Taipei, Taiwan
Who would have ever thought this Arkansas boy would someday find himself in Taiwan? The only thing I knew about Taiwan was that they made a ton of cheap stuff and shipped it to the US.
After a day at sea, we arrived into the Port of Taipei about 7:00 A.M. We got ready for our shore excursion and had breakfast before departing the ship. Our tour was scheduled for 9:00 so we headed down to the Gang Plank about 8:30.
Our driver was a young man about college age. He was a “Driver/Guide” and a likable young man who laughed a lot. His English skills were fair. We could understand part of what he was saying. Because we (our group of seven), are old, (except Eric), and partially worn out and also because we have had a ton of information about dead kings, Dynasties, Buddhists, Catholic Churches built since 1975, Temples, Pagodas and the like, we opted to change him up a little.
Debby told him that perhaps one Temple would be sufficient and that he suggest a few things. He mentioned a changing of the guard ceremony and we jumped on that as a “yes”. Following our tour of Taiwan’s hero Chiang Kai-shek’s Memorial a huge facility in the heart of the city, we were open for options.
Our Guide, Ryan, suggested a look at Taipei from high up inside the 101 story building they call the 101 Tower. We got there and took a few pictures out front. Ryan said the cost to go to the top would be $20 U.S. per person. We budget buddies wasted no time agreeing that we would rather keep our $20 each and just go shopping. And so we did.
His idea of watching the changing of the guards sounded like something we could do. Besides the changing of the guards at Chiang Kai-shek’s Memorial, we drove our crowded 8 passenger van to another memorial site to watch another changing of the guards. It was pretty cool to see their ceremonies of high stepping marching, rifle spinning, one foot standing and hand movements all performed in unison. They had, apparently, practiced much.
For lunch we went into a shopping mall, an uptown. Shopping mall, downstairs into a food court that offered just about everything you could imagine and much more. I, for one, sampled a Big Mac at McDonald’s, of all places. I wasn’t the only one.
After lunch, Eric and I headed for the Gianormous Apple Store on the first floor. It was very spacious and well lit. They had all the devices Apple could find on display. We looked at the Apple IPhone 17 Pro Max. At a cost of $1,400 U.S. it was comparable to prices back home. I was also intrigued by the VisionPro device but could not see a demonstration without making an appointment. Maybe later. It was a beautiful device for about $2,500.
Another stop took us to a Taiwan souvenir market, that was extremely crowded! I reason that most of these people were tourist because no local in his right mind would be shopping for trinkets on such a busy day. Later, as we arrived back on our ship, parked across the bay was another cruise ship. That answered a lot of questions!
As tour time ended, Ryan returned us to Port, where we headed for our ship. We had dinner at 5:20 in the International Restaurant, except for Debby and Eric, who sampled the buffet on the 14th floor. Debby was also kind enough to do our laundry so we can smell good as we cruise to Japan the next two days!
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