Heading off on a whirlwind journey through Asia, I knew that this was going to be a common feeling for me, and I think that even if I stayed on this continent for two years and stayed in each country and city for longer, that sense of fear mixed with anticipation would stick with me throughout.
Considering I made the decision to come to Asia for a number of months, on my own, and having not been to 90% of the places I have, and will visit on my journey, I think that I consider myself to be quite fearless, but I feel like my experiences of such things in the past have certainly helped instil those feelings inside of me.
I've talked a lot about how the previous 'stage' of my journey was something of a trip into the unknown, but I wouldn't say that at any point I was 'worried' that I wouldn't like what I'd find when I got there. I realise that a country like China is likely to be more daunting than Laos or Cambodia, but I guess it's because I have read more, seen more photographs and generally know more about China than pretty much everywhere else I have been other than Korea and Japan, but even armed with that information I felt like I learned far more from being there than I knew beforehand.
Both Korea and China presented me with huge expectations; the former mainly because I have been there before, and I was anticipating heading to a different part of one of my favourite countries in the world as well as eagerly anticipating my return.
When it comes to some countries or cities, I haven't had any particular expectations. I've written a lot about how somewhere like Kuala Lumpur had a lot to live up to (which is did!) because I had been looking forward to going there, and then somewhere like Bangkok exceeded my expectations, because it turned out to be totally different to how I thought it would be.
As with pretty much everything in life I try to stay objective, and although I read lots about the places I am visiting, including the 'Stay Safe' portion of each cities Wikitravel page, I try to withhold my judgement until I have been there.
Some cities I visit I already know quite a bit about, and others I have no information on whatsoever, and these are often the most exciting because absolutely everything is new, and I can take it all in as I see, do and taste everything.
To many people 'new' can be daunting or frightening, but to me it's thrilling....
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The 72-hour limit on my visa in China had expired this morning so it was time to move on from Shanghai and head elsewhere. Although I didn't really spend very long in the city, I feel like it was a good decision to make a brief stop off there, and it was definitely an experience I will remember long into the future.
Staring at the bright lights of down-town from across the river was a pleasure, and I enjoyed walking around the city admiring the skyscrapers throughout the afternoon. I certainly feel like I made the most of my time in Shanghai, and I look forward to hopefully returning to China for some more exploring later on this trip.
Having used the metro system quite frequently during my stay I was pretty familiar with how to get back towards the airport as I made the reverse journey of the one I'd made on Friday afternoon including using the return of my trip on the Maglev. It took me about forty-five minutes or so to get to Longshan Road Station where you catch the magnetic train from, and we got to the airport in under five minutes this time around as the train maxed out at 450kph this time around.
I'm not sure why it travels at different speeds during different times of the day, but going a full 150kmh faster than it went on the journey to the city was pretty exhilarating. I was reading online yesterday that apparently Incheon Airport are currently constructing a Maglev line which will go to downtown Seoul alongside the bus and regular train services which also run there. I'm not sure it'll get you there in less than five minutes, but it will certainly reduce the journey time and probably be very popular once it is operational later this year.
The next stop on my seemingly never-ending journey is to Taiwan - or Chinese Taipei to give its full name.
Lost within everything else that I have been planning and arranging I feel like my visit to the country south-east of mainland China has been travelling very much under the radar. I think because I'd earmarked my stay in Korea and then from there had spent quite a bit of time focussing on Shanghai and then going to Japan that in between it all Taiwan might have got a little lost.
I'd decided to keep it fairly simple and spend all of my time in the capital which is in the northern part of the country, although I hope to travel slightly further south at some point during the week - I'll save that for if it happens though as the weather doesn't look very promising.
Taipei is the first of three countries I will be visiting which are 'owned' by China (Macau and Hong Kong) being the other two, and one thing I was very much looking forward to discovering is the similarities and differences between Taiwan and it's ruling nation.
China has held control of the country since 1945, but from what I have read Taiwan's wishes to become an independent nation have been refused by the People's Republic (the threat of military force has been promised if any such thing were to take place!)
It's not a country I particularly know too much about to be honest (apart from that everything seems to be 'Made in Taiwan') and as I waited in the airport I was quite looking forward to what the country has to offer.
