Well… It’s that time again… Our next holiday is upon us. This time we are heading up to Asia to take in 3 great cities and a little bit of countryside as well. The plan was that September / October would be a fairly quiet time for us both, however I did send out my last emails to the team from the airport on Friday night…. but that’s it for work (I hope).
So as usual we arrived at the airport in plenty of time, and as usual our departure was a bit late, but otherwise uneventful. We had decided to pay extra for Premium Economy seats and this was a good decision. The extra room makes all the difference for getting a few Zeds… but that may have been assisted by my decision to to persist with the ‘Star Wars’ franchise. I watched half of the Han Solo story prior to falling asleep, and don’t see any need to watch the other half.
Around sunrise we were passing over the Phillipines with a great sunrise over the clouds.
Our changeover in Hong Kong went to plan and we landed in Taipei on schedule. After an hour in the immigration queues we were finally free. We had an airport pickup that drove us the 40 minute drive to the hotel. One of the things that really struck us, was the magnitude of the motorways. In places there were 2 and 3 ‘layers of motorway.
Upon arriving at our hotel we had a nice cup of coffee prior to getting ready for the afternoon’s activities. The Club Lounge at the hotel is excellently appointed.
Following ‘check-in’ and a nice shower, something that is always long overdue when flying long distances, we decided to head out to explore. Our first stop was Taipei’s Peace Park, which is dedicated to the victims from 1947, where the ‘government’ forces who had been forced out of mainland China arrived in Taiwan and sought to exert their power. This precipitated a period called the ‘White Terror’ where citizens were persecuted for their political views. This period on Martial Law was not lifted until 1987.
From there we wandered around to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial hall.
This area is spectacular on it’s own, but if you throw in 10×10 day there is a lot of light and colour.It had started to rain a bit so some of the photos may be a little blurry.
Lastly, we did a food tour with a local guide that corrected lots of misapprehensions about different foody things. We ate Pork & Rice … better with additional chilli, we found out what ‘pork floss’ is and many other Taipei secrets. I feel like I haven’t slept for close on 2 days … I’ll leave the blog at that for today….
Until Tomorrow… eh?
W all unfolding
Rob's "Beats Working" Blog 