Cycling Trip to Taiwan: Day One

Here's a little secret: If you want to be fed earlier than the great majority of the passengers on a flight, order a "special" meal, such as the Asian vegetarian one I ordered when I reserved my China Airlines flight from Fukuoka to Taiwan.

And if you're lucky, something unusual and incredibly fitting will come with your meal, as it did with mine. There I was, on December 24, about to start a cycling adventure around Taiwan with my buddy Joe, and the naan (bread) that was the centerpiece of my meal was shaped exactly like a bicycle seat! Go figure!

Once we landed and finally got our bikes put back together again, our next order of business was to make our way to our first pit stop, Jingmei, in the southern part of Taipei. Naturally, we had to compete with cars and scooters for space and we also had to battle the pollution, so the riding wasn't much fun. Luckily, however, many of the roads we rode on (all over the country, as it turned out) had dedicated scooter/bicycle lanes that kept us feeling fairly safe. This particular stretch of road had no such lane, but most cars nevertheless kept to the left. That's Joe in red. (By the way, we started our ride directly at the airport, just after we took a shuttle bus from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2, which we probably could have skipped. We were then supposed to take another shuttle from T2 to the Cargo Terminal, but we decided to start riding from that point, despite the police officer's warning about doing just that that we were given while we were unpacking our bikes.)

One of the funniest places we saw along the road was this little shack with a (ahem) big "D Cup" sign above it and a scantily-clad woman inside. Naturally, (boys will be boys) we first thought it was a hooker advertising her wares. It turns out we were half-right. The woman wasn't a hooker, but she was advertising her wares, the most prominent of which was that thing on the far left of the sign on the left (and on the far right on the sign on the right), namely: betel nut. After we rode on and saw more and more of these shacks, I remembered having read about them before the trip. Nevertheless, this one had me fooled. Later on our trip, we saw millions of betel-nut stands, most of which were rather tame compared to this one.

Joe and I had a rough idea of how to get to Jingmei, but every once in a while we'd stop to ask for directions, just in case we were going the wrong way. (Considering we didn't have much of a clue where we were, besides what we could tell by our map and the road signs, we really did a great job of navigation.) One person we came across was this fellow, Chih-Li. His English was fantastic, since he was home on vacation from the States, where he studies at Texas A&M. He was sitting outside a 7-11 (or some other convenience store), so we joined him for some snacks and he assured us we were going in the right direction. So many Taiwanese people we met later gave us terrible information, but not Chih-Li (pronounced like the hot pepper)! Thanks, man!

The reason we were heading to Jingmei was to meet Sony (pronounced "Sunny"), a biking-crazy girl I met through couchsurfing, whose grandmother was happy to host Joe and me. What a great deal that turned out to be! Sony's grandma not only put us up for the night, but also took all of us (Joe, me, Sony, and two of Sony's aunts) out to dinner to a local restaurant! Talk about starting off a trip on the right note! That's Sony (not Malcolm) in the middle.

If you look closely at the picture (or click on it for a better look), you'll see a staple of Korean food smack dab in the middle of the table: kimchi. The kimchi was already on the table when we sat down, so I thought that it was left over from the previous customers. Nope. Apparently, the pickled dish is rather popular in Taiwan as well. Personally, I stay as far away from the stuff as I can!

Anyway, after dinner, our lovely hosts took us for a walk to some of the nearby "night markets," since they were eager to get us to try some more typical Taiwanese tidbits. One of those that I tasted was "stinky tofu." I guess it's the Taiwanese version of Japan's very own natto: It doesn't taste all that bad, but it smells so horrible that eating it is a truly unpleasant experience. Consider stinky tofu "one and done" for me.

We were also treated to a weird-looking dessert that I have to admit tasted rather good. Joe was brave enough to order first, and I simply grabbed a spoon and helped myself to some of what he was having. It was basically shaved ice covered with taro-root balls (the dark ones), some other white and pink ball-shaped somethings, and some kind of fruit (perhaps).

Sony ordered a different kind of dessert that consisted of boiled peanuts and tofu, I believe. I also tried that and, though it wasn't anything special, it really wasn't bad. Still, when it comes down to it, I prefer much sweeter desserts, such as cake and ice cream.

Yet another product our hosts were kind enough to buy for us was something that the Taiwanese call "bell fruit." This apple-like fruit (which apparently also has many other names, including "wax apple," "love apple," and "water apple," depending on the country) is really lightweight, rather watery, and, as you might guess, not very sweet. Luckily, despite the added weight it meant I had to carry, I decided to take the bag of 10 or so of them along when we headed out on our bike ride the next morning.