Unfortunately things were slightly held up on my journey to Taipei as my flight was originally delayed 35 minutes in terms of boarding, and probably ended up being delayed by a full hour in the end.
Thankfully the plane I was on was pretty comfortable and we got a meal which was welcome considering I hadn't had chance to get any breakfast.
It took about an hour and a half to get from Shanghai to Taipei's Taoyuan Airport which is about 30km or so outside of the city. Aside from being delayed everything went pretty smoothly, and although there was a huge line when I arrived at immigration, I passed through pretty quickly.
When I went to check-in this morning, the lady at the airport asked if I had a visa for Taiwan, and I knew that I didn't need one as I had looked online just to double-check before I left. I thought that I could stay in Taiwan for 30 days, but was quite surprised when I looked at the stamp to see what it said 90 days. I really have no idea how they come to the figures for how long you're legally allowed to stay in a country for - I guess that the UK has good relations with Taiwan, I wonder if we reciprocate and allow Taiwanese people to stay for just as long?
I collected my bag from the luggage carousel and then had to go and take out some Taiwanese Dollars in order to be able to catch the bus in the direction of my hotel. There is a metro here in the city, but it doesn't run as far as the airport so I was going to have to board a bus which could get me to a metro stop.
At the far side of the station was the ticketing area for catching the bus, but it was a far cry from my time in Malaysia when I were being harried by people wanting you to buy tickets with their bus company. There weren't quite as many choices, but I went with the one that was providing the cheapest service which also happened to be the most useful for me.
Just like in Shanghai, I am staying just outside of the main city centre area, although once again I tried to make sure that I was close to a metro line to make it easy for me to get from one place to another.
There is another airport in Taipei; Songshan Airport which is down-town, and only a couple of stops away from where I needed to get the metro to, so the bus I took was actually a service which went across to Songshan and then from there I'd be able to catch the MRT the few stops I needed to in order to reach my hotel.
The bus itself took about 40 minutes, and I spent most of it looking out of the window admiring the contrast between the lush greenery and the cityscape which was starting to take shape in the distance.
It always amazes me when you have a mix of the two, just like in Ho Chi Minh City where there were so many tall buildings intermingled with parks and recreational spaces.
On the way we stopped off at Taipei Main Railway Station which I could also have departed the bus at, but figured I'd go all the way to the airport as it was slightly closer and meant only changing lines once.
The airport down-town was actually pretty inconspicuous and if I hadn't been paying more attention to everything that was around me then I could have easily not realised that's where we were. Songshan is mostly for domestic flights which probably explains why it's a little less busy than the international airport which I flew into, but as I headed down to the MRT there were still a fair few people milling about.
It's always hard to make a judgement in the middle of the afternoon on a Monday when 'normal' people are at work, but the metro itself seemed to be pretty quiet - although that is perhaps just in comparison with what I'd experienced in Shanghai over the last couple of days!
I needed to go about four stops or so, two in order to change to a different line and then another two to actually get to where my hotel was. Instead of getting a metro ticket (or a card as you get in Shanghai) you got a little token which you have to tap on the sensor on the way in, and then feed into the machine on your way through the exit gates. For once it actually wasn't too stressful making my way to my accommodation as that is usually one of my least favourite parts of the journey itself.
I'd written down some instructions of how to get to the hotel, although they were actually pretty simple considering it was on the same road as the metro station and I just had to make sure that I went out of the right exit and then pay attention to the number I was looking for.
When looking to book a hotel in Taipei, I went though the experience again of seeing that everything in the city centre was expensive so I tried to locate myself a bit outside in order to save some money. The place I eventually elected to stay didn't actually have any reviews posted against it, but it is called the Come Inn Taipei III and in order to give myself some confidence about making a reservation I checked out information I found in various places across the web about the Come Inn Taipei I and II, Both of which had excellent reviews so I put it down to either the fact that it was brand new or that people were just being lazy which is why I couldn't find anything on III. I can imagine that if it wasn't a very nice place to stay then somebody would have at least said some negative things about it, so the fact that there were no comments tells me that it's probably OK.
