At the beginning of February, I was supposed to have returned to Philly from visiting my family in Beijing, but all flights from China to the States were cancelled. The same day that travel restriction was announced, my family and I flew to Taiwan, with the intention for me to stay there for at least two weeks so that I could be cleared to fly to the States from Taiwan (even though my family had basically been unofficially self-quarantining for the entire month of January already, but let’s not dwell on that) (crossing our fingers that there wouldn’t be new travel restrictions from Taiwan to the States in that span of time).
Thus, I spent most of February in Taiwan. I don’t plan on making a travel post, so I want to focus my February recap on my time in Taiwan. I haven’t been up to too much since arriving back in Philly anyway, except for catching up with friends and settling back into a routine (yes, I made it back!).
The airplane and airport were super empty. The airport staff were all wearing masks, gloves, and goggles. When we arrived in Taiwan, got off the plane, and were waiting in line for the shuttle bus to take us to our hotel, my dad overheard a woman and her kid chatting in line with us, and he picked up that they were on the same flight as we were and were planning to fly out to the States the next day. I wonder if they made it past immigration, as they had not given themselves a two week cushion from leaving China.
We had flown into Taipei, and as this was all very last minute, we booked a hotel near the airport for just one night to buy us a little time to make a plan. The morning after arriving in Taipei, we caught a train to Hualien, where we would end up staying for a week. Whilst waiting at the train station in Taipei, we popped into several convenience stores to hunt for masks and hand sanitizer, and after a few failed attempts, we did find one store that still had some masks left in stock, which we had to ask the cashier for directly. Once the stock was exposed, I’m sure the people in line behind us bought the rest out, each one taking a ration. We also got some snacks for the ride. I had boxed milk tea and Krispy Kreme.
My dad took this hilarious photo.
While waiting at the Hualien train station for a hotel shuttle to pick us up, we bought bubble tea and brought it back to the hotel to drink with our masks off. Over the next few days, we would relax about eating in public and having our masks off for that brief amount of time.
At least during the time I was in Taiwan, the health risk wasn’t very high. Taiwan is very conscientious about sanitation on the individual and public levels, even before the virus, but masks are a nice, extra safeguard. Although people in Taiwan didn’t wear masks all the time, people reliably wore masks on public transportation, and in bigger cities, you would see more people wear them at all times in public, not just at public hubs like train stations.
Hualien Farglory Hotel. The resort we stayed at was on top of a mountain. They had a shuttle that would take you to a mall, a night market, or the train station, so that’s pretty much all we went down the mountain for. Otherwise, we would chill on the mountain and take in the view, and one afternoon we had afternoon tea.
Hualien Bay Mall. Before entering the mall, they take your temperature; most hotels also did temperature checks. The Boxpark reminded me of the one in Shoreditch!
Hualien Dongdamen Night Market. Taiwanese BBQ corn and stinky tofu are musts at any Taiwanese night market. There was a trendy seafood bar at the market, which we didn’t try out, but they had a cool chandelier installation made of shells.
The next phase of our getaway was half a week in Yilan. We grabbed some snacks at the train station.
Evergreen Resort Hotel. The hotel we stayed at in Yilan was a-m-a-z-i-n-g!! Also super expensive. So we made the most of it. Yilan is known for its hot springs, and we basically had our own hot spring in our bathroom. The huge windows were stunning, and although the view doesn’t look like much in the photo, it gets more beautiful at night when you see the city light up.
Next to the bathroom was the bedroom, where there was one huge bed, and next to that was the tatami room, where we placed two futons. Every day we were given another full bottle of wine (though only my dad drinks in the family, and only on occasion), and everything in the minibar was “free” (more like “included” in our stay haha. You better believe we cleaned out the minibar every night. I drank so much soy milk and Calpis).
Also included in our stay was a choice of free afternoon tea or dinner every day. We went for the afternoon tea. They had four things on their menu, which was perfect, because there were four of us traveling (my family is a family of five, but one brother was already safely in Canada for uni). We had their smoked salmon crepe, croissant waffles, stuffed french toast, and chocolate mousse pancakes. The salmon crepe was delicious and the croissant waffles were out of this world! The stuffed french toast was also really good, but a bit too indulgent. The chocolate mousse pancakes were fine but didn’t stand a chance against the rest of the menu.
Tangweigou Hot Spring Park. The park was lovely, with fish spas and lights everywhere, but the highlight for me was the scallion pancake shop. We each had one scallion pancake every night to accompany our dinner. There was one night we headed out a little later and the shop was already closing up, but the shop owner had made a few extra, which I assume they had meant to take home for themselves, but they sold it to us instead and even gave us a discount. Such kindness!
