Half Term Holiday Day 2 - Beitou Hot Springs

I FINALLY got my wish. After being in Taipei for a month, I’m a bit burned out on big city-life. I’m a bit shopped-out and I’m ready for something other than concrete. Today, we went with Terry’s mom (Nai-Nai) to Beitou, an area on the outskirts of Taipei City best known for its hot springs. It is higher than most of Taipei City and borders Yangminshan mountains, which was EXACTLY what I’ve been yearning for (it sucks to see the beautiful mountains on a daily basis and not yet experience them, sigh).

Beitou was developed by the Japanese in the early 20th century (the Japanese certainly LOVE their hot springs, from what I hear!) and came to a heyday prior to WW2. It fell into somewhat of a disarray in the 1950’s-1970’s when it was best known for its prostitution! The turn-around began around 1996, when the Taiwanese government declared the Beitou Bath House a historical monument and began to restore it. It is now beautifully preserved as a museum. The area is now covered with various hotels, restaurants, and art houses mostly serving the hot springs. The entire area smells of sulfur as water flows openly in streams and creeks throughout the city. These sulfurous streams produce beautiful arrays of colorful stones, which we thoroughly enjoyed as we meandered through the streets (remember, we had my mom-in-law, the slow walker with us!). She enjoyed telling us stories of how she and her friends would come to the streams in their younger years and hard-boil their eggs in the hot water. I still find it odd that they could cook in the water and eat the eggs w/o getting sick?? I remind myself…different country, different times!

There are quite a few public areas to soak in the hot springs; which are segregated into 2 types…clothing required and clothing…optional. While I was tempted to bring the girls to a public soaking area, not knowing where the clothing required pools were, AND not knowing if the girls could stand the heat…we opted for a private room in a hotel. It seemed a rather odd experience to me going into different hotels and inquiring about their rooms for rent…by the hour! However, it is quite the norm there as many people prefer a more private experience. Come to think of it…with multiple families living together in places which are quite small compared to the USA, I’ll bet these places are QUITE busy year-round for those who need a bit of ‘privacy’!!!

We were not disappointed. While we had a hotel in mind, as we began to walk up a hill towards our destination, it became glaringly evident that a closer venue would be a better choice…given the mood Nai-Nai was in! We found a beautiful Japanese-styled hotel across from the museum which had decent rates (less than $30 USD for one hour). The four of us checked in and were immediately impressed by the elaborate décor of the hotel. It was very ornately decorated with wooden furniture, floral arrangements…just breathtaking. Then, we were treated to a room which overlooked the museum and its greenery. The grounds around the museum have been painstakingly preserved so that it felt as if we were high in the mountains.

The girls immediately loved the tatami-style mat in the middle of the room with the tea set; however, as we had one hour, we ran a bath (not too hot, as they’re both wimps with the heat!). Nai-Nai decided against joining us in the fun, but was nice enough to take a few pics for us. The girls loved playing around in the stinky water and taking turns showering off outside the tub. I think they may have had more fun playing with the shower-part than the actual tub! I managed to kick the girls out of the tub long enough to turn up the heat to really get the effect of the hot springs. They decided to play tea-set and hotel while I soaked. After we checked out we were treated a walk on the 3rd floor. This is where the hotel’s spa is, complete with its own stair cases, private garden and public hot springs (nude of course, but separate for men and women). We were amazed that the view of the hotel’s private gardens was equally as stunning as ours from the 5th floor!

Feeling very refreshed, we headed home (perhaps slightly stinky as I don’t think I managed to quite rinse off all the sulfur water!). As the girls’ behavior was SOOOOO good today (esp compared to yesterday), I treated them to dinner at ‘Tea Time’. This restaurant, which is right at the train station closest to our apartment, you sit on swings rather than benches. The pictures posted outside also show some delicious treats for drinks (tea with whipped cream and cookies on top). The girls have been itching to eat there for quite some time. Bri had spaghetti and Elaine and I had stir-fried beef. Their dessert was milk-tea with whipped cream and cookies. For just about $20, we were surprised that the food was quite good. I was quite thankful that I have another incentive to offer to the girls besides the Hello Kitty restaurant!

Can you believe that all of the above was ours today for less than $60? It amazes me that there are still places in Taiwan (apparently, most of them outside of Taipei city) that are very reasonable. I tell you, this is something we’ll definitely do again….although hopefully with Terry next time!

Half Term Holiday Day 1 - Chinese Opera

Today was the first day of ‘Half Term Holiday’. Apparently the British school system takes a one week vacation in the middle of each semester. So the girls have no school all week, which is fine, but challenging, as Terry has to work all week and we can’t leave the country (we have to stay here for 4 months in order to acquire our health insurance card from the Taiwan government). So, we’re exploring Taipei!

