Taipei, Taiwan

Often, a botanical garden is our first excursion when arriving at a new destination.  The quiet, tranquil surroundings are therapeutic.

I forgot to mention "beautiful" to describe the garden.

Main building at the botanical garden

Everything went perfectly in our flight to Taiwan, but it was still a tiring eight-hour move. When we visit Europe, we have some familiarity with the languages and can at least read the alphabet, but here it is truly foreign.  People are helpful, so the experience, although taxing, is not unpleasant. First, we need to find our airline for check-in, then we face security, immigration, customs, baggage claim, and then find our transportation. At our Japan arrival, the immigration line by itself was 75 minutes long.  In Taiwan, the immigration line was about half that. (In Australia it was two hours long, 8pm-10pm when our cruise ship arrived.)

The city of Taipei is about 20 miles east of the international airport.  I was able to pre-arrange for a taxi service to pick us up from the airport and deliver us to our hotel through a service named "Klook.com", an Asian version of Viator.  We had ample luggage and arrived at rush hour, so the taxi made more sense than the metro train system.   We had three nights in our very comfortable hotel, Humble Boutique Hotel, before we joined our cruise ship.  This hotel is in the middle of the city; there is a large shopping mall below ground, beneath the nearby street intersection associated with the metro train system.  With city all around us, we elected to visit (by Uber) the Taipei Botanical Gardens: very quiet, lush, and relaxing.  Nearby was a temple complex, art gallery, and a 12-story condominium complex of amazing architectural design.  Through Google, I discovered that in a poll, Sotheby's rated this condo building one of the top five worldwide for its beauty, function, and integration with the adjacent natural features of the park.  We found it stunning.

This condominium building is surrounded on two sides by the nearby garden.  All the building terraces have lush plantings on them.

Motorcycles and scooters are a major means of transport in Taipei

We encountered dance classes and dancing in an outdoor park.  We were invited to join them.

The following day, we embarked on a very long walk from our hotel enjoying the scenery and attractions along the way.  We came across a park where they were having an outdoor dance with lessons offered for beginners.  They offered for us to join them.  We then passed by a marketplace area with an extremely dense crowd of shoppers.  We stayed out of that, more concerned about health issues than any safety aspect.

Next, we walked to a very nice park complex which included basketball courts, a baseball field, an extensive children’s area, a rose garden, and an historic home with surrounding landscaped grounds.  It was satisfying to watch parents with well-behaved children using the swings, slides, climbing ropes, trampolines, and tree houses at the park.  When we visit our family in Washington, DC, we see unsupervised kids pushing the limits of behavior.... plus, some vagrants passed out on benches.

We elected to keep our distance from this street crowd.  Shopping?  Celebration?  We were not concerned about safety, but about germs and viruses.  We both got very sick on a previous trip from an unknown source.

A very large park is located under the flight path of a local airport.

Who is this 'big kid' using the mini trampoline?

A traditional, historic home was also on display at this park.  You could walk through all the furnished rooms.

Of course, the park also included gardens.

Taiwan in our eyes is very much a first-world country.  Great public services, excellent organization, and law-abiding people.  Taoism is the major religion with many temples evident.  We felt very safe here.  It felt more 'relaxed' than our experience in Japan.  We saw more diversity in dress and lifestyles.  I recently saw a poll (unknown source) that rated the people of Taiwan as the happiest of any in the region.

Our Oceania cruise ship departed from Keelung, a little over 20 miles northeast of Taipei.  Uber is present in Taipei, but their drivers did not want to go that far; thus, we used a taxi to meet up with our ship, Oceania's Insignia.  The ship's first stop was at Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan.  Kaohsiung is an industrial port city; its main attractions on our excursion were temples and religious monuments.

Kaohsiung, Taiwan, with its amazing modern architecture

Note that the young woman is praying prior to adding incense to the smoldering offering in front of the temple.

No shortage of Taoist temples in this region.  There were several other temples at this location.

Perhaps you would like to buy some dried octopus on a stick.