Travels in Taiwan

My first trip to Taiwan was definitely unforgettable. I had no idea Taiwan was such a beautiful country. I stayed in Taoyuan a small city outside of Taipei. My hotel was very nice. The rooms were huge and there were several good things about the location. There was a bus that went to downtown in one stop down the road. There was a a seven eleven down the street, a restaurant in the hotel and even a health facility with a swimming pool.

My first day there I met my close friend Sharon. It was the first time we have met in person but we had been friends for almost two years now online. First we went to Taipei main station, which is huge. Then we ate some delicious Chinese food. We had dumplings and egg drop soup. Anyways we saw some sights like Chiang-kai Shek's memorial, botantical gardens, Ximen square for some traditional Taiwanese noodles. And then we went to downtown Taipei for some sights like Taipei 101, shopping and some night clubs.

The next day I went to the Chinese National Palace Museum. It was a place I had always wanted to go. I am fascinated by the history and culture of ancient China It was very neat. The outside architecture was impressive and the collection was massive but I couldn't see everything in one day. I saw collections in the main building but there was another building. I saw some of ancient China's greatest treasures and artifacts. It was too bad they prohibit taking pictures cause I would have taken some photos. The collection was most impressive including the archives and calligraphy paintings.

The scenery of the museum was very nice. There was a Chinese garden and two full buildings full of collections. There were tours going on as well in every language. I saw many Japanese and even Korean students visiting the museum. There were also just tour groups in a specific language. So it was quite busy when I arrived at the museum. The archives section was very interesting. It had some original documents from several different sources. There were treaties and other documents that you could read that had been translated. It was cool to see such pieces of history.


Afterward, I visited my friend Yama in Hsinchu. It was about 2 hours away from Taipei so I took a bus and met him that evening. Now Yama had studied at Ball State University as exchange student. It's where I met him my senior year in college. In fact, Yama is the friend who introduced me to Korean and Dongyeop, his Korean roommate in college. You could say he is the reason I'm here in Korea but there are many factors. But if I had never met Yama, I don't believe I would be here. He even met my parents once and I met his family when I visited Japan a few years ago. So you could say we are old friends.

We sat down at a Taiwanese style restaurant and ate some noodles and talked about the past and the good times we shared. Then we talked about things that happened in our lives the past two years and how things have changed. It was a really nice time. Yama insisted I stay with him in his apartment so I accepted his invitation. It was a great night but we both had to wake up early for his work in the morning. That's just the busy way of life in Asia though. I'm starting to adjust to it now.