YowCH & Grace

T.Y.Lin International (Taiwan)’s headquarter is in Taipei and this year the annual dinner was held on 16 Jan 2012 (Wednesday). YowCH took Grace along for the trip from Tuesday to Thursday, giving some time before and after the event to see Taipei and to visit cousin Dr. Phan Wei Lian.

Click on the maps to enlarge.
1. The areas we visited.

2. Detail of the city area.

The temperature was between 15° to 22° for the first 2 days, but a cold draft came in on the third day, bring the temperature down to about 12° while we were there.

Day 1, 15 Jan 2013
We took Singaporeair from Changi Terminal 3 at 8:30am (dad drove us to the airport, arriving at 6:30am) and landed at Taoyuan Terminal 2 at 1:30pm. YowCH’s colleagues Er. Liew and Er. Soon were in the same flight.

After checking into Park Hotel, we met cousin Wei Lian and took bus to Taipei 101 about 2km away.



Here we are on the open observation deck, sometimes closed due to strong winds.


The wind damper, a huge and heavy pendulum hanging inside the building.

Here’s Grace sitting on the floor of the shopping plaza.

And a night view of 101 from the Taipei City Hall (foreground).

Grace had some walking problems with the boots, so we bought a pair of Geox shoes at San Guang Shopping Complex.

After Taipei 101 and the surrounding shopping area, we took MRT to Gongguan area for street food. The trains are neat and clean. The passengers queue properly, do not sit on the priority seats, stand on one side of the escalators and throws away chewing gum before entering the stations. Very good civic behaviour.

Wei Lian introduced us to meat bao and soup:


Also to black-sugar pearly milk and sausage with glutinous rice wrap.

Next was stinky tofu in mala soup and crispy fried in sauce (that’s cousin Wei Lian buying the tofu).


All the food tasted fantastic.

We then took bus to Wei Lian’s workplace. Cardinal Tien Hospital to pick up his car, and we drove over to his home.

We met Chu Lien, Guan Cheng and Wen Yu; that’s our little gift of Lego to them.

After hanging out in their place for a while, drinking nice tea and having sweet fruits, Wei Lian drove us back to our hotel at about midnight.

Day 2, 16 Jan 2013
We woke up and met YowCH’s colleagues at breakfast in Park Hotel.

We walked to Ren-Ai Road to Furong Building (about 650m) where TYLin Taiwan office resides.

After meeting Taipei colleagues, we had no more plans with TYLin office and went about to our own tour of the city, starting late morning. We walked about Sogo above Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT Station and the vicinity.

Then Wei Lian picked us up and drove us to Gugong National Palace Museum.



No photography is allowed inside to protect flash damage to the artifacts. We had lunch (on Wei Lian) in a fancy restaurant on 4th floor (San Xi Tang).

We sneaked a few shots on the mobile phone :)

After the museum, Wei Lian drove us back to Park Hotel at about 5:30pm for us to prepare for dinner at 6:30pm. The sky is rather dark as Taiwan is more Easterly than Singapore. With the heavy after-work traffic, the trip took about 40 minutes.

We then dressed up for TYLin Taiwan’s Annual Dinner.

We walked a short 450m from Park Hotel to Howard Plaza Hotel, the restaurant was in Basement 2.




Dinner started very punctually at 7:00pm. They had professionals and staff performing, and a karaoke session in the end.


Dinner ended at about 9:30pm.

Taipei office gave us special organic Taiwanese rice as take-home gifts.

After dinner we walked back to the hotel, rather cold weather, and this is Grace with her new trench-coat bought in the morning.

Day 3, 17 Jan 2013
We woke up and waked to the ZXFX MRT Station to take train to CKS Memorial Hall Station.

We reached the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall at 9:15am (only about 2.5km from hotel).

There are scaffolds and hoardings as the memorial is undergoing renovations, throughout the year of 2013.





To get to the main hall, we couldn’t take the external staircases due to renovations, and had to walk into the building to use the lifts or internal staircases.

This is the main hall with Chiang Kai-Shek’s bronze statue seated.

At 10.00am, we witnessed the ceremonial changing of the guards, 20 mins of parade.

We then took the MRT to Taipei Main Station to buy some snacks (from Xin Dong Yang) and grabbed a fast food duck rice as we had skipped breakfast.


After the snack, we took taxi back to Park Hotel, checked out and roamed the city again, visiting the Toy’s Town on the Sogo (white building) on Zhong Xiao Road to buy presents home. For lunch, we ate some rather tasty noodles in a small shop behind Sogo.

We then returned to the hotel at 2:30pm, having walked through the underground MRT mall, and passed by the large RenAi-DunNan roundabout. We met up with Liew and Soon and took 2 taxis to TaoYuan Airport, arriving at 3:40pm after going through heavy traffic. After checking in, we waited for boarding and spent our remaining loose change on snacks.

The flight took off on time at 5:30pm, and we reached Changi at 10:20pm. Dad drove us home and here are the goodies:

Experience:
1. Taipei is very tourist friendly, good buses, MRT and taxis.
2. Be prepared for sudden weather changes, especially in spring and autumn.
3. Local street food is fantastic.
4. Clothes and food are generally cheaper than Singapore, but imported items (toys, electronics) are about the same as Singapore.
5. Signs are in Chinese (traditional) adn English, the English translations are very good, very helpful for us who read little Chinese.

We thank God for this trip, for:
1. Safety and good weather.
2. Good time for business interaction with the TYLin Taipei team, and also some Chongqing friends (Dr. Tang and Yang Jin).
3. Meeting of cousin Wei Lian and his family.
4. Some time to tour around.
5. Grace’s parents helping us look after the children.

We shall return to Taipei again shortly, with the children, in March.

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