So nice, I went there twice

I received a message from my brother.  He asked me if I would be going back to Australia for Xmas.  "No" I responded.  

Later on, he told me that he and his friends would be heading to Malaysia for a wedding and they were going to do a short trip to Taiwan.  They wanted to know if I would be interested in joining.  I told them I would be interested of course.  But when was this to all happen?  He said the 25th.  Sure, that sounded good.  

Everything seemed in order.  He told me he would start arranging on his side.

I didn't think much about it.

He started messaging me about plans for the trip.  Great I thought.  I was happy to sit back and to just follow along.  I booked my flights for late November.  The day of the flight arrived.  Nothing much happened out of the ordinary.  I hopped on my flight and soon I was in Taipei.  I messaged my brother that I had arrived and I would soon be in the CBD.  He texted me back with confusion "are you in London?"

I immediately knew what had happened.  I started scrolling through our messages.  Somehow, through all our short and limited chats, neither of us had actually clearly said that references to the 25th were to "December".  I stood in line in immigration thinking about what I would do in Taipei.  It was a bit annoying to have had this mix up, but I strangely didn't care that much.  I liked Taipei and this seemed like a unique opportunity to do something a bit more spontaneous.

I only had a few days.  There was more than enough for me to do.

The last trip had been filled with the main highlights, so I used this opportunity to visit and catch up on some of the other places I had missed.

One place I had been interested in visiting was the 24 hour eslite bookshop.  It was mentioned in several guides as a unique place to go, and so late one night I made my way out there.  I wasn't close to any of the metro stops, so after a longer than expected wander, I was able to arrive inside.  At first, it seemed quite interesting and there was a novelty to it all.  It was very late, but the store was still full of people walking and browsing the shelves.  After not very long, all of this novelty started to fade.  It was still just a book store.  I looked around.  Deciding I wasn't all that interested anymore, I left to find some food.

One last place I had missed visiting the last time I was the Cafe Astoria.  An old historic cafe that had been founded back when the KMT had fled to Taiwan from China.  It had been one of the first and only "western" style cafes back in those days.  Frequented by the KMT elite, it had apparently baked Chiang Kai Shek's last birthday cake.

 

It was an old cafe and it felt run down and ageing in the best possible way.  It was an old place caught in a time warp, its past slowly fading away.  It was quite amazing to sit in the stalls.  I felt a strange link back to the past and to those who had come before.

This short trip to Taipei had been extremely enjoyable.  I felt relaxed and refreshed.  It was all an accident, but thankfully a pleasant one.  I wanted to come back to visit Taiwan again, but maybe I would wait a bit longer before the next trip.