DID: Breakfast cook at the B&B suggested we take the kids to the zoo, another guest at the hotel recommended a cable car ride and visit to tea growers. Quick internet search revealed that zoo was actually at the base of the same cable car for the tea, so just like that we had our day planned with something for everyone.
The Maokong Gondola spans 2.5 km in the mountains, gorgeous ride up. Teahouses are nestled in the cliffs along the side of the mountain and there are at least 50 to visit. Very walkable but better with a vespa or convertible. We walked left out of the cable car and headed towards the Tea Promotion Centre (about at 30 minute walk at a leisurely pace). The curators were so excited to have us use their disabled lift facilities to get the stroller up and down the stairs – I think it was probably the inaugural use judging from the number of photos they took. Free mugs of really lovely tea (and I generally don’t like tea very much – but this was good!) and a well done small museum display of the tea harvesting and drying process. After we left the Centre, we followed their directions to the teahouse which provides the leaves for their tea and bought a box (it really was that good!)
Skies were threatening and it must have been raining over the cable car line because they shut it down. We started walking downhill for lack of a better plan. There are shuttle vans that go between the cable car stations but none passed us. Eventually a taxi came to the rescue and took us to the base station + zoo – but not before we’d gotten quite a workout!
Arrived at the zoo 15 minutes after last admissions for the day. Fortunately due to the cable car shut-down, lots of people were in the same situation so the admissions people were lenient. We snuck in behind another group of people who argued/cajoled their way in. Actually Rhys kind of ran in with them and they had no choice but to let us go!
Top priority was the giant panda exhibit. Ended up with enough time to get through the Asian rainforest exhibit (monkeys and tigers the highlight), the flamingos, and the petting zoo. The whole zoo is really fantastic, artistically done, lots of fun photo ops, beautiful landscaping, etc. Even Jason enjoyed it, and he’s admittedly not really a ‘zoo person’. Feeling not so bad now that we were unable to see the pandas in either Beijing or Shanghai.
Quick showers back at the hotel, then off to meet up with friends Scott and Joyce. Taxi driver could not understand the address. Ended up asking him to drop us off at a Starbucks in the hopes that they’d have free wifi and we could Skype Scott. Turned into a comedy of errors, eventually the barista took pity on us and not only let us use the café phone to call Scott, but also spoke to Joyce directly, wrote the address down in Chinese for us AND told the cab driver where to take us. So nice!
Was such a treat to spend an evening with friends, not to mention being able to leave the decisions and the translation to them! Plus they yanked us out of our box of restaurants of foodie fame and took us to one that – in addition to good food – had live entertainment. Rhys in particular had a great night dancing on chairs, playing hide-and-seek behind the curtains and making eyes at the lead singer. GnR even got little gifts from the owner/manager – chopstick and spoon sets in Burberry print.
Rhys, the little chatterbox, is speaking very clearly now. Scott and Joyce could even understand him without trouble and noticed a difference between now and a month ago in Seoul.
ATE: Breakfast @ hotel (we’re in a B&B). Omelet with corn and cheese wrapped in a rice-flour tortilla, roasted guava and pineapple, guava juice. Jason offered to help make breakfast tomorrow, so hopefully he’ll learn to cook something equally yummy!
Lunch @ food stalls at top of cable car. Dumplings, stir-fried noodles, and corndogs for the boys. All good (especially the corndogs!)
Dinner @ China Po. Favorite dish of the night was sliced braised pork and cucumber wrapped in a doughy bread. Also had a steamed cod in soy, fried rice, mountain vegetable stir fry, fried soft shell crab.
Post-dinner drinks @ the Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s Taipei tasting room (a chapter of the same whisky society Jason belonged to in London). Jason was in heaven! This chapter certainly has a Taiwanese twist – first notable difference was that I wasn’t the only woman in there. Also able to order something other than whisky (I had a mojito). Even differences as far as the whisky goes – they served Scott’s on the rocks without making a face, and Jason’s drink looked more like a quadruple than a single!
SLEPT: No housekeeping service at the Mudon House, that’s a bit of a bummer. Particularly because I forgot to take photos of the room when we arrived so it means the room in posterity is going to look a little more lived in than the rest.
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