Taipei Layover

Toilet tourism!

My final leg on the 2-week, around-the-world adventure was a 24-hour layover in Taiwan. I arrived late in the evening and was really worried that I wouldn't be let in the country, despite having researched entry requirements three times. Why? Guess.

Luckily, I was let in without anything more than a sniff at my passport.

The train ride to Taipei from the airport was longer than I had expected, but it was clean and quiet (like much of the city), so I didn't mind much.

The youth hostel I stayed in was clean and quiet (and after the long trip I've had, I was looking forward to some quiet). One of the hostel volunteers offered to take me out to a night market nearby so I could try some street food before bed. I drank papaya milk and ate stinky tofu (I liked it) and a few other things.

Then I went back to the hostel and passed out for a night's sleep.

The next day was a whirlwind. My 24 hours was halfway over (thanks, sleep) and I needed to pad the end of my trip with an extra 4 hours to get to the airport in time for my international flight back to the US. I had to be very clear about what I was going to do for 8 hours in Taipei before I returned to the airport.

I wasn't that clear. Well, I thought I was clear, at first...until I went outside and felt the amazing heat early in the morning that was not mixing well with my stomach (I discovered after returning home that I was battling giardia). I improvised once I took notes on where I could be near toilets while adventuring (fortunately, that wasn't too much of a compromise).

I first hopped over to see some of the old temples around the Taipei Confucius Temple, which was also Confucius' original residence. Their toilet was very nice.

Right next door was the Dalongdong Baoan Temple, which was old and quiet and beautiful.

After the temple visits, I tried to hail a cab and go to some art village I had heard about. I never made it there; it seemed that it either wasn't open or was mythical because people had no idea what I was looking for and there appeared to be no English signs.

This was when I realized how disadvantaged I was visiting Taiwan without any knowledge of Mandarin. The signs were almost all hanzi character-based and many had no English translations or very poor translations that only confused me more. Also, despite many business people understanding English in the city, the cab drivers I happened to hail were not knowledgeable in English. With my inability to speak Mandarin, this led to a lot of confusion about wherever I was trying to go. Apparently there are translation services for situations just like this in Taiwan (it must come up a bit), and many of the cab drivers called a number, talked on the phone, handed the phone to me with a pleasant English speaker on the other line asking me where I was going to, and then taking back the phone with the other side of the line translating. In other attempts, I would show Google Maps on my phone to the driver to indicate the place I wanted to visit; this was only sometimes successful.

So here I was, with only a few hours left in Taipei, realizing I was at a real disadvantage to getting where I wanted to go. I decided to make things simpler and go to only big places that tourists were expected to visit and with easily-translated names. That worked!

So I walked around a few more temples and went to the Lin An Tai Ancestral House, which is an outdoor museum that educates people about older customs and living arrangements in Taipei back in the 18th/19th century. It wasn't crowded, which meant I got to take my time reading plaques, loitering bridges over ponds, and tastefully spying on a couple taking wedding photos.

The piece de resistance of my quick visit to Taipei - nay, my entire trip! - was the lunch reservation I had at a restaurant called Modern Toilet. The restaurant is, as you may have guessed, themed around toilets...and very tongue-in-cheek. The food was served in different kinds of toilet- and latrine-shaped containers and the food options were essentially curries and french fries (which means it looked like stuff that should actually be in toilets). And they had a little booth by the hostess stand that sold anything toilet or poo related - lighters, pens, erasers, legos, etc. It was kitschy, fun, and amazing. I had an absolute blast! The best part was the dessert - chocolate soft serve in a small squat latrine-shaped bowl. It was actually very tasty! And of course, was meant to test people's stomachs with its aesthetic. I saw another table order some monstrosity of a dessert with flan and jellies and all kinds of strange items - it looked like an overflowing toilet!

I've officially lived my best life.

After sating myself with toilet-inspired cuisine, I walked back to the hostel to pick up my stuff and head back to the airport. I passed by some popular-looking shopping areas. Amongst the shops included outlandish things such as penis-shaped pineapple cakes on sticks.

My trip to Taipei was too short, but I still found it interesting even when I was confused and lost! I think it's a place worth inspecting more in-depth at some point. I hope to visit again so I can see the areas outside of the city center, too.