Another food highlight was the duck and cheese egg waffle. The shop used a Dyson hair dryer to cool down and crisp up the waffle once it was out of the iron, which was interesting. Very practical.
Last up at the park were the arcades. My brother and I aren’t really into arcade games (my brothers are into video games though). Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that we aren’t into pay-to-play games. You don’t need to worry about us ever falling into the grips of gambling.
My parents, however, got reallyyy into them. My mom had the misfortune of playing a broken machine that sucked up two of her coins. My dad exchanged 1000NT for a whole bag of coins and ended up winning a plushie with a lot of change left over. My brother and I got a lecture about how we need to take more risks in life.
I really enjoyed our time in Hualien and Yilan. I visit Taiwan almost annually, but I’ve only ever visited my parents’ hometowns—Taipei and Chiayi—so this trip was a real treat. But after a week and a half of exploring, it was finally time to see our relatives again.
From Yilan, we caught a train to Chiayi, where we stayed for a few days. At the train station I spotted a library vending machine, but I didn’t have enough time at the station to read and return a book, and I already had my own book on me anyway. It’s the first time I’ve seen a library vending machine in real life though, so that was exciting.
I didn’t realise how few pictures I took of Chiayi and Taipei until I got to writing this post! I guess home is so comfortable that you just… live it, enjoy it… instead of stopping to take photos. That second photo is enough to capture what Chiayi is to me: chicken rice from 喷水鸡肉饭 and bubble tea from 清心福全.
We took a road trip from Chiayi to Gukeng one day to hike the Caoling Shuiliandong Trail. It’s been awhile since I’ve been so completely surrounded my nature. After our hike, we rested at a cafe, took in the view, drank coffee and milk tea, and munched on waffles and sandwiches until the sun went down. We also escaped the rain just in time.
I took a lot of photos of plants, and threw in some bookish photos with my Kindle as well, though my brother didn’t approve: “I don’t think Kindles go with nature.” Well sorry for not lugging around a book!
After a few days in Chiayi, we caught the train to Taipei for the last leg of my trip before I could finally head back to Philly. One evening my brother spotted a trench coat at Uniqlo’s storefront that he liked, so all of us headed in excitedly. It’s not every day my brother is open to new clothes! He was wearing shorts that day, so long coats looked weird with his outfit, but, helpful sister that I am, I used my body to block his naked legs whilst we considered different coats in the mirror. My brother and I ended up leaving with matching jackets (not the trench coat he saw at the storefront though). I swear, I wouldn’t have been so tempted to get a jacket if we didn’t spend so long at the store!
Finally, the day I’ve been waiting for! My flight took me from Taipei to Tokyo to Boston to Philly. In Taipei, at passport control we had to get fingerprinted, which I was wary of due to the virus. But no fuss! I planned to head straight to the bathroom to wash my hands. But I had nothing to worry about after all. Right past passport control was a line of airport staff waiting with hand sanitizer, posed ready to squirt you with hand sanitizer and give you Duty Free coupons. I love Taiwan.
In Taiwan, I had my basic cloth mask on, but once the plane landed in Tokyo, I put on the proper N95 respirator mask. I don’t like wearing those masks because they’re tight on the nose bridge and sort of drag your face down, which sometimes causes a runny nose, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I had that mask on for all 4 hours I was in the Tokyo airport and all 12 hours I was on the flight from Tokyo to Boston.
While I was waiting for my transfer in Tokyo, the airport staff called for me because they got an email from US Customs to check me out. Luckily it all worked out because 1) I was in Beijing, not Wuhan, and 2) I was out of China for more than two weeks (18 days to be precise). It did get my heart rate up for a second there though. When I arrived in Boston, they got all my contact information at immigration, just in case. Oh, and earlier on the plane, everyone had to fill out a form and include their seat number and everything. Once I got past immigration in Boston and transferred to the domestic terminal, I didn’t see a single person wearing a mask, so I took mine off.
It was a longwinded trip back to the States. Sometimes when I read the news here, I almost wish I was back in Taiwan, because Taiwan has their shit together, but you know what? I’m just happy to be back.
(I’ve been compiling my own set of resources for when I need a mood boost, like this precious video of Jerry from Cheer finding out he’s going to be Ellen’s correspondent at the Oscars and The Happy Broadcast Instagram account for positive, wholesome, anxiety-free news. If you have happy links, share them below! ♡)