Taipei November 9-12

Our first day was lost to jetlag, as we slept away most of it, only waking up in time to check out the local night market before heading back to bed! Over the next few days though, we managed to get out and see more of Taipei.

On our first rainy day (the first of many) we visited “The Living Mall” where we learned of the excellent Baby Boss – a mini replica village with child-sized shops, restaurants, a garage, fire station etc. The kids can have 20 minute job experiences, where they can try out being a dentist or a gold miner or a million other jobs. It’s not cheap, but very well organized. Emma was an air stewardess and then a fire fighter. I have to say she took the 10-minute “orientation” explanations in chinese with great patience! In fact both children were able to play with others without any chinese. We're so jealous!

Walking back to the hotel in the rain, we kept looking in every food shop we passed, hoping to pick up baby food. After an hour, we became a little desperate, as we realized that Chinese kids don’t eat that stuff. We learned that they just eat rice with soft stuff mixed in. but of course you can’t buy it in shops… People were a little confused by our question, but terribly helpful. In the end Dorka found an expat, who told her of an expat shop that had what we needed.

On our next rainy day, we climbed to the top of Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world, at 508 m. The weather didn’t allow us to see too much, but we enjoyed looking down on the city. Emma and I counted 4 helipads, and the living mall we were in yesterday. There were huge exhibitions of carved coral, which is something of a specialty here, but somehow I don’t think we’ll be squeezing any of that in our backpacks…



To see all the photos, just click here on Lara!

Taipei 1