Taipei

The first day in Taipei yesterday was completed by dining at a traditional Taiwanese restaurant. They serve a range of dishes passed down over generations. From my research in English the name of the restaurant translates as TGI Fridays.

Today was the first full day in Taipei, so we decided to check out the Maokong Gondola and Taipei Zoo. As an aficionado of gondolas I know a little bit about cable based transport, and the Maokong edition is fairly impressive. It winds its way above what is basically jungle (compared to the endless multi-storey apartment buildings in Taipei that is!) over a winding, climbing 4 kilometres to the village of Maokong.

I'm not sure what I expected to see at the top, but it didn't involve watching a crowd gathered with excitement around a cat sitting on a scooter. It wasn't even a unique cat wearing a monocle and smoking a cigar, or something cool like that. It was just a cat! The Taiwanese definition of exciting obviously differs from mine.

After realising we wouldn't cope with the excitement of other cat-based spectacles at Maokong we rode the gondola down to the entrance to Taipei Zoo. Entrance to the zoo costs 60 NT$ per adult. Taking into account the latest exchange rate this works out to the astronomical fee of $3NZ each.

Judging by New Zealand standards we assumed that for that price we might get a pony painted to look like a zebra and a couple of pigs in top hats.

Oh how wrong I was! The zoo is vast, which is handy when you're still trying to burn off 100,000 airline calories. I'm always a little conflicted when it comes to zoos, but Taipei certainly does their bit to push the conservation message and educate visitors on endangered species.

We managed to see the big 5 from Africa, plus a panda, of course! A tiny monkey almost mugged me, and we saw a Rhino take a massive dump. Yes, it was a big day! After 20,000 steps roaming from the African savannah to the tropics we staggered back onto the MRT and rode the 11 stops to Jiannan RD station and our hotel.

Tomorrow it's Tokyo time. This will of course include a visit to my favourite ever airline lounge, the China Airlines Dynasty lounge at Taoyuan Airport, and even more airborne beef-based calories as we fly on to Tokyo. Until then, zàijiàn from Taipei.Read more