We decide to stay up all night prior to the 7:30 AM flight to play videogames coupled with a few vodka sprites (and maybe a bit of soju too). Easier to stay up than wake up for such an early flight right? Wrong. Dead wrong. The lines at the airport for everything are hideously long, winding this way and that over one another like a pile of snakes in an Indiana Jones flick. The look of dismay and thought of missing our flight is evidenced by our disgruntled faces as we mutter curse words under our breath and spew exasperated sighs as the line inches it’s way agonizingly slowly towards salvation. “Such is life”, I think to myself, along with what Netflix shows I will be binging upon my unexpected early return back to my apartment. “Such is life”.
What’s going on fam? I hope you enjoyed that awful intro – I’ve been reading these things called BOOKS a fair bit lately so thought I’d throw in a bunch of adjectives and high level SAT words along with a cliff hanger to get this party started.
Ok enough about me, let’s move on to me. A few weeks ago was Chuseok holiday here in South Korea, which is, for lack of a more apt comparison, Korea’s version of Thanksgiving. The way it fell on the calendar this year meant I had the first week of October and the following Monday (10 days total) off from work and since I had decided to stay in Seoul in the Summer since my boy Max was coming to visit, I figured it was nigh time I took advantage of living in this part of the world and do some exploring outside of Korea.
Before I reveal whether I actually made it to Taiwan (I know you all are on the edge of your seats), I’ve got some other business to divulge. Some Gatsby business.
The Saturday prior to our departure, a language exchange group called Global Seoul Mates were throwing a Great Gatsby themed party on a cruise ship in Seoul not too far from where I live. Naturally, as someone who is still in their Roaring 20’s themselves, that sounded awesome.
And boy oh boy was it. Weather was perfect? Check. Open bar for two hours? Check. Everyone was swagged out in 1920s’ish clothing? Check. There was a dude dressed like Cam’ron? Double check. It was a fun-filled night that was a great change of pace as most people looked ridiculous attempting the Flapper Charleston rather than the more modern Dougie.
Ok now on to some bigger, more Taiwanese things. Yup, that’s right, we made it folks! I went to Taiwan for five days with my buddies Connor and KJ. Ten minutes in, Connor had the foresight at the airport to skip the ridiculously long line and talk to a lady who wasn’t doing anything at her desk and just said “we’re not going to make our flight”. Apparently she agreed because she checked us in right away then sent us to the expedited security check line which we eventually got moved to the front of. I’ve gotta hand it to Korean efficiency – I’ve never seen so many people in an airport in all my years of not really traveling anywhere but I get the feeling that if this happened at an American airport, we would’ve been shit out of luck.
Finally, after one plane, two trains, three Our Fathers and one final van ride later (with a random Taiwanese lady – we got f*#!d by the bus lady giving out too many bus for the last bus tickets so we just decided to wing it and tag along with three other Taiwanese girls that were going to the same area as we were), we reached our destination; Kenting Town is on the southern tip of Taiwan and one of the country’s most popular beach destinations.
Despite being exhausted from sleep deprivation and a full day of travel, after checking in to our well-furnished-yet-slightly-conspicuous-sketchy-trailer, we decided to waste no time in our Taiwan adventure and proceeded to the night market.
The night market was a weird yet wonderful assault on the senses. Hundreds of people flank either side of Kenting Town’s main half-mile, two-lane street during the busy season. Buses, trucks, cars and scooters all manage to squeeze their way through the crowds (I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of all the ambulances I saw while in Taiwan were responding to one vehicular accident or another). A variety of aromas are inhaled as you meander past each vendor, all the while wishing you had a stomach the size of a sumo wrestler yet the metabolism of an adolescent teen so you didn’t have to pick and choose what foods you were going to eat. Probably the only disappointing thing about the night markets in Taiwan was the overwhelming stench of the stinky tofu (none of us ended up trying it out for obvious stinky reasons), which seemed to draw longer lines than any other food….baffling.
Our first full day in Kenting was mainly spent moving from one beach to another. Both the air and water temperature were as close to perfect as can be – the air was warm yet not too humid and the water refreshing yet not freezing to the point of making you gasp for the first minute or two of being in it. Music, good company and a drink in hand made the day quite enjoyable and was a great getaway from the busy streets of Seoul and day-to-day interactions with 6 year olds shooting pretend Spiderman webs at you. If only I had brought my Magic cards, then things could’ve really gotten crazy but alas I did not.
The evening/night brought about a Thai dinner, round two at the night market and a good amount of time ingratiating ourselves with some of the locals along with a few Chinese and German tourists.
After a festive night/early morning, we got off to a bit of a late start Thursday, which almost came back to haunt us as the plan was to get scooters for the day but with the morning gone and it being the busy season we feared the worst. After getting some food (where I happened to accidentally order a risotto which turned out to be surprisingly good) we hit up each scooter shop in the town. After being turned down on multiple occasions due to not having an international license/no availability/blah blah blah etc. etc. the three of us began to go into a mild state of depression.
The Gods smiled upon us finally however and despite almost admitting defeat, one last moment of stubborn persistence from KJ paid off and 30 minutes later, we were all scooterin this way and that!
The next 4-5 hours were bliss. A boy could dream again. Anything and everything was possible when on a scooter including the hope for eternal life or the sense of impending death. Gone was any hangover or shitty feeling that we wouldn’t be able to do the one thing that we had probably talked most about leading up to the trip. Being on a scooter gives you the freedom to move about with ease and especially so when they’re gas; whipping past people on electric scooters was great and driving alongside other larger vehicles was both exhilarating and slightly terrifying. It was probably after a bus cut me off on the way home that I was certain all those ambulances I had seen were for people on scooters which seems to be the preferred method of transportation in Taiwan. Scootering into the evening coupled with one final walk and eat through the night market ended the first leg of our trip to Taiwan as a resounding success.
