I almost waited to type this because I think I slept for like, maybe three hours last night and my brain is leaking out of my ears but I feel like if I waited until I was well rested to write anything down, this would never get done.
Right now, we are sitting at the Taiwan International Airport, waiting for a flight to Thailand. We almost had a very spicy one hour layover yesterday, but we decided to just spend the night in Taipei and traverse out in the morning. Which was a stellar decision, because as much as I love running through airports (The Drama, you know?), I’m kind of bad in high stress situations.
But mostly because I forgot how much I liked Taiwan. I’m pretty bummed we didn’t get to spend more time here. I didn’t think I really needed to see it again because we traveled here exclusively last year, but revisiting now has me totally regretting that decision.
I knew we messed up about 30 minutes in, as soon as the train rolled out of the airport MRT station. There’s something totally magical about taking any kind of public transport when you’re somewhere (mostly) new to you. Taiwan’s airport is pretty far out from the city, so you have to go through about a half an hour of forests and mountains. The train moves just slow enough to get a good look at most of the landscape. The mountains are dotted with temples and houses that pop out between the trees like they grew there themselves. One shrine faced the railway and there was an old man was sitting on the wall, taking a smoke break and surveying the land, probably totally unaware that my tourist ass saw him.
The other side of the MRT had a river running next to it that was a healthy mix of man made and natural looking, with enough concrete walls and plants mixed in to make the combination look seamless. Which, I think is the whole vibe that Taiwan gives off. Even the city has an organic feel, like the buildings are just another kind of mountain that can support forestry. There’s hardly ever a balcony that doesn’t have greenery spilling out between the bars and sprouting up to the next level. Even the concrete manages to look completely natural, with the rain stains that allow even more growth directly on the buildings.
While Taipei looks incredibly cool, the best part of it is by far the people. I remember when we visited last year, every person we met was so kind and personable, from the Temple Grandma who adopted us for a few days, to the guy who was trying to hold in his giggles as my friends tried to teach me how pronounce words in Mandarin. And now, both times I’ve been here, we had Savior Taxi drivers. This time, our driver told us that we had time to spare, pulled over on the side of the road, and practically sprinted to this fruit stand. She bought us so much Good Fruit. And she also got us passionfruit. Which deserves its own separate paragraph:
I’ve never had passionfruit before. I don’t know how it’s evaded me for this long. The only experience I’ve had with it is seeing it on boba menus and the Drake song. But holy shit lads. What a fucking fruit. I can’t even remember what it tastes like now, like it’s some kind of God Fruit that can only be experienced first hand and you must keep returning to the fruit in its physical form to get that taste again. Which I guess sounds more like drug addiction than some really tasty fruit.
Some people have cocaine, and I have passionfruit.
And the song makes so much more sense now. I’m pretty sure it’s about long distance relationships but imagine. What if Drake had also never had passionfruit and he found himself with a generous, fruit connoisseur taxi driver and had a biblical experience in the back of the cab and knew that he would never taste something this amazing for a long time because he was about to fly out of there, not to return in the foreseeable future.
I’m not saying that the song was written about an actual passionfruit, but also that’s exactly what I’m saying.
Our driver knew what she was doing too. She whipped out a knife and cut that shit up as she was driving. What a blessing. I owe her my life.
Anyways, now we’re at the airport, waiting to board a plane that has a beak painted on the nasal cone, about to zoom off into the great unknown (Thailand). I know that it’s good to experience new stuff and get out into the world and it’s easy for me to wax poetical about a place I’ve barely been, but I still can’t help but be a little sad we didn’t give Taiwan a little more time on this trip.
I think we’re boarding soon, so Godspeed lads.
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