*欢迎光临！喜欢可以免费式穿喔！

Walk into any shops in Taipei, and you will be greeted by the sales people's extremely saccharine-soaked, almost to the point of being nasal welcome - 欢迎光临! ('Huaaa-nn Yinng Guuuan-g Lin-nnnnng!') They sounded like they were going to give you a big hug and a lollipop, and you would buy down the entire shop.

It was almost unreal, hearing the fast and furious mandarin (they call it 国语, guo yu) you normally hear on MTV Chinese and Taiwanese variety shows coming live to you. I was compelled to reply in the same accent. My mandarin (we call it 华语, hua yu) isn't that horrible as I like to think it is. It really isn't. I am not your gantang banana. And sometimes I think I can pull off sounding like a Taiwanese. But I was struggling thinking up proper terms, and saying the right words correctly. In Gong-Guan, where we were shopping for shoes, I made a poor salesgirl looked at me in utter confusion when I asked her for directions. Shoes, or 鞋子, is pronounced 'xie zi', not the 'xue zi' I was pronouncing in my entire soon-to-be 21 years.

Really, you have to be able to speak good-enough mandarin to survive well in this city.

The friendliness of the people is hard to hide. They are so eager to help and show you around. People in the service line there put the GEMS campaign here to shame. Maybe it's the accent. You'd melt just listening to them requesting that you wait while they get the right size. Of course nothing is perfect, I do get the occasionally rude salespeople.

Traffic in Taipei on the other hand, is quite a scary affair, though by no means worse than it is in China. Roads here are small and cramped to squeeze in the cars, the buses, vans and oh yes, the scooters. Loads of them damn scooters. Parking is everywhere along the road. And you can't walk down Ximending without looking out for scooters waiting to knock you down, but they won't. You can continue walking because somehow they will maneuvre out to get past you. And traffic goes two way here on one single lane. Yet not once did I witness a road rage or an accident.


SMRT and Singaporeans should learn a thing or two from Taipei. For one, people really stand on one side of the escalator (which is on the right, instead of the left in Singapore - oh wait, people still hog the right side here), and most importantly, people in Taipei really give way to those getting out of the train. Best of all, they queue!

The second day of the trip was coincidentally the Double Tenth Day. We were advised to avoid the city areas, where protests against the President Chen Suei-Bian, or what they called 天下围攻 (tian xia wei gong), were ongoing. We set off early in the morning to travel up north to Danshui, and many Taiwanese citizens were already in full red gear, ready to join the rallies. News reports were highly sensationalized. Instead of focusing on more pragmatic issues that these protests are pressing on the society or the economy, you get a more tabloid idea of what's happening.


From politics to pop culture, Taipei is the undisputed land of Mandopop. It's hard to avoid hearing the latest songs or music videos, and everywhere you turn, there are definitely posters and billboards of the most popular superstars, plugging the latest products from tea to thumb drives. Take a seat with the old folks talking politics at the Ximending's KFC outlet that provides the best view of Taiwan's youth haven - preferably after 11am on weekdays, the students come in drives, their eccentric fashion sense embedded even in their school uniform.

Taiwan may be a nation denied politically by many, but one cannot deny the influence it has on popular culture in Asia. Taipei's hip quotient is evident in its fashion. Strategically located, they carry the latest in Korean, Japanese and Hong Kong fashion, and thus become one of its own. They are lucky enough to have the four seasons, unlike in Singapore where it's summer all year round. Shopping is insane here, especially now that they are clearing stocks from their fall/autumn collection to make way for winter. Things are almost dirt cheap. Check out Net, a fashion outlet that imitates Gap, Zara and Abercrombie and Fitch but with names like Back To School, Net Men, Net Jeans, etc. I was momentarily insane.

Who can forget the delicacies of Taipei? Must-try include their chicken cutlet, mee sua, the insanely large cups of bubble tea (with the cutest pearls), smelly tofu (try for the fun of it, but good gracious, it really stinks.) and my favourite, shaved ice!


I think there are no desserts in Singapore that can satisfy me anymore. Because I will have one taste of it and compare it to the ones I had in Taipei. Ice Kachang is just boring.

Check out my Taipei Flickr set for more photos!



(*Welcome! You can try it if you like!)