Good evening Singapore and welcome to episode 16 of Sleepless in Singapore. Today is Sunday, May the 5th of 2024. I am back in Singapore. And this episode will be the one where we talk about Taiwan. So please make yourself comfortable, lie down, close your eyes, and let my voice be your guide to a restful night.

So, coming from Japan, where in the plane we had the luck of seeing Mount Fuji. We were flying into Taipei, Taiwan, for the very first time for Philip and for the first time in 32 years for me. Because when I was five years old my parents were staying in Taiwan for a while, half a year or something. My dad was working on a project there and I was the lucky child to be on the other side of the globe for a couple of months at least. So we land at Taipei Airport, different airport than back then by the way. And we make our way to the city center with a train. I remember Taiwan is very, very green. But then also Taipei is a bustling big city.

Maybe one of the first things we notice that are very different from Japan is that there are thousands of scooters in the streets of Taipei. In Taipei again we had a nice little hostel. it was up on the fifth floor or something and we had a group room a dormitory and we dropped our stuff it was in the evening getting dark already and so Philip and I we were just walking around trying to find some food and strangely the first thing we noticed there in the streets was like two or three different Catholic churches might be just the area where we stayed or maybe there are a lot of Catholics in Taiwan I don't even know. But we've noticed these churches with very, I would say, questionable architecture. Maybe not questionable, just very different from what I know, very neon lighty and different from the churches we know here. So we went out, Philip and I, for food and we walked along these markets and we saw everything from chicken feet to gizzard and all that stuff. I don't think we were very adventurous in the beginning, so we went for some local dishes. We could only translate with Google Translate because the menu was completely in chinese and we didn't speak a word of chinese i still remember that restaurant i also still remember just how different from taiwan japan was Japan was. Not in a good way, not in a bad way. Just so different, like completely different cultures, completely different food, completely different approach to things. Even though both is like so close together, right? together, right?

After that dinner we walked around a bit more and then we went back to the hostel and then amazingly in that hostel we again made two friends. Sebastian and Victor. Sebastian another German guy, so easy to talk to us. Victor from the United States, or actually I think originally from somewhere in South America, Central America. And both Victor and Sebastian were amazing. We spent almost all of our Taiwan time together, the four of us. I remember first night or second night we went out together and we went to a local food market and I got a picture here of this like giant smile of Victor we had a bunch of Taiwan beer which is nice beer and we went to this market where for some reason I'm carrying a machine gun first and then some karaoke microphones, both plastic of course. And then we went to some club to party. And there's a whole bunch of people, like there are like two girls in the front and then there's a Sebastian and Victor in the back. And then there is a guy whose name I honestly forgot. In the picture I'm looking right now, and that was 2017 in June, 15th of June 2017. I'm looking at this guy who's kind of almost grainy in a club with flashing lights, you know like a proper club. It was actually a proper club in Taiwan. And I'm emphasizing that so much because two and a half years later I'm in Japan alone, traveling around a bit. And I'm on a... I'm meeting some people for a Japanese dinner kind of thing. A very special night to me because that was the night where I got to know my now best friend Tamara and we were sitting there we didn't know each other yet and we were eating and a guy walks in and and he's looking at me and he's like I'm I'm sorry, but are you Julian? And I'm like, yeah, I am Julian. How do you know? And he's, oh, don't you remember? Two and a half years ago, we met in Taipei. And I'm like, that's very unlikely that you remember some guy you met in Taipei two and a half years ago. And he's like, yes, yes, yes, I remember you. You know, your ginger beard. And we met two years ago, two and a half years ago. And then he's pulling out his phone, and he's going through his phone, and then he's showing me a picture. And it was the picture I'm looking at right now. I'll try to upload that somewhere because it's just so unreal. It's a grainy picture in a club. Everything is red because the light was red at that moment. And you barely even recognize me on this picture. But the guy in Japan, two and a half years later, walking into the restaurant, seeing me, remembered. Very fascinating.

