Travel Taipei with the Rhine's - Last Day as a family of TWO!

Well, it's official - Chris and I are truly Taipei experts at this point! Joking. But we did get out and about and thanks to my hubby's sense of adventure we bought a one day pass for the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) which is their subway system and hit the town. It was amazing. Today was a day of all shopping - there were things I wanted to explore and purchase for Sophia while in her country to give her during her big birthdays, graduation and wedding day.

FIRST STOP:

Grand Hyatt - breakfast buffet, which I have to say was AWESOME! Chris and I sat down to eat at 7:30 (since we had been up since 4:30) and didn't eat again until 7:00 tonight and this blew me away. Anyone who is planning to travel and stay at the Hyatt needs to check this out at least once. This came highly recommended from friends of ours (Thanks Kelly and Brandon) and was well worth every penny. They have European, Western and Asian breakfast. I had homemade french toast and a danish that was amazing. Chris had then braved the asian table and had dumplings, white rice and asian eggs with spring onion and some other stuff I'm not sure about but it was so yummy as I had to go get my own plate. I'm posting some pics of this so you can see it. Great way to start the day!

SECOnD STOP:

Hit the MRT and head for the Flower and Jade Market. This market is only open on the weekends and is set up under a highway overpass. It was really an amazing site to see. the flwoer market is full of beautiful flowers, trees, fountains, flower pots, I just wish we could've packed flowers to bring home. Orchids EVERYWHERE, they were huge! 3 orchids for $3 - how insane is that - bonsai trees, bamboo...

The Jade market is after the flower market and this was pretty cool too. Jade everywhere, hence the name but I did learn a lot. The deeper the shade of green and the less clear it is - the better the jade and the $$$. I didn't know this and started in deep buying all sorts of stuff and then as I started to chat and realize some were so freakin expensive, we got a lesson from a young guy who spoke english. I got Sophia 2 bracelets and a jade ring which I will wear and give to her on her wedding day. This was cool - chris said I was "easy money" and they saw me coming - he said he thought for sure they were walkie talkie to each other telling them to chat with me - it was pretty funny.

STOP #3

Head to the MRT - get off at Main Station and pick up our high speed train tix for the BIG DAY tomorrow - we had the hotel reserve our train tickets for us to pick up Sophia tomorrow - we leave on the 7:30 am train and will arrive at St Lucy's center around 10:00!! We are really excited and it's getting more real by the minute.

STOP #4

Again hop on the MRT and head to the Chinese Handicraft Market to looks at authentic chinese gifts and crafts. We got off at the right station but were given an old map so got a little turned around but in the meantime found the "peace Park" which was just gorgeous and well worth the extra time to check to it out.

We then found the craft market and it's BEginning to look a lot like Christmas around Taipei!! We woke up to this at the hotel and then ther christmas trees are out at the market and at the flower market the bonsai trees and lucky bamboo trees were decorated for christmas as well :)

STOP #5

Shilin Night Market - this is one of the largest and well known night markets in Taipei. The night markets are full of food vendors, shops , arcade like games and a real experience. I must say both Chris and I were not huge fans of this although we are glad we went. The smell really got to me and after that I could not even imagine eating there - this was a great glimpse into the cutlture though. We did see some cockroaches and I'm not sure if they were cooking them or they were jsut visitors so I needed to go back to the Gucci-esque stores or at least the knock off ones - LOL The Grand Hyatt is located in the financial district of Taiwan -most of the shops are really high end - like Chanel, Gucci, Dolce, you name it and most of the cars we have seen are BMWs, Mercedes, Lexus, etc where here it was very different and it was great to experience as much of Taipei as possible.

STOP #6

Back to Taipei City Hall (closer to 101 and our hotel) to check out the Mitsukoshi Department Store. This is NOT your average department store - I'm talking 5 stories and then a basement whcih was really awesome to see. Chris of course had his fill of shopping so not a lot of time here but it was really neat. The whole level of the A8 wing, F4 floor was BABY BABY BABY - it was so neat to see all the different kinds of clothes and the SHOES are really cool. They were a little on the expensive side the ones I saw I liked were about $35-40 so we opted to bring Sophia back if she's up for it and have her try them on before buying any of them. The clothes were amazing but very pricey as well. Honeslty I know Chris wasn't loving life at this point but I was in heaven. The shoe department for women was very cool also - - anywho, definitely something to see. We also bought pastries for the caregivers at SLC for tomorrow as well. The downstairs of this department store has a HUGE selections.

STOP #7

Taipei 101, Jason's Food market to buy DIAPERS! Yes I'm so excited this is the first pack of diapers I have boughy myself. So it's pretty cool, although I'm sure next week at this time there will be no excitement :)

FINALLY STOP #8

Back to the hotel for our last dinner together as a family of 2. We went to Cheers downstairs in the hotel and it was really nice. Felt weird to know tomorrow everything is going to change (in a good way of course) but still a little weird. It was really nice to experience Sophia's birth country and we look forward to checking out hte rest of it with her.

So that is our day in a nutshell - haha

Here are some things we have noticed about taipei and chris and I discussed these at dinner tonight and he actually agreed:

1. Scooters, scooters everywhere. Why didn't we think of this? Talk about low gas $$!

2. Knee highs are total fashion statement here - you see little girls, teenagers and woman in short shorts or skirts with knee highs and flat or low heel shoes everywhere, they look really cool, I'd look pretty silly but they look really cool.

3. The "man bag" is a MUST here - it appears the brand of choice is Gucci. All the men carry bags - they are messager style - this was interesting since we never see that in the states

4. The mullet is cool here! It's a modified mullet but most of teh younger guys have them - they are shaggier in nature but really "in" right now.

5. There are TONS of people here - wandering the streets you don't get the full effect of 3 million people but at the MRT during rush hour, you REALLY understand it!

6. Squid is the new chicken - it is served everywhere, every way - ever tried squid jerky? Chris did tonight.

Stay tuned tomorrow ( about 9:00 pm your time we should be getting sophia!) then you'll be able to read what you really want to by checking this blog - All about Sophia. We cannot wait! I'm sure after I pack the diaper bag, get the tub inflated, get all the gifts together, get her clothes together - - -I won't be able to sleep so there will most likely be another post in a few hours! I'll be awake couting carp - yeah I know it's cheesy but I haven't seen any sheep in taiwan yet - but we have seen carp!! LOL