Taiwan: The Republic of China

             Going to Taiwan was an interesting contrast from visiting China the week before. Ever since the Cultural Revolution, there is huge political tension between Taiwan and China, as one is Nationalist and closely allied with the United States, and the other is Communist, and…not so much. When you ask someone in China if Taiwan is its own separate country, for the majority, they reply that it is a province of China, and therefore part of the Country. When arriving in Taiwan you immediately notice that they consider themselves completely separate from China, and in fact, the Chinese citizens on board Semester at Sea were not allowed to get off in Taiwan. That’s a different story, but given that we couldn’t go to Japan, most passport holders could entry the country, so off to Taiwan we went.

            When we arrived in Taiwan we immediately headed to Taipei, the capital city, because there was not much to do around the port where we were docked. Taipei is an interesting city, and I was surprised by how westernized it was. Along with Singapore, and Hong Kong, Taiwan is a newly industrialized country. They even built the world second tallest building standing over 500 meters (second to one in Dubai, at over 800m) not too long ago. To get up to the top you take one of the world’s fastest elevators (Guinness World Record, 2004).

            For most people on board ,Taiwan was the last International Stop. For the rest of us Canadians and other nationalities, we still have Hawaii and San Diego to go. The trip is winding down, and we decided to take Taipei as an opportunity to just hang out, go out for dinners, have a few drinks, and visit some sites. Some of the sites we visited, as mentioned, were Taipei 101 (2^nd tallest building in the world), the National Palace Museum (houses most of the forbidden city collection, but they will not give it back to China), the Chang Kai Shek Memorial (Nationalist leader, Mau’s Opposition- built himself a huge memorial even though he fled to Taiwan when he realized China was going “red.”) and a few markets. One of the most interesting markets we visited was one called Snake Alley. Unfortunately, the name is representative of the fact that there are snakes everywhere. In every restaurant they had several snakes on display to showcase the fact that they sell “snake wine.” The Taiwanese like snake wine because they believe it is a natural aphrodisiac. Needless to say, I didn’t try the it.

Chang Kai Shek Memorial, Taipei 

            As we left another International Port, we realized we would be spending a lot of time at sea. So here I am, crossing the Pacific for day number 4, and 6 more till Hawaii. Wish me luck!

On another note- Happy Birthday Grampe!