Agh! Once again, apologies for the late post! I keep on pushing back writing blog stuff because I always think I’ll be less busy the next day, but that’s never how it works…
It’s crazy to think that I’ve already been here for over three weeks! As I’m writing this, I’m realizing that I have tons of stuff to catch up on. We only just started classes last week (more on that another time), so I’ve had two whole weeks to do pretty much whatever. When I was grabbing lunch with my 阿姨 (aunt) on the first day, she asked me if I had any plans for the next few weeks. I genuinely had no clue!
Before departing a few weeks back, I decided I wanted to try being a little more… spontaneous? (yeah I realize that this might sound a little cliché) I’ve recently been thinking about how while I’m a school I seldom leave room for any spontaneity, mostly because I’m pretty terrible at gauging my limitations and then end up committing myself to too many things. As a result, I almost always have something I feel like I “need” to be doing or working on. Admittedly, having little to no free time sounds kinda terrible, but I (usually) find myself perfectly happy during the busy school year (a topic for another time!). So for now, I wanted to try and take advantage of this rare opportunity where I have pretty much zero obligations.
My first two days or so were spent seeing some family, recovering from jetlag, finishing up the website (lame), and just strolling around the area around my apartment. The neighborhood I’m living in is pretty close to NTNU (National Taiwan Normal University) and NTU (National Taiwan University, where my program is housed) so there’s lots of young people around and cool, hip stores and coffee shops. I’m also just a 15-minute walk away from two different night markets (Shida and Gongguan), which are Taiwan’s iconic and awesome late-night street markets. Nice!
On the third day I met up with some cool Yalies at the Shida night market. Even just strolling through any one of these can be near sensory overload (in the fun way); double fisting bubble tea (bobes) and 水煎包 (steamed and pan-fried pork buns), we navigated our way through narrow alleyways lined with brightly-lit shops, dodging scooters as we attempted to decipher the characters of different food carts we passed by. It was crowded, chaotic, and tons of fun.
Probably one of my favorite days of this trip so far was sometime during this first week when a handful of us decided to visit Taiwan’s National Palace Museum, which was a highlight on its own. It had an astonishing collection of ancient and modern Chinese artifacts and artworks, all of which would probably have been destroyed if they weren’t evacuated from mainland China in the 1940’s during the Chinese Civil War. I’m usually not a big “museum guy” (I just typed that but I have no clue what that means), but some of the stuff here was truly breathtaking. I was too distracted and didn’t take nearly enough pictures.
After spending a few hours at the museum, we were about to head home when Brandon (for the sake of privacy, I’ll use fake names) insisted that we stay out and do something in the area, even though we were already pretty exhausted. We agreed that if we went back now, we’d probably just head back and spend the rest of the day in our apartments (which would have been lame!) so we might as well check out the area.
We had been strolling around for a bit when Mike pointed out a pretty unsuspecting sign for a temple nearby, so we decided to go check it out. After walking underneath the MRT for a while, we turned and made our way through a bunch of snaking, narrow streets that felt like they weren’t quite made with pedestrians in mind. We got lost a once or twice (even with Google Maps helping us out). Strangely, despite all the tightly-packed, multi-story apartments and buildings around us, it felt like not a soul was around.
Then, out of nowhere, we turned the corner and boom – temple. Its prescence was almost startling, as if it had just fell from the sky and happened to land in this neighborhood. Against a backdrop of concrete apartments and gray skies, its vibrant rooftops and incredibly detailed ornaments felt movie-like, unreal. We were in awe.
Later that night, I was thinking about what exactly made seeing that temple so amazing. Sure, it was a incredible building and the stark contrast with its surroundings made it even more so, but it felt like more than just a nice-looking object. I don’t think that it would have been nearly as astonishing if we found it on TripAdvisor and said “Hey, this temple looks pretty dope, let’s go and check it out tomorrow” and then went.
I think there’s something special about just happening upon something. It lets you approach and appreciate things in a different light – less like an outsider observing something and more like experiencing something as it unfolds before you. Maybe viewing somewhere (or something) as a predetermined destination isolates it from its surroundings in a way. Walking through winding and unfamiliar alleyways – unsure of where we heading or what we would see – provided a unique a sense of context and a different understanding of our the place we were in. Again, I hate to be cliché, but I think this sense of being “present” – not just seeing but somehow embracing that time and space you occupy – truly did make the whole place that much more beautiful and profound.
Afterwards, we made our way towards a nearby mall to grab dinner a one of Taiwan’s must-visit restaurants: Din Tai Fung. They’re famous for their xiaolongbao soup-filled dumplings, each one masterfully made with exactly 18 folds and the perfect ratio of soup-to-meat-to-dough that somehow never bursts its fragile skin. Each one is a delicate, savory little pocket of heaven.
Still hungry for more, we made our way to Shilin's sprawling night market, one of Taiwan’s largest. Shida’s night market – which already occupies several blocks – seems just a fraction of the size of Shilin’s. That night, we were able to find one of the few places I remember going to when I was little, a stand called Hot Star that serves massive, face-sized slabs of Taiwanese fried chicken for about $2USD each. It was just as amazing as I remembered.
And to think that this day almost never happened! Initially, I think I was a little uncomfortable with the idea of waking up and not having any clue what I was going to do for the whole day. I've figured out that as long as I just step out of the house, one thing would lead to another and the day would sort of just work itself out. It's been a pretty refreshing change of pace.
I’ll try to post again soon about some more recent adventures. I've been super busy j chillin' and then things went from 0 to 💯 real quick once classes started. It has been hard to adjust, but hopefully things will begin to level out and I can chip away at some more posts. If there is anything in particular you’d like to see or hear about, please let me know!