Even after the meal was served there were still two hours of the four left and Emily was getting quite fracious before the end, which does not bode well for our next flight to the UK. I had hoped the iPod would help but she tired of it very quickly. The 747 was quite an old one and we realised how long it had been since we flew without individual seat-back in-flight entertainment. Emily was in a regular seat so even if there had been something suitable for her to watch she would not have been able to see the single large screen ten rows down anyway.
We landed in a hazy Taipei at lunchtime and soon cleared customs. It felt humid and warm, as you might expect down near the Tropic of Cancer. Nick has an old MBA mate, Gary, who is Taiwanese, and he was great. Although it was a working day, he picked us up from the airport and drove us the half hour trip into the city to our hotel. Emily gave in to slumber on the way but woke when I tried to get her out of the car so she only had 20 minutes' nap. We quickly checked into our very decent hotel, then rushed back downstairs as Gary had offered to drive us into the city centre, our acccommodation being some way out from where we wanted to be. In fact it felt very 'Asian' around the neighbourhood, with lots of ugly concrete buildings, hundreds of scooters on the roads and the odd temple topped with extravagent colourful dragon carvings. Tokyo feels much more westernised and though Taiwan has a high GDP per head (better purchasing power parity than Japan and France) it has the feel of somewhere poorer. As usual Emily was spelling out shop signs, and the first one she spotted, opposite the hotel, was ' Sexy'; a dodgy dive in a run down shack. I was surprised by how few signs were in Roman lettering since English is at least as widely spoken as in Japan, where there are far more English letters to be seen.
It took another half hour to make it through congested traffic to Taipei 101, which until this year was the tallest building in the world (now massively eclipsed by Burj Khalifa in Dubai).
Though there was a fair amount of cloud we decided to go up to the observation deck anyway. First there was the diversion of the mall which occupies the first few floors. Here we found a nice Christmas display and also a Haagen Dazs cafe, where we rather splurged on cake/ice cream/coffee sets.
After our recent attempts to eat small and healthy, I think we both felt we had overdone it. It is hard not to go overboard when on holiday though. Emily was reluctant to go on up to the top as she was enjoying hanging out by the display but in time-honoured parental fashion we employed a diversionary tactic to get her away and were soon whizzing up in one of the fastest lifts in the world : from 5th to the 89th floor in about 40 seconds (top speed over 1,000m per minute).
We spent a good hour looking out at the 360 degree views, though Emily was far more interested in playing around the Christmas decorations and on the soft chairs.
There are few other notable structures to spot from up there apart from the nearby Sun Yat Sen memorial hall
but the city is surrounded on three sides by tree-covered hills and mountains and has a domestic airport close to the centre as well, and the many-coloured hutong rooves make a pretty patchwork.
We were rewarded for our long stay up there by a beautiful sunset, which matured nicely for nearly an hour, during which time we found that we could ascend three more floors to an outdoor deck.
Eventually we called it a day and passed back through a vast coral gemstone gift shop to the down lift. There are several coral reefs around the island and a speciality is the blood-red coral gemstone, which was here presented, along with other precious stones like jade and amethyst, in some amazing carvings such as huge crabs, dragons, turtles.
Back outdoors in darkness we gazed up at the now-lit tower then got swiftly in a taxi to go and meet Gary for dinner. There is a famous dumpling restaurant hear his home he wanted to take us to, and we were happy to go along with that suggestion. Emily was tiring fast so we convened at 6pm. While waiting for him at the rendezvous point we strolled around the neighbourhood and I saw Mango, Aldo and Body Shop all in one short stretch of a busy shopping street. One street back it was also bustling, but lined with eateries of varying degrees of luxury. The street stalls with their small plastic furniture reminded us very much of Hanoi. They were vying for position with quite trendy and modern bars and cafes. One corner stall had a glass display case exhibiting wares of cooked ducks' heads, chickens' feet and stinky tofu dishes.
We found the dumpling restaurant and went on in. We were the only foreigners there, though it in all the guide books and its sister establishment in HK has a Michelin star. Emily was starving so we ordered a few dishes we thought she would like, but she was so grouchy that she initially refused everything and I was grateful I had a pouch of kidney beans with me. Gary turned up with his girlfriend Cindy (most young Taiwanese adopt a western name - one of our waitresses was called Beryl!) and we ordered some more dishes he recommended.
I particularly liked a mushroom and vegetable steamed bun (so did Emily, eventually) and the fish dumplings. Emily finally loosed up when some noodles appeared and she and I ate the very long ones together, sucking in from each end, which made her laugh at last. At 7.30 she began agitating to leave, saying 'I want to go to the place next to here' (at home if she wants to use the loo she often says 'I want to go to the room next to your bedroom'!) so we had to wrap up rather sharpish and head for the hotel.
We really wanted to pick up the tab in recognition of all his help that day, but in typical hospitable Asian style Gary insisted firmly on paying. I don't think that Asians understand that we westerners are uncomfortable with feeling obligated. He hailed us a cab and directed the driver, then we were on our way. Thankfully traffic had died down by then and quarter of an hour later we were back in Sinjhuang, and feeling very grateful to have had a friendly face and local help on our first day.
As usual Emily wanted to explore our very spacious and well-appointed family room (one of the best I've ever stayed in and only GBP 90, so it paid to be away from the expensive centre area). I managed to persuade her to prepare for bed and in fact we were all pooped so we decided to call it a night too. By 9pm we were all in the mega-comfortable beds. It was rather a disturbed night for me as Emily cried out often, requiring me to pretend to sleep next to her one one of the two king-sized beds.
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