The next day we sent off three parcels of mostly souvenirs (including Mommy's bamboo!) and later met with Robert Pon of Penghu again. He and his wife were so kind to invite us for lunch in an elegant Italian restaurant. Then we went to the zoo to visit my family (the monkeys!), but also saw the penguins, a wolf, a bear, beavers and many other animals. It was pretty good. That evening we had a rendezvous with 4 of our rafting friends at a Taiwanese restaurant called Chopstix. It wasn't easy to find (no address is easy to find in Taipei, even for the locals...), but after asking a few people we were glad to see our friends again. They soon ordered all sorts of typical dishes: deep-fried shrimp, strips of chicken, a pan-fried fish and many others. It was all wonderful, my parents certainly loved it (I still prefer McDonalds, sorry Papa) and desert was sorbet ice cream (now we were talking...). We left after promising to take them canoeing in Canada one day, complete with Arctic Char dinner and blueberry pancakes in the morning.
Then came the day of our departure. Papa went to see Canon (downloading pictures on the internet is quite troublesome with Chinese computers) and Mommy and I packed our bags. We had to leave some stuff as we had bought guide and phrase books for China. We took an early bus and enjoyed a few hours at the quiet, clean, modern and new airport terminal where we boarded our Singapore Airlines flight to Hong Kong.
Here follows a list of miscellaneous things from during our trip through Taiwan:
- First of all we should mention that we have rarely been in a country were the people are so helpful, warm, friendly and hospitable. Often people have been going out of their way to help us or providing a service to us without asking for anything in return. Also we found that many people speak English, sometimes quite well.
- The Taiwanese are not really patriotic, but all the people we have met feel their country to be very different and independent from China (and want to keep it that way!). Many thought of mainland China (without having been there) to be poor, dirty and unsafe.
- Generally we found the country to be quite clean: streets are swept regularly, toilets are better than expected, etc.
- The Taipei zebra crossing lights indicate the remaining seconds until red, with a little figure running after 15 sec.
- Hotel prices in Kenting literally double on Saturday nights!
- Besides rampant US commercial influence (McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, etc. everywhere) the French seem to be No. 2 with Carrefour in many cities and FNAC in Taipei.
- The weather's been quite nice and warm apart from the occasional summer shower now & then. For me that meant some discomfort when we walked around, but then there's often an A/C'd place nearby.
- Like in Korea, it is interesting to note that all over the country our hotel rooms were all the same in comfort and price: NT$ 1000/night (approx. US$ 35)
- We had no problem getting money from an ATM with our MasterCard almost anywhere. Hotels and restaurants rarely accepted the card though.
- We used the 7-Eleven stores a lot (they are virtually on every street corner): milk or yoghurt for me, bottled water, lunch-boxes (useful when travelling) and other snacks.