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Taipei in 8 Short Bursts of Adventure

  • Posted on Oct 18, 2016Jan 29, 2018
  • 3.2K views
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  • Wincy Aquino Ong
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Taipei in 8 Short Bursts of Adventure

By Wincy Aquino Ong

Moments from Volleyfriends UAAP Volleyball Kick Off SHAD

When it comes to travelling around Asia, Taipei wasn’t much of a top-of-mind destination for me. The monkey temples of Bali and the art supply megastores in Tokyo were more up my alley. That is until I actually spent some days in the beautiful island city of Taipei, two hours on a plane from Manila.

So what’s Taipei like? “Like a greener and more relaxed Hong Kong,” my wife, who had been there on a company outing, once said. “Or maybe it could be the Vancouver analog of Asia.” (Yep, she had me at Vancouver.) But no, words alone cannot describe the essence of Taipei—Taipei-ness, if you will. One can only know about it by living it.

So without further preamble, here’s my Taipei in 8 short bursts of pure and unadulterated adventure…

8. A sense of the alien at the Lungshan Temple of Manka.

08

Via Wincy Aquino Ong

It’s such a shame that in Manila, we really don’t have that many temples. Hey, maybe we’re more like a city of churches, no small thanks to years under the Castilian thumb.

Lucky for us, we were brought into see the its many ornate gates, shrines and stupas, not to mention, a throng of incense-lighting devotees right in the smack of the Moon Festival. Intriguing, like raw footage from a docu.

 


7. A sense of majesty at the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall.

07

Via Wincy Aquino Ong

Like that Abraham Lincoln statue in Washington DC, it was the closest thing to seeing a giant. And the architecture is the stuff of legend. Being born and bred in the Third World, the only big things I see are shoebox-shaped malls—never the tombs of great people. It’s great to feel small every once in a while.

 


6. A crick in the neck upon seeing Taipei 101.

06

Via Wincy Aquino Ong

Speaking of small, you’ll definitely feel dwarfed by this cloud-piercing needle in the business district. There’s a lovely food court in the basement, but the shops here are definitely for the Titas of Manila crowd, ones with black MasterCards to boot. Still, 1,437 feet of something is a thing to be absorbed.

 


5. A Xiao Long Bao parade across my digestive tract.

05

Via Wincy Aquino Ong

Sure, I heard Din Tai Fung already set up shop here in Manila. But hey, nothing beats the genuine article, right? Right on the basement level of Taipei 101, we were treated to baskets upon baskets of different types of Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings), from shrimp to mushroom to other more exotic variants. Add to that some mantao (pillow-soft colored buns) to cap the meal. A food trip to end all food trips, indeed!

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Wincy Aquino Ong

Wincy Aquino Ong is a writer, musician, filmmaker, actor, and comic book illustrator. His works have been published in The Philippine Star and Esquire. His horror fiction was part of Neil Gaiman's Expeditions anthology. He is best known for the indie film San Lazaro, which was released in 2011.


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