So we spent a good time in that club. And it went the whole night. It was really, I'm guessing, quite wild. And then the next day after we sobered up, we all four decided to see a little bit more of Taiwan instead of just the clubs and the local party scene. And we rented a car. Luckily, Sebastian had his driver's license, which for whatever reason nobody else had. So he rented a car, decent car. So he rented a car, decent car, and we did a little road trip in Taiwan. And that was so much fun because you know memories are a very difficult thing, right? So I'm not sure if I actually remember things from when I was five years old or maybe I have only seen the pictures from back then and that's how I have like second hand memories but be it as it may we went to the nature park where the rock formations are, that that part of Taiwan is very famous for. And we went for a hike there. Sadly it was raining, so we were all wearing these funny plastic raincoats that they are selling everywhere. But we went all the way up to the viewing point and we had a great view. And I remember for some reason, we read somewhere that there could be snakes and Victor was very afraid of the snakes. So we teased him with the snakes. Like every time he did not expect it, we threw a little twig or something between his legs and he was jumping every single time. Poor guy. Not nice friends, eh? say and then because it was raining so much we went to a din tai fong around the corner which if you don't know is a chain restaurant but i think the first chain restaurant or the first like asian restaurant i don't know that's got or the first fast food restaurant, if you want to call it that, that got a Michelin star. It's a Taiwanese dumplings and noodles and all that. So we went to Din Tai Fung Top City Taichung and enjoyed it a lot. Back then Din Tai Fung was quite special because it only existed in Taiwan and Hong Kong and maybe some other places in Asia, I don't know. Nowadays I think it exists in a lot of places but back then every time I went to Asia which wasn't that often I was very excited to going to a Din Tai Fung. Now obviously living in Singapore there are like 10 Din Tai Fung in the city so not that special anymore. Still very good though, we still go quite a bit. I think we went last week.

Then we went on, driving to the countryside a bit, to these colorful houses I guess that was the next day we had breakfast at a local Taiwanese stall. And for most of us that was pretty cool because we had this like bean sprout noodle kind of thing and it was delicious. But sadly, for reasons we never got behind, Victor really didn't like Asian food. For reasons we never got behind, Victor really didn't like Asian food. So he always had to bring his banana or cookies or something when the rest of us were really enjoying the good food. I mean, food in Asia is one of the reasons for me to be here. Because I think there is so much amazing food and all kinds of Asia Thai food Chinese food Japanese food Korean food and having all that in Singapore like available yeah that's literally one of the reasons I like it so much here. So I cannot understand the poor guy going to Taiwan and then not eating anything local because he doesn't like it. But who am I to judge?

Yeah, then we went to Rainbow Village which are are these like very colorful houses like red colorful with drawings on them quite popular tourist destination I'm pretty sure you've seen pictures of it and then we went on Quite popular tourist destination, I'm pretty sure you've seen pictures of it. And then we went on because our goal was to go to the Sun Moon Lake and to Alishan, which is a mountain in central Taiwan. And we made it to the Sun Moon Lake and we had some eggs there, but it was raining a lot all day long. And I remember we passed some river and I've never seen a river flow so fast and the water going so rapid, so brutal almost. And then when we were making our way up to Alishan, they made us turn around because the rain was so heavy and also the wind was getting strong that they blocked off the mountain roads because they said it's too dangerous and so we kind of had to turn around and well not see Alishan what we did instead was we went to one of the famous hot springs or actually i don't know if it's a famous hot spring but philip i think philip found it in some travel guide so we went to this hot spring which also meant we had to take our car and go up some other mountains some some hills closer to Taipei and we parked our car and it was raining and Philip said oh yeah it's just like half an hour down don't be too whiny so we we put on our plastic raincoats and then Philip made us walk through the woods, through the jungle. I don't know what kind of animals there could have been. And I don't know. There was no real way. We were just like straight into the jungle. And of course it didn't take half an hour. It took more like an hour. And still in the end it was totally worth it because these hot springs are amazing they're they're actually hot and you some of them are so hot you cannot even go in you you'll burn yourself but then others are quite the right temperature especially if it's raining and you're not super cozy warm and then you have these hot springs and you can just sit in them and I'm looking at a couple of pictures now that I'm definitely not going to upload because there might be more of us to see than you want to see but it was a great time and there were like waterfalls and I remember they were like the hot spring and the water from the waterfall they were like somehow mixing so you could you could find the spot where the temperature was more or less just right. And beautiful, beautiful, beautiful nature. Looking at these pictures. So green. And even though the weather was really bad, we took some amazing pictures. I got pictures here. They're basically all green. Plus some little stream in the middle but a thousand different kinds of green. And then there's more pictures of in the hot spring.

