Taipei

My brother always tells me about how much he loved going to Taiwan.  When he was interning in Hong Kong, he had managed to get himself a cheap weekend trip to Taipei and to this day he still raves about the place.  As holiday locations go, it must be one of the most conveniently located from Hong Kong.  The flight over to Taipei is only slightly more than an hour.  With that in mind, I decided to go over for a weekend to have a look.  I left work and headed straight for the airport.  I got through immigration quickly and I was soon on the plane.  I found it hilarious that even though this was an incredibly short flight, the cabin crew went about doing a full dinner service.  I felt a bit bad for the cabin crew as they rushed out of their seats once the seatbelt signs went off to distribute the food, and then immediately went back to the front of the plane to start collecting trays once they had finished distributing.  Once they collected the last tray, they had to then start with the landing checks!  It all seemed completely unnecessary.  A drink and a snack would have been more than enough.

Once I arrived, I headed straight out to the bustling night markets.  My brother (and everyone who had been) told me that these were the highlights of any trip to Taipei.  They were all completely correct!  I was amazed by the incredible size and density of these night markets.  The sheer volume of food options in only one of the markets was beyond anything I had experienced before, and I was lucky to have visited street food markets in various places around the world.  The food was generally Asian, but it was uniquely Taiwanese.  It was predominantly Chinese in style, but you could see the influences of Japanese culture as well as Western culture on the different offerings at all the stalls.

One dish I found myself going back to several times was the strange ice cream rolls that were made in the markets.  It was a simply flavoured ice cream, wrapped in rice paper with shaved peanut butter brittle and coriander.  The inclusion of the coriander seemed very strange and I was tempted to ask for it to be left out.  I thought more about it though and realised that keeping it was important to ensure that I was eating this as it was intended.  For the very first time at least, I should try to experience it without change.  It all worked out well together.  The herby flavour of the coriander complementing the sweet nuttiness of the other ingredients.

The city of Taipei is an interesting city.  It sprawls out in all directions, with much of it looking a bit run down and decrepit. Within all of the city, there are islands of the ultra modern, none so more than the famous Taipei 101, which was at one point the world's tallest building.  The building reaches up into the sky, but it's a strange structure to look at.  There isn't that much that's actually around it so it looks a bit out of place by itself.

From the top of the tower, there was a view that stretched out far into the distance.  The lights of Taipei don't shine all that bright because it's not that type of city.  It was good to be able to come up this far to look around, but I didn't really understand what the need was for such a building.  Other than national pride, the same amount of office space could have probably been constructed over several building for a fraction of the price.

During the day, I went out to visit some of the monuments of the city.  Taiwan as a country was founded by Chiang Kai Shek and his KMT forces, so their influence is still everywhere.  There are monuments to his memory dotted throughout Taipei, and in the middle the city there is a large park and memorial dedicated to his memory.  The huge square in front of the memorial itself has now been renamed "Liberty Square", which seems a touch ironic given the oppressive rule that the KMT implemented on Taiwan.  Maybe it's a sign of the times of what is hoped for the people of Taiwan.

Inside the memorial, is an enormous seated statue of Chiang Kai Shek.  People stood around to take photos and watch the guards doing their ceremonial shift changes.  There was something strange about looking at this huge statue.  I couldn't help but think back to the statue of Lincoln I had stood in front of not that long ago.  The "style" of both seemed similar, but the subjects couldn't have been further apart.  Whereas one was a man who freed slaves and liberated an entire people, the other was an oppressor who managed to lose an entire country.  It's always difficult to judge history if based only on the superficial memorials we see.

My brother was right though.  Taiwan was great.  There was so much to do and I hadn't scratched the surface.

HK 7s

Hong Kong 7s has the reputation for being the biggest party in Asia.  I was looking forward to attending for the first time now that I was living in Hong Kong.  The day started interestingly enough though as I found a tall man with gigantic wig seated directly in front of me.  I wondered how much of the games I would get to see and whether it was acceptable to snatch the wig off his head.  It didn't take long though for the heat of the day to creep up on him and the wig soon came off the head.

Not that it really mattered anyway.  Most people weren't all that interested in the games happening.  It was the crowd, the atmosphere and the drinking that seemed to engage most people during the day.  Todd had arrived on an overnight flight from Jakarta, so he had been exhausted.  Rather than rush out early, he had a nap and we then had a leisurely breakfast before making our way to the stadium.  We checked to see if we could get into the famous South Stand, but the lineup to get in was hours long.  Instead we found ourselves good seats in the North Stand, which were actually great.  We could move in and out easily, there was great access to food and drink, and the crowd was loud and active.

Part of the fun of Hong Kong 7s is the dress up.  Everyone gets into crazy costumes to attend and it adds to the almost carnival atmosphere of the event.  Todd and I weren't going to be left behind on this, so we came dressed up as the crazy scientists looking for our DeLorians.

The partying went late into the night.  We kicked on into LKF with the huge throngs of people.  A friend of mine who had been before had said to me that HK 7s felt like going to a "full stadium party".  I think that description is as apt as any I can think of.