Thanks! That exactly what I was looking for. MRT plus walking should get me pretty much anywhere I want to go. But I do have a couple of work-related things I have got to do where I might cab/rideshare for convenience.
Was surprised at the low amount of smoking in Bangalore India. Saw a reference that northern India has rates in the 40%+ and the south is 15%-
Waiting for my flight to Albania. Or more precisely my flight to Frankfurt which will take me to my flight to Albania. Should be fun.
And I finally arrived.
Lufthansa has stopped giving a shit about having makeable transfers thatās for sure. At least I spent almost no time in the shittiest airport in Europe as a benefit.
Waking up for breakfast and a walking tour along with a day in Tirana. There are a ton of small towns to check out around Tirana. So my stay here will be focused on them.
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I probably mentioned this before, but make sure to hit Berat if you can.
Berat is definitely on the list. Elbasan has Summer Day on March 14th. Iāll be there for that. Other place is either gonna be Durres or Kruje.
On last flight. Started with a BLR airport shuttle at midnight Friday morning, India time. On pace to land in Philly 11:30PM, EDT. Still all on Friday. So just your ho-hum 34 hour day.
Got an option to re-route through AMS to avoid CDG slowdowns due to retirement age protests (coming to a country near you?). I would have made my connection, however the outgoing flight was delayed 3 hours-no idea if that was in the terminal or stuck on the plane.
Had a nice dinner with my son in Minnesota, whooped him in a couple of games of cribbage, and wandered the Mall of America for a bit. Got an upgrade to boot.
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Speaking of connections I had a kind of butt clenching 45 minute window on my connection in Seoul. Luckily the first flight left on time and people actually know how to get off a plane there. Was in row 40 and the whole plane deboarded in like 5 minutes. That shit takes way longer in the US. But then I had to go through security even though the arrival and departure gates were almost right next to each other.
Have any of you guys traveled around Taiwan at all?
Iāve, um, been to the airport.
Hmm. Nice airport?
I was planning to go, several years ago, but that got dashed by OG SARS-CoV-1. Needless to say, Iāve got considerable beef with coronaviruses.
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I spent several days just around the Taipei area and really enjoyed it.
-The public transit was good (the subway system was relatively easy to navigate and seemed to go most of the places I wanted to go. I found the bus system a little bit more challenging to navigate in terms of figuring out schedules and when to get off the bus, but I managed)
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The food I had was excellent. Great boba on almost every corner if youāre into that, the original Din Tai Fung, and really amazing night markets if youāre into street food. I heard that they also have some good higher end stuff, but I mainly stuck to casual places/street vendors/etc.
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In general, I found it to be a little less crowded than some of the other big Asian cities like Hong Kong or Tokyo. I personally enjoyed that, but some people might feel that it seemed a little low energy/sleepy compared to other places.
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Nice! Most people Iāve talked to seem to think itās a pretty underrated place. Iām definitely into the street food scene, not so much the higher end stuff. The night markets sound great. Although unfortunately I actually donāt really like boba tea. I feel like the balls are just constantly getting in the way of me drinking a perfectly good milk tea!
Was it easy enough getting around with English? Did you buy an EasyCard for the public transit? Did you take any good day trips from Taipei?
Ate a lambās head today. Tasted good. Couldnāt bring myself to eat the eyeballs though. Drink is ayran, a mix of yogurt, salt, and water. Actually went well with the meat.
Damn, sounds more exotic to call it kokƫ qengji.
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You must have been the honored guest!
Heh. More that I had 950 lek (~$10 US) to spend on dinner than anything else.
Itās a pretty intimate restaurant. Definitely a great place to take a date so long as you donāt end up near a guy gnawing on a lambās jawbone.
A lot of the signage was in English as well as Chinese, so that made it relatively easy to navigate. Iād say most front desk employees at hotels know enough English to handle almost anything youād need. I actually speak and read Mandarin, so that was how I interracted with most street vendors and folks I just casually encountered, so I donāt really know how much the language barrier would have been a problem. My sense is that at least in Taipei you should be able to manage through some combination of people who speak English, and Google translate. As you travel further outside of the big cities, my guess is that the language barrier would be more challenging, but thatās just a hunch.
Highly recommend the Easy Card. Makes transit much easier to use, and also works as a tap to pay card in some stores (very helpful when I woke up at 4 am from jet lag and decided to hit up 7 eleven for some Ramen and tea eggs).
The farthest I ventured was one day when I took the subway to the zoo and then took the gondola up to the tea fields. The gondola ride had a nice view of the city, the village at the top was a fun place to explore for an afternoon, and my green tea was excellent (and boba free :) )
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Great thanks for tips! Are there any specific dishes from the night markets that you really liked?
Just curious, did you have any difficulty reading the traditional characters? (assuming you learned simplified). Also do they call the standard mandarin pĒtÅnghuĆ like in China or is it something different in Taiwan?
I do know some basic travel Mandarin, or at least I did 10 years ago, so brushing up on that now. Itās been a long time since Iāve been in a Chinese speaking country, so Iām very much looking forward to it! And I still know all the words to my one karaoke song in Chinese (Taiwanese artist actually) so maybe Iāll have the chance to bust that out again :)
As far as dishes go, some of my faves were
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lu rou fan, which is basically seasoned minced pork served over rice usually with a soft/medium boiled egg. Simple dish, but very hearty and a good vehicle to add chili crisp or hot oil if you want
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scallion pancakes either plain or with some toppings
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fried chicken. You can find many variations, but one of the styles that seems somewhat unique to Taiwan is a comically large boneless cutlet that is as big as your head. In some ways it is a bit of a goofy novelty, but itās also flavorful, freshly fried chicken, so how bad can it be.
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all kinds of grilled skewers of meat. I especially like squid and fish balls
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oyster omelets. Sounded like a strange combination to me, but I gave it a try and enjoyed it.
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if a soup or noodle vendor has a line, give it a shot.
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Some people will say you should at least try stinky tofu. I will not tell you that. I will tell you that the name is accurate and let you use that info as you wish.
The traditional vs simplified thing is a little tricky. I basically just looked at the different versions of a few key phrases before I got there and that was enough to navigate most menus and signs. As far as speaking, there is some regional slang, but not enough to make you unintelligible. This is getting really into the linguistic weeds, but I personally found the Beijing accent harder to understand because they tended to swallow the end of words, while the folks I met in Taipei seemed to pronounce words in a way that, to my ears at least, made it easier to tell when one word ended and the next began.
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