I managed to navigate my way to the right place, and one thing I'd learned from looking at the other two hotels of almost identical names is that they are owned by someone who you have to call in order to let you in as it isn't a hotel in a traditional sense. The information I'd read had listed it as not having a check-in desk, and once I got there I realised that it was actually in an apartment complex and therefore probably not like a hotel at all.
I asked the security guard at the front desk if he could phone Mr Zhong, who was the owner of the apartment, and after about a five minute wait or so he came along and explained to me how everything worked. It seemed to be very straightforward and the room itself is lovely so I don't really have any complaints there.
In my traditional way I decided to go out and have a little explore so I walked around the block where I am staying to take in my surroundings. I walked as far as the Taipei Arena which is right next to the metro station before the one where I am staying. Mostly it was just shops and other businesses which were getting ready to close up for the evening, and after going around in a circle I headed back towards my room.
I hate doing this quite a lot - but it's very easy to compare Taiwan (after thirty minutes or so) to Korea and maybe even Singapore. The streets seem to be clean and very well looked after as in Singapore, and it certainly has similar temperatures to those I experienced whilst I was there. Like Korea everything seems to be stacked on top of one another and the streets themselves where quite busy with people walking in and out of shops. Everything seemed very modern which is perhaps the opposite of some of the experiences I had in Shanghai.
Obviously I can't make too many assessments so far, but one thing I did notice was that unlike in Korea and China there is actually quite a lot of written English in store windows and on buses. Simple things, for example like in a convenience store that I went into to get a drink, things were printed in Chinese, but then also underneath in English - even though it's not one of the recognised languages here. I think that helped to settle me and make me feel more comfortable with everything as I find that quite a lot of my struggles are language-based and it's just much simpler for me when I know what everything that I'm buying is.
On my circular route I spotted what looked to be a large shopping centre in front of me, and I figured it would not only be interesting to walk around but also potentially be a good place to get myself some dinner as it was starting to get towards that time. The huge sign on the side described it as 'The Living Mall' and the only real way I can describe how it looked from the outside is to think about if you brought a football in a box that was too small for it, and the edges came protruding out of the side then this is what it would look like. It had the feel of a miniature planet as I walked inside after going up a huge escalator due to the large spherical area in the centre.
Naturally intregued by what was around me I started walking (or should I say orbiting?) the shopping centre and discovered that contained in the middle is actually a department store and around the outside, on something like thirteen floors, there are a number of different shops:
It was quite an impressive structure with a cinema, ice-skating rink and a variety of different shops inside. What struck me about it's selection of stores was that a lot of them seemed to be related to kids, and having come home and looked it up, there is a shop called 'Baby Boss' which is supposed to be very popular.
You could take an escalator to the very top and there were arcade machines, a soft play area and different sections where kids could generally just enjoy themselves. I guess they have marketed themselves towards the family angle of a shopping experience:
I made my way back up to the ground level of the Living Mall and going out of the door I was instantly struck by two things; one was the immense heat which was still an issue at that time of night, and second was the fact that shining brightly not too far in the distance was Taipei 101 - one of the world's tallest buildings. I'm hoping to spend an afternoon there at some point so its time will come, but just from a distance it seemed very imposing.
I'd spotted it on the way into the city on the bus and the reason it stands out so much is because it is so much taller than everything else around it. In Shanghai I obviously experienced some very tall skyscrapers all in a row, but I'm not sure there's anything which even comes close to Taipei 101 although I guess I will find out in a couple of days.
Going back to my room I was just about to get settled when I realised that here in Taiwan they have decided to use an entirely different set of plugs to the ones which I have become familiar with in the rest of Asia. I immediately went back out again in order to find something which would allow me to charge up my many electronic devices and discovered a hardware store just around the corner from where I am after about 45 minutes of looking.
Thankfully one of the people in the shop spoke vague English and for about £2 I got myself a converter which will serve me very well over the rest of my trip in case Japan or Hong Kong have also decided to go down the route of being different.
It has been an exhausting day with all that travelling and as always when I arrive in a new place there is so much to take in. I feel like these next couple of days in Taipei will be very enjoyable and I hope that there is plenty to do. I've read about the weather not being fantastic whilst I'm here, but I hope that I don't experience too many thunderstorms so that I can enjoy the experience of what looks to be a very fascinating country.
Good Vibrations
Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch (1991)
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