First Trip to Taipei

Our first trip to the capital city Taipei was a great one. Our first stop was Taipei Rapid Transit Company. They have a state of the art and pioneering mass transportation system. With over a million motorbikes and seven hundred thousand cars, a need for a great public transportation system was necessary. They have eight lines that stretch 90.5 km and also have eighty two stations. The most amazing part to me was the cleanliness of the station and trains . You are not allowed to eat or drink on the cars. This has kept the trains extremely clean. We also visited the hub of the whole system. This was interesting as well. It looked very futuristic and cutting edge.

Right next door to the Taipei Rapid Transit was the Taipei Traffic Control Center. Here we learned some proactive things that Taipei is doing to reduce traffic and increase efficiency. They have hundreds of cameras posted all over the city to monitor heavy traffic and a quick system of reporting this news to radio and TV stations. There is also this thing called an easy card. The same card can be swiped for the trains, buses, bike rental and also can but used to buy things at 7-elevens and pay fines. The bike rentals are an interesting development as well. You can rent a bike using your easy card at one station in Taipei and can return it at another station and these stations are completely automated. The buses are advanced too. All the buses have GPS so all the stops can show in real time when the bus will arrive. There is also an app for phones that can track the buses and let you know an up to date bus schedule.

After the visit to Taipei we went to the Tamshui and Old Street. Old Street was a night market that had shops and food venders lining the street. You can see a night market in any town on any night here. This one was a little different because it was older (as the name suggest) and offered a different variety of things. I needed to exchange money so Stanley and I went on our own which basically separated us from the group. I liked this because he was able to explain things to me a little more and we got to go to a Taoist temple and pray to the god of study. The temple was very interesting. There were three doors. The right is the entrance the left is the exit and the middle door was for the gods to come and go from. When we entered we grabbed some inscents and lit them in a fire in the middle of the temple. The we walked around and paid our respects to the others gods and placed inscents in front of their displays. Finally we went to the god of study and prayed to him. It was a very interesting experience.

When we were done with Old Street we got a bus to Tamshui. This is a wharf and there is also a bridge called Valentines Bridge or Lovers Bridge. It was fun but I wish I had my valentine there with me. Lovers Bridge is a place where a lot of couples go to get their engagement photos done because the sunsets there are amazing. In fact we saw a couple getting their photos taken there.

After Tamshui we took a ferry back to Old Street where we grabbed some food. I had tuna sausage on a stick and some stinky tofu. The stinky tofu was terrible and it really did stink but I had to try it. I also had a black egg that was one of the worst things I have ever eaten in my life. When we were done eating we all met back up and took the train back to Zhongli.