breakfast. Which consisted of a sesame cake, (which is a pastry topped with sesame seeds), a pork dumpling, and warm, sweet soy milk. It was both different and delicious. 

Then for lunch, we stopped at a street vendor and bought corn on the cob, (nothing unusual to report there), hot milk tea, (which is like chai tea), and hard boiled eggs that were cooked using water from the hot springs. 

At dinner, we had lu rou fan, which means braised pork on rice or in other words, my favorite food ever. My step mom has made it for years and it was awesome to have it here as well. We also had a soup that was basically green onion broth with pork meatballs and an unidentified white thing with a familiar flavor that I can't quite put my finger on. This dish was proof that stuff that looks scary can often be delicious. I was a little nervous about it at first, because it looks unusual, but when I tried it, I found it very good. Later, my aunt made this Chinese snack called tang yuan which is a sweet soup that contains little balls of dough, fruit, and larger balls of dough that are stuffed with peanut sauce. It is a dish traditionally served on the fifteenth day of Chinese new year, because that day is a day for reunions and the characters in the Chinese word for reunion and the word for tang yuan both have circles in them.

  Anyway, that is all that I am going to write for today, but tune in tomorrow for the next installment of my little adventure.