Yeah, that was very cool. Then eventually, after we made it back to Taipei, we were trying to find the best dumplings, which maybe we managed to do because they were absolutely delicious dumplings. I have no idea what we ate though, or what was in those dumplings. Because looking at the menu back then and also now, I cannot read a single thing. thing and I remember that Google Translate also does not always work in Taiwan. I have a screenshot here meat was still nice then we went out to the ocean we had more dumplings we went for another hike that was up north in Taiwan. And then, of course, we went to one evening that was... I don't know if that was still everyone or if it was just Philip and me, but we went to... I think it's called Elephant Mountain. And Elephant Mountain is where you get a beautiful view over the city skyline including the Taipei 101 which I think once has been the tallest building still definitely is one of the tallest buildings in the world and it's got a super interesting construction, very interesting engineering going on. Taipei 101 is like 500 meters or something, and because Taiwan is an area where there are earthquakes once in a while, the buildings have to be built in a way that they ideally not collapse right so the way they achieved that with Taipei 101 is they are hanging a pendulum with a couple hundred of tons of steel ball at the end of the pendulum from the top inside and that moves the center of the weight distribution down so the building can shake but it will stay very stable even with stronger earthquakes. What else did we do in Taiwan? I feel like we did more in Taiwan, but I didn't take that many pictures. I learned that beer in Chinese is pizhou. Actually, I think I might have learned that earlier in Shanghai. another small restaurant, seafood restaurant. We had different kind of rice cakes and crackers and dumplings. And yeah, I also remember when it was time to return the car, we checked on the car and sadly the front was a little bit damaged. not really visible only if you took a close look. So Sebastian got all nervous. But in the end, it turns out that the guy who took the car back when we returned it. He didn't care much about the little scratches and stuff in the front. So yeah, that was pretty much Taiwan.

And then from Taiwan we went to Hong Kong. I think only for a very short time we went to Hong Kong. And Hong Kong is another city I really like. I've been there many times. I've been there once as a child or maybe even twice as a child I don't know and then I've been there again 2017 with Philip and then after that I think I went three or four more times to show my friends I remember one time I went with Christian and Christian's cousin to show them Hong Kong. And then I went again alone. And then I went again with my friend Christian, a different Christian from my old company. And every time we had a great time in Hong Kong, usually somehow combined with Macau. And also that time we had a great time in Hong Kong, because we saw the same Sebastian that we met in Taiwan, again in Hong Kong. And he's just a fun guy to hang out with. I actually think now Sebastian is living in Hong Kong with his wife. He got married to a Hong Kong girl who I also met back then. So even without doing that much sightseeing, I think we had a very good time in both Taiwan and Hong Kong. Just going through the pictures, of course, we saw all the skyscrapers and we had a drink at Ozone Bar, which is or was back then at least the highest bar in the world at one of the two very tall towers in Taipei. we went to get a haircut for the first time? I'm not sure. I mean for the first time and the trip of course. We were hanging out with this girl Vicky for a while who was I think she was from Russia but she moved to Hong Kong as an English teacher. I think we spent a day with her where we went up to the peak and on the peak we took these beautiful pictures of the Hong Kong skyline. We also spent a lot of time at Victoria Harbour skyline. We also spent a lot of time at Victoria Harbour on the TST site to see the Hong Kong skyline over the water and we spent hours there, Philip and I, to take pictures. And I think we also took a really, really nice ones here. Of course, we also, again, were looking for burger places. And we found a really nice one. And we went to LKF, Langkwai Fong, to party. Oh yeah, and we met this girl, Iman. Iman. And another guy, what was his name? I forgot his name but obviously he was from Franconia in Germany. I think that video I sent to my now best friend Christian.

Yeah, very cool. And We went to Wan Chai, we went to Lantau Island, saw the big Buddha, we went to the temple and we went for another burger and I was trying to spend as much quality time as I could get with Philip. We had some more talks because Hong Kong turned out to be the last stop that we did completely together, Philip and I. Because after that, on our next leg, or on our next stop, which was the Philippines, we decided to split up because Philipp went to, back then, his girlfriend's family who was living in the Philippines party. we met again, Philip and I, for a couple of days in Palawan. But basically, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Hong Kong were the last two stops we did completely together. And then mostly after that we went separate ways which was has nothing to do with we didn't like each other anymore or anything it was really just Philipp's family or Philipp's ex-girlfriend's family was somewhere around there. And then also I wanted to tour around a bit Southeast Asia, which Philipp had done two years before. So he didn't want to do that again. And so I went on for a bit longer and Philip had another stop in, I actually don't know, I think he wanted to go to New Zealand, but he fell sick and didn't really recover properly. I mean, it wasn't a serious sickness, It was like a bad stomach flu kind of thing, but it took a while. Understandably, he, after a long time, thought being sick at home might be better than being sick traveling. So he didn't do his New Zealand part and I was doing my Southeast Asia part alone and eventually a couple days later Philipp was flying back and I went on for another two or three months or so which I will tell you about next time.

And now, let me give you some Tom Sawyer.