8 hour stopover in Taiwan

When I was booking my flight to the Philippines, the travel agent told me, "Well we have this flight for you, but it requires a 8 hour layover in Taipei." Normally, spending 8 hours in the airport would be pretty boring, but I had no intention of doing that. I told the travel agent, "That sounds perfect." You see, last summer I participated in a summer program through the group Volunteers in Asia (VIA) where I was a host for foreign students from Taiwan and Japan as part of the American Language and Culture (ALC) program. Basically, I got to know about 70 different students from Japan and Taiwan during their one month program at Stanford. I thought that this layover would be a great opportunity to see some of the students again.

So I stepped off the plane in Taipei around 3pm and proceeded to customs and then the information desk where people thankfully spoke passable english. I asked how to get to Nationa Cheng Chi University, and they guy handed me two maps. I was supposed to take a bus and and then a train to the Taipei Zoo, which was very near the university, and then I could walk or take a quick cab ride. My other option was to just take a can straight from the airport. However, it's over an hour-long drive to Taipei and the cab would cost about $50. Besides, doesn't navigating the public transit system in a place where I can't read any signs nor speak to anyone sound like a fun idea? I thought it did.

I managed to make my way there through a lot of pointing and grunting, nodding and shaking my head. The info desk guy circled a couple key places on the map he gave me so I just kept pointing at those places to the different drivers, and the MRT station had some English on it. The train system wasn't quite as complicated as the one in Tokyo where I spent the summer of 2005, so I was able to figure it out. I called my friends from a pay phone once I got on campus and they proceeded to give me the grand tour.

First stop was to pick up some authentic pearl milk tea. Quite good if I say so myself.


In front of the main library with my many tour guides.

This was definitely the highlight of the trip for me. Eating lots of fresh, hot and delicious Taiwanese food. I'm not even going to attempt to explain all that I ate, but it was basically awesome.


At this point the only other guy Alex had to take off and it left me in a rather interesting position as the only guy at a table of girls. This defintely doesn't happen at Microsoft.


Sadly, the night came to an end all too soon. They walked me to the bus station and Nicki, Yvonne and Tina were gracious enough to accompany me all the way to the airport. This was supposed to be a "tough Jedi" pose. But Nicki isn't looking so tough. It's okay though.

Overall, it was fun end to a trip that was altogether too short. I am going back to Japan and Taiwan at the end of June though (all the hosts are visiting together as part of the program from last year). For anyone from ALC2, I miss you guys!