Time waits for no man, and neither do trains. And so we made our way to Taipei Friday morning and were there by the early afternoon. KJ’s buddy from college John who is teaching in Taiwan was gracious enough to put us up for the weekend and show us the city which we were very thankful for.
One of the biggest differences between Taiwan and Korea was the living situation for teachers. Where nearly all teachers in Seoul have a studio apartment that is paid for by their school, the teachers in Taiwan usually find their own housing but they usually live with multiple roommates in much larger apartments. John had 3 roommates and I was astonished to see that they had a spacious living room, full kitchen, laundry room, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a sizeable personal outside rooftop/deck. To say I was a bit envious of this living situation would be putting things mildly but considering this place was a revolving door of people every other hour at all times made me appreciate the privacy a studio apartment offers.
Our first evening was spent getting together with a bunch of John’s friends and making our way to a Taiwanese restaurant for what would turn out to be one of the best meals I’ve ever had. In Taiwan, food is usually served on smallish plates and is meant to be shared among the group.
What you see in the picture here was perhaps one fifth of the food that was served in total. Think of a typical Taiwanese food and we probably ate it that night. Everything from steamed dumplings, fried dumplings, fried rice, white rice, braised pork, steak strups, green beans, sushi, tofu, spring rolls, a good bit of beer and much, much more were glutinously consumed over the space of a few hours.
The rest of the night was spent having a few drinks at an outside bar and a sports bar. Like Korea, Taiwan has no qualms with people drinking outside and it’s nice to be able to walk around with a beer in hand without having to look over your shoulder constantly to see if a cop is around (not that I really did that at home but still).
Saturday, we got off to a leisurely start and walked around John’s neighborhood, finally settling at a restaurant with a table outside for brunch
Even though dinner could never be outdone, brunch was pretty damn great and I’ve gotta hand it to the Taiwanese, these people know how to cook! The food is so excellent (and cheap) and next to scootering, was undoubtedly the highlight of the trip.
After that we decided to walk through the city towards Elephant Mountain where you can get a great view of Taipei. Walking through the city really gave you the feel of it. In many ways I would consider it a scaled down version of Seoul – less people/cars/congestion/high-rises (but more scooters…lots more scooters) along with more of an openness and greenery really gave the city a welcoming atmosphere.
By the time we got to the top of Elephant Mountain, the day had turned from dreary and overcast to sunny which was perfect.
After heading back to John’s place to chill for a bit and shower, we headed right back out into the city for some more night market fun. But right next to the night market was a Buddhist temple which we had to check out first.
The night market was pretty much exactly what we expected it to be – full of tasty foodsies for Christian Teacher’s grumbly tumbly.
In between our journey through the night market we stopped at a restaurant where Connor could try out some snake blood. Drinking snake blood and eating their hearts is said to increase virility and is quite common in many Asian countries. I had no real desire to partake however but I’ll be dammed if I wasn’t gonna pass up the opportunity to document someone else doing it.
In all honesty, I was a bit disappointed with the outcome of this drinking challenge. I was half expecting Connor to maybe start levitating, turn green or at the very least show utter disdain for what he just drank (maybe throw it back up a little bit) but he didn’t so much as bat an eye as he drank the blood or mixed the other various drinks with it. Connor, if we ever make it to Vietnam, we (and by we I mean you) are taking it TO THE NEXT LEVEL.
Our final act in Taipei wasn’t eating more food, or going out drinking or to a club (which was initially the plan when we first thought of going to Taiwan/Taipei but by the end we were just too tired), no….it was just the squad GOIN SHRIMPIN. Yup that’s right. We went to an indoor shrimp fishing establishment which is a popular past-time here in Taiwan. Unfortunately team Seoul didn’t catch a single godforsaken shrimp, although John and his friends/gf didn’t really fair much better. One group of girls was catching one every 5 minutes it seemed but I think that was because when the guy came to throw more fish in, he threw them in the middle of the dirty pool where they were sitting while we were all the way at the end. No love for the expats but it’s all good, it was still a surprisingly enjoyable time sitting around trying to catch shrimp while saying “GOOOOIN SHRIMPIN” every 30 seconds or so.
In the end, the whole gang caught a grand total of two shrimps which we ended up giving away to another group of shrimp fishers. After that we made a pit stop for a few drinks at a Mexican restaurant where some of John’s friends were then headed back to pack and get some sleep as we had a 9:30 am flight back to Seoul.
But you know how the boys are when it comes to sleep before a flight. Apparently were slow learners. It was to my utter joy to discover that John had a PS4 and a copy of FIFA 13 (come on John it’s 2017 now man). Connor and I had been talking trash to one another for quite some time about who was better in FIFA but we could never put it to the test simply because we nor anyone we knew didn’t have a copy of it in Korea. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone talk up how good they were at my game and all the people they’ve beaten, only to be put to the sword and dispatched like a peon, off to run errands for their Lord. Connor was no different and unfortunately for him, had to learn the hard way. When will they ever learn?
And there you have it my little chupacabras (jk jk I know you all are much cuter)! That was probably my longest post yet but hey a lot happened and I had to give you all the juicy details on my first excursion outside of Korea. Until next time!
