Recently in Taipei Category

It was our last morning in Taipei. We were a bit sad to go and not just because we had a 8 hour 20 minute China Airlines flight ahead of us. Taipei surprised us as with its varied culture, tasty cuisine and relatively baby-friendly city. Of course, we were extremely fortunate to have Allan and Susan as our hosts who helped navigate our outings, choose the restaurants, and speak the language for us. The few times we went out by ourselves, we managed with a lot of pointing (most menus have pictures) and gesturing. I realized that cab drivers were more likely to understand the word "okay" than "yes" which came in handy and not surprisingly, Geoff started recognizing certain Chinese characters during our trip. We were certainly glad we came to Taipei, knowing that as much as we packed into our week trip, there was still much to be explored. We never had a chance to take some day trip to the north coast like Yeliu which looked mystical with its sandstone formations, and we never made it to the National Palace Museum - not too surprising since it wasn't until we moved to Paris that we finally went...

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...

We spent the day in Danshui, a small waterfront town about 20km northwest of Taipei.  The boardwalk felt much like anywhere -- crowded shops selling kitsch, soft serve ice cream stands, and amusement park games for prizes (Mirabelle won a blow-up sword).  As usual, Mirabelle was a big hit with the Taiwanese women -- one young girl even asked if she could take our picture.  It's those kinds of experiences that make you realize how much of an anomaly you are.  And, in fact, we certainly are.  I have seen a handful of westerners around, and I've seen plenty of children out and about.  But I have yet to come across any Caucasian kids -- even at the zoo, where I was sure they'd be hiding.  The lunch place that Susan had picked for us turned out to be closed, so we went instead to The Waterfront, Mediterranean cuisine overlooking the water.  It didn't feel very Taiwanese, but the food was quite good -- pesto pizzas and grilled chicken.  I had some fruit tea -- which was tea mixed with pineapple (like tasty hot juice).  Geoff decided to eat light to save room for the ensuing street food (fishball soup,...

After thinking we had adjusted so easily to the upside down Taipei time zone, we found ourselves Sunday afternoon exhausted.  We decided to come back to our hotel room at around 2:30 pm for a one or two hour nap.  So imagine my surprise when I rolled over, looked at the clock and saw it was 6:30 pm.  Mirabelle was still sound asleep, and I didn't blame her.  After a half-hearted discussion to get motivated, we decided to call it a night.  Not surprisingly, we were all up for the day the next morning at 2 am -- not good, considering nothing in Taipei really opens until 9 at the earliest.  The hot plate and pot that our friends Allan and Susan lent us came in handy as we proceeded to heat up Mirabelle some Elmo soup at 3 am.  Yes, apparently we had now officially broken every 'sleeping' rule there was: Mirabelle now was waking up in the middle of the night to snuggle with us in bed, watch television, and now, eat entire meals.  Why do I have the sinking feeling that the post-vacation weeks may be a harder adjustment for us all than the vacation itself?Feeling like...

Upon first glance, Taipei feels a bit like Bangkok. There are a lot of old, dirty buildings with some crazy wiring, and the throng of motor scooters creates a haze of pollution you can practically taste. Yet, Taipei shines with innovation. Its engineering and manufacturing in technology (iPhones are made here) have contributed to the country's wealth and enabled it to emerge as a major business destination. As a result, you'll find Starbucks on nearly every corner, as well as major European brands -- Moschino, Gucci, Cartier, etc. This affluence seems epitomized by Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper (soon to be outdone by Dubai) at a quarter of a mile high. At the foot of the building lies an enormous mall connected via foot bridges to a maze of additional department stores.  The quantity of shops feels absurd -- could there really be enough Taiwanese (or tourists) to buy this many $200 sweaters? We did make our way to the top of Taipei 101, despite my reluctance. The elevator ride itself was an engineering marvel -- quiet, smooth and fast. If it wasn't for my ears popping (and the subsequent dizzying view), I would have sworn we had only gone...

We've made it to Taipei. Perhaps it's unwise to boast when we still have to make it back, but the plane rides weren't as bad as I thought they'd be. Of course, in our three plane rides, we got pretty lucky - in the first ,we had three bulkhead seats for the three of us (even though Mirabelle at just under two was still a lap child); in the second, we flew business class; and in the third, we actually had four seats to ourselves. I didn't think it possible to keep a toddler in an airplane seat for 12 hours straight, but somehow we pulled it off. I had read that with toddlers, it's best not to let them know that getting out of the seat was an option (like a car), but I didn't think Mirabelle would go for that. But it did work, and instead of letting her roam in the aisles, we let her jump around in her seat or on the floor for intervals. We had videos for her, but she actually didn't log as many hours watching as I would have thought. Instead, it was a little bit of everything - watching TV, napping,...

Is there really any appropriate preparation that one can do to spend 43 hours on an airplane with a toddler?  We've packed movies, games, snacks, emergency chocolate, pacifiers (scoff if you will, but the passengers of Flight C1001 will thank me), even toys wrapped as presents to be doled out every few hours.  We shall see. Perhaps we will have gone through all our resources in the first few hours leaving Mirabelle ripping down the aisles with chocolate streaming down her cheeks.  There's only one way to find out.Will it be worth it?  A week on the beach in Hawaii will definitely be a treat (see the photo of huge snow heaps currently in Boston), but I'm not quite sure what to expect with Taipei.  Will it be as vibrant as Tokyo, as polluted as Bangkok or as organized as Singapore?  Will it be at all 'kid-friendly'?  I've talked to a lot of friends with kids and many of them do little traveling and when they do, it's short trips within the U.S.  I haven't yet come across any friends who have said, "Taipei, oh yeah, we went there with the kids."  So we are either incredibly adventurous or...

"You won't be able to do that once you have a kid," people often warned me in my pre-parent state, usually in reference to moving or traveling.  My husband Geoff and I had visited a dozen countries - Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Tunisia, to name a few, in addition to the typical European holidays in France, England, Spain and Switzerland.  Not to mention, we developed a habit of picking up all our belongings and moving to a new place - sometimes for a few months, other times for a few years.  We lived in Boston, New York and Paris in a span of literally three years at one point. There's definitely the assumption that if marriage didn't get you to "settle down" then surely having children will.  Perhaps that's why when our daughter Mirabelle was two months old, we packed up all our stuff and moved to London for a summer.  In part we wanted to prove to all the naysayers that we could travel with child, but mostly we wanted to prove it to ourselves.  And perhaps that's why as our daughter Mirabelle approaches her second birthday, she will have lived in seven apartments in three cities across...