Thankfully, there are lots of moms from the girls’ school who had plenty of ideas, so we're pretty well stocked on things to do! On today’s agenda was a trip to the National Taiwan College of the Performing Arts (http://www.tcpa.edu.tw/). Every Monday and Thursday morning, the students of this college put on a short show for mostly school-aged children. For less than $30, we were treated to a 30 minute Acrobat show, a short 20-minute video on the art of Beijing Opera (which explained many of the details behind this seemingly strange art form); a trip to the upstairs museum (which contained heirloom costumes and headpieces); and a 30-minute opera.

Our first challenge of the day was to find our way there. The website said to take the MRT (the subway); transfer to a bus and look for a Girls’ high school for our exit. We gave ourselves an hour, took the phone # and address and set off on our adventure! The MRT was the easy part…we’re pros now! The bus…not so easy. We found the right #, but the bus drivers didn’t know what we were talking about when we gave them the name of the high school. Not wanting to tempt fate (we heard that they start the show promptly at 10am), we decided to catch a taxi. All was going well until our cab driver didn’t understand that I needed 177 Neihu Rd Section 2, and not Section 1. As I had NO idea what the Chinese word for ‘Section’ was, he proceeded to drive in a circle. As I was starting to get frustrated, I called in the cavalry and phoned Terry (yes, I FINALLY got a cell phone…an iphone which I’m enjoying thoroughly!). With one simple word, the lightbulb clicked with our taxi driver and we were able to find the college with no problems :). Despite my stress over time, we arrived JUST as the show was starting.

We entered into the theater and found very few people there…great, I thought…a REAL amateur show. I did NOT have high hopes and just prayed that it would at LEAST be worth the $30 or so that I paid. Once the lights went down, the acrobatic show started a bit slow with some basic tumbling and very basic fire throwing. However, as the act wore on, we were treated to some beautiful traditional Chinese acrobatics. My personal favorite was when 12 women glided onto the stage with 3 sticks, about 3 feet long in each hand. On top of each stick was a bowl which they proceeded to twirl…how they did this w/o dropping the bowls was a mystery (I actually thought the bowls may be glued on somehow until 2 performers dropped one set of bowls). The beautiful part was that they made up a pond of lilies while 2 dancers performed a ‘pax de deux’ (sp?)…a ballet duet. Just lovely!

As time went on, I became more and more impressed by this gem of a find. What a perfect way to introduce us all to this particular art form! Apparently the college accepts performers at age 10 and they study for 12 years before they 'graduate'. At that point, much like any other university, it is up to the individual to pursue the art form professionally. While it was obvious that the performance was an amateur show, it was not painfully obvious. I am happy to report that it really did meet my expectations.

After the acrobatic show, we watched a video which helped explain the Chinese opera, which has always seemed ridiculous to me. After the video (which was in English, thankfully), I had a much better appreciation for the art form and found myself actually looking forward to the performance later. The tour of the museum was ok and Elaine began to get bored. I tried to keep her entertained by handing her the phone and asking her to take some pics :).

I was AMAZED that the girls sat through the 30 minute opera as well as they did. Mind you, the ‘opera’ had very little singing. From what I gather, traditional opera involves so much more than singing. It involves dance, acrobatics, acting and singing. The performers are extremely talented and made the opera more interesting with their many fight scenes (and the hero in the story was a female warrior, which was fun too!). At the end, I was thankful for the brief introduction, as it very much achieved the objective of educating the audience and introducing us to the opera without overwhelming us.

We left, or at least, I left, feeling productive and culturally fulfilled as this was an unexpected thing to do on vacation. I would very much recommend it to anyone visiting as it's relatively short and was very informative!

The best highlight after the college was that we managed, after 2 tries, to find the right bus to get us from the college to the Miramar shopping area, which contains the world’s 2nd largest ferris wheel (2nd to London, supposedly). We would have found the right bus faster if I could pronounce Miramar correctly. I discovered that just because the shopping area we were looking for is labeled ‘Miramar’ in English, this apparently is NOT what the Taiwanese people call it. One phone call to Terry again provided the right pronunciation, and we successfully navigated our way there (the pronunciation, btw…is ‘Mei Li Hua’). Unfortunately, after that, some demon came over each of my children throughout the day and we cut our afternoon of movies and fun entertainment short. I will spare everyone the gory details, but let’s just say that I am truly hoping that tomorrow will be better!