On our last full day, we decided to start early with an official children's activity for Mirabelle. We had researched places to take kids in Taipei. But when we sought information online, we found several of them to be closed - including the Children's Museum of Taipei and the Children's Museum of Transportation. Susan said one of her friends with kids recommended Baby Boss, but the minimum age was three. With Mirabelle not even quite two yet, we thought that might be a stretch. We decided on the Children's Recreation Center which was supposed to be great for younger kids and appeared to still be up and running.
In fact, the Children's Recreation Center turned out to be much like an old-fashioned amusement park. It had a Ferris wheel, bumper cars, carousel, boat ride, train, and other rides, in addition to several playgrounds with swings, slides and a variety of climbing apparatuses. We lucked out since it was a warm, sunny morning during the week which meant we pretty much had a nice day at the park to ourselves along with a few other families. Unlike most American amusement parks, there were no size or age minimums. Instead, younger children were expected to be accompanied by an adult. Even on the carousel, Mirabelle got strapped in with a rope, and I held her hand while riding a neighboring horse. Geoff had read that the park was somewhat worn, and it was old, but not at all rundown. In fact, it appeared well maintained, and its age only added to its charm.
After tiring Mirabelle out (and of course eating ice cream), we got in a cab to go meet our friends Allan and Susan for lunch. Susan, who runs a graphic design business in Taipei, wanted us to meet her two employees who she calls "her girls." So we all met for lunch at Kiki Restaurant, Sichuan cuisine. We ate soft spicy tofu, hot string beans, and chopped meat with something like scallions. Susan showed us how to eat it properly, bringing the bowl close to your mouth so the chopsticks don't have far to carry the food.
Although Kiki Restaurant was a sleek modern place, they still had an eastern style toilet, which if you've never seen one isn't a toilet at all, but just a hole in the ground. It looks more like a urinal. I have yet to figure out how to use these properly, and find I have to pee extra slowly so I don't end up peeing all over my leg, the floor and the wall (you only make that mistake once). Overall, I've come across more western style toilets than eastern in Taipei. And surprisingly, I've had luck finding baby changing stations in many bathrooms which make it way more baby-friendly than Paris. But those eastern toilets still catch me off-guard.
After lunch, we visited Susan's office, a space which she bought and renovated. She had partitioned some of the space with glass walls so light could pour through while still offering privacy. Since it actually was a converted apartment, it felt homey with a kitchen and private bathroom. Susan had her own studio there which was under construction, and Allan had his own office there as well. The girls shared a third room. They had a handful of cats, Toro and Rich - although one of them named Idea had fallen out a window recently, which was not only sad, but an unfortunate metaphor. We drank some pearl milk tea, which was tasty but I just can't get used to rice balls in my drink. As my allergies to the cats started to act up, we decided to head out with Allan alone since everyone else had work to do.
First we went to RT Mart, which was an unassuming entrance that opened into an urban Wal-Mart of sorts. We bought a few things we needed for our plane ride back to Hawaii the following day and then got a cab to Wistaria Teahouse. A historic teahouse which once kept the company of artists and rebels, Wistaria is divided into two sections - a modern café with tables and chairs overlooking a coy pond and a back room with low tables and pillows on tatami mats for drinking tea in the traditional Japanese style. We chose the traditional room, and they brought us a tea menu as well as a display of neatly saran-wrapped desserts which Mirabelle proceeded to poke her fingers through. After two were sacrificed, we figured we'd better order so we chose three pots of tea and chose the desserts that had been mauled, although it turned out those were just samples so they brought us fresh ones. It wasn't long until we decided to let Mirabelle watch a movie on her PSP - it just was not a very kid-friendly place with the delicate cups, the boiling water, and the writhing flame.
Our Taiwanese host came out with the teas and a small pot, four cups, four bowls and a bunch of other tea paraphernalia. She showed us the steps for making the tea - washing the pot out with some boiling water (from Taipei's mountains), heating the cups and bowls with hot water, putting the tea leaves into the pot followed by hot water and followed nearly immediately by pouring the tea into the small cups. There was even a way to drink the tea - take your small cup and deeply inhale the aromas, then pour the tea into your small bowl, smell the tea again, and then drink. After showing us all the steps once, our host left us to do it ourselves which made for some mishaps - "No you drink out of the bowl, not the cup!" "Wait did you air out the pot?" Overall, we decided that we lacked the elegance to do this properly, although we did all agree that her being a young Taiwanese woman in a sleek tea uniform might have given her the edge in that regard. Breathing and drinking the tea simultaneously boosted our energy and relaxed our spirits, and we enjoyed a nice leisurely conversation. We ate wonderful snacks to accompany our tea - pineapple cake (buttery cake filled with mashed pineapple), mashed peanut candies (which melted in your mouth like peanut butter cookie dough) and whole roasted peanuts (so much for Mirabelle not eating whole nuts until she was four).
After about an hour or so, Susan called us to tell us she'd pick us up and take us to karaoke. Since Mirabelle hadn't eaten dinner, we stopped and got her an egg sandwich at Yungho Soybean Milk & Porridge King (yes, it's really that good). Karaoke in Taipei is nothing like America's staggering drunkards howling off-tune in sleazy bars. In Asia, karaoke is big business - there are posh private rooms with drink and food service (you have a phone to call for more). Our room that night at the Party Zone even had its own private bathroom attached. The building itself impresses with a sleek marble entrance and waiting room which leads up to floors and floors of private karaoke rooms. After singing our hearts out for an hour, Mirabelle passed out as we continued. I guessed if she could sleep through the night market, she could sleep through karaoke. And, it turned out, I was right.
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