That Other Republic of China

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Our trip to Taiwan at the end of last month was great. Caro went for business and I followed a day later so we could do a little exploring over the weekend. We both enjoyed the industrialized commercial hub much more than we were expecting. It seemed to have even more of a Western slant to it than Hong Kong. The people all seemed very happy and content- per Caro their freedoms in every day life may account for a lot of this. We stayed at the Grand Hyatt which was a wonderful hotel with an amazing club lounge if you happen to be on the executive floors. They also had a great contemporary piano lounge, which is apparently quite popular in Taipei. We didn't have quite as much time to try all the delicious cooking because we were too busy exploring all the sites (Taiwan has one of the highest densities of restaurants in the world and it is really known for its food). But what we did try was great, especially the shaved-ice-with-fruit-dessert that was so popular there. Try the one at Ice Monster- it was fantastic.

We went to a number of great spots, including the Shilin Night Market which was packed with everything imaginable (even more crowded than Hong Kong's markets), the tallest building in the world which is shaped like a bamboo shoot (Taipei 101), the Sun Yat-sen memorial, the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial, and the National Museum. The latter of these, which houses what is claimed to be the largest/best collection of Chinese artifacts, is always a source of contention. The mainland will say that it was all "stolen" when it was quickly shipped out of China before the Communist Party took over. Taiwan will claim that if they hadn't shipped it out then it would have all been destroyed during the cultural revolution. Truths on both sides. Unfortunately it was a little under construction when we visited- I'd recommend trying it in about 6 months after that is all complete and before that the Shanghai museum may be a better option.