Taipei, OR Leaving the Country to Get a Visa

On returning from our Australian adventure our plan was to renew our visas, and then head north to Nha Trang where we will be teaching this year. We arrived home on Saturday evening, and Fr. Trinh began looking into our new visas on Monday. The community here has a visa agent of sorts that they use here. Our options were three months, six months, or one year. We opted for a year long visa, it was slightly more expensive than three additional three month visas, or a six month and a three month, and it means we do not have to go through this process again. By "this process" I mean that we had to transfer money in American dollars to the company here to pay the visa fees, acquire passport photos, and then leave the country. Had we known about this process prior to leaving for Australia we would have set the wheels in motion so that we could pick up our new visas on entry to Vietnam from that trip, but as it was we needed to schedule a new trip. We chose to go to Taiwan last weekend.

We chose Taiwan because there is another Spiritan community there, it does not require a visa for American visitors on short stays, and it is easy to navigate as an English speaking person. We were supposed to leave HCMC on Friday evening and arrive in Taipei late at night but a thunderstorm rolled in and delayed all of the flights in the airport. Our flight was delayed so long that it had to be canceled and rescheduled for the next day because of work limits for the crew. While spending six hours in an airport on a Friday evening is not exactly my idea of fun, the airline did put us up in a hotel for the night where we had hot water and covered our dinner and breakfast. Our flight was rescheduled for noon on Saturday, which was fine, although I'm not sure we needed a 5am phone call to alert us of that information.

As they say, misery loves company, and we made some friends in our never-ending wait in various line (for meal vouchers, hotel rooms, to get on the bus, to find out our new flight... etc.). One was an American woman who is also an English teacher here in Vietnam who was trying to visit here family in Seattle for a week. Another was an Australian man trying to get back to Melbourne. There was also a German couple who were desperately in need of getting back to Munich by the next day. All of these passengers were transferred to flights on other airlines, though I don't know the fate of their connections which they undoubtedly missed. Apparently Taipei is quite the hub for budget connections.

When we did finally make it to Taipei it was late on Saturday night, but we had to wander the city a bit until our AirBnb host, who was admittedly quite accommodating about the delay, was off of work and could meet us at his apartment. Taipei is much like any modern capital city. It reminds us in size and scope of Chicago - but all of the signs are in Chinese. In fact those two cities have almost the same population at around 2.7 million people.

Our hosts in Taipei.

Sunday morning we were able to attend mass, in English, at a Salesian church down the road. We stopped off at a bakery beforehand  for some breakfast, and ate it in a park. Mass was mostly Filipinos, as is typical of English masses in non-English speaking countries. After church we headed downtown for lunch at a typical bento counter where we had fried chicken and then over to a cat cafe (of course) called Mask Cat. The concept of the cat cafe started in Taiwan, and Mask Cat was rated as having the cuddliest cats, but a rambunctious 6 year old at the table next to us unfortunately kept the cats away from our table.

Left: Friend chicken lunch. Right: Banana Waffle at Mask Cat

After lunch we did a short sightseeing tour of the Chiang Kai Shek memorial and the Longshan temple. Chiang Kai Shek is, in essence, the founder of Taiwain. Taiwan's official name is the Republic of China and still claims to have rightful rule over all of mainland China, as mainland China, or the People's Republic of China, claims rule over Taiwan. When Chaing Kai Shek's party lost to the communists in 1949 they fled to Taiwan where he was dictator until his death in 1975. Taiwan was slowly democratized in the 80's and 90's under Chaing Kai Shek's son. 

Longshan Temple

Both the temple and the memorial were nice places to visit, with lots of people, both locals and tourists, taking advantage of the cooler temperatures from the morning's downpour. We didn't stay long at the temple, but we did wander through the gardens at the memorial and enjoyed the people watching. We also managed to catch the relieving of the guard at the memorial which featured some very theatrical marching and some rifle tossing. 

Chaing Kai Shek

Looking down the steps at the Chaing Kai Shek memorial towards the national theater and opera house. 

After the memorial we headed across town to get a good look at Taipei 101 which is notable because it is very tall. We did not go up to the top of it, but I hear the view is great. We then had dinner at on of Taipei's famous night markets where we had a giant piece of spicy fried chicken, grilled corn, sweet tea, boar sausage, and a variety of stuffed waffles in the shape of kitten paw prints. We then retired to our AirBnb stuffed and happy.

Night Market!

Monday morning we visited the National Palace Museum. This museum is a huge treasure trove of Chinese art an culture dating back several hundred years. Chris and I enjoyed the museum, and spent several hours there, but I would say the experience would be improved by knowing more about Chinese history. The main explanations of the exhibits were in English (as well as Japanese and Chinese) but the individual items were not labeled and there was little explanation of historical context. After the museum we stopped for burgers at a little corner joint we happened across and they were delicious.

Enjoying the walk through he gardens up tot he National Palace Museum

We then headed up to visit the Beitou Hotsprings. Taipei is well known for its hotsprings, and there is a public bath house in a park where one can enjoy them without paying the pricy resort fees at the neighboring hotels. Unfortunately, because of bad maps and the throngs of people in the park playing Pokemon Go, it took us a while to actually find the entrance. Once we did, we really enjoyed the experience. There were very few tourists, it was mostly just Taiwanese grandparents taking the waters. There are three pools of varying temperature fed from the hotspring, and then two cold pools. We enjoyed all of them, though in the heat of the summer one can't sit in 100 degree water for very long!

We had intended to go to another night market for dinner, but it still wan't late enough after the hot springs and we had eaten a late lunch. Instead we opted to visit Eslite, a bookstore in Taipei which is open 24 hours! They had an excellent English selection and Kim ended up with three new books. Having burned an hour or two in the bookstore night had fallen and we caught some food on our walk back to the AirBnB. There was an interesting place that specialized in frenchfries so we had some with sour cream and chives.

Eslite

Tuesday morning was our chance to visit Hsinchu - a small town about an hour outside of Taipei which is the residence of the Spiritan community in Taiwan. It took a little doing to get on the correct train, we ended up on a slow one instead of a fast one, and then a little more doing to locate the Spiritan parish, so we didn't actually arrive until 2pm. Nonetheless Fr. Issac and Fr. Joseph (from Ghana and Nigeria respectively), the fathers serving there, provided us with a delicious lunch. Afterwards Fr. Joseph showed us around Hsinchu, which is a seaside town. As such we were able to enjoy some lovely walks around the coast and many beautiful parks, which were of course packed with people playing Pokemon Go. In the evening we had a delicious dinner at a local noodle place, and took the train back into Taipei.

A timeless clock in a seaside park in Hsinchu

Tuesday morning we were on our way back to Vietnam. Although the flight itself is only about two hours the additional time spent getting to the airport and going through customs, as well as waiting at customs in Vietnam for our new visas meant that we left the AirBnb in Taipei at 11am and didn't arrive at home in Vietnam until 5:30 in the evening. On the plus side two of the seminarians met us at the airport so we didn't have to catch a cab, and we then enjoyed dinner with the seminarians who were all back from summer break. 

We have spent the past couple days recouping, doing laundry, and packing, as tomorrow we (finally!) head to Nha Trang. We will be sure to update you all again when we get there and have some idea of our teaching schedule. 

Thanks for following along and feel free to drop us a comment or a question at any time!

P.S. Our travel to and around Taipei was funded by ourselves and fundraised monies go to cover only the costs associated with our mission work.