Pam in Taipei

Dragon Boat Festival Weekend

Started off our holiday weekend at Jolly's microbrewery (was so psyched when I found this place! The Scotch Ale is my fave). They also serve Thai food there - could it get any better? Homebrewed beer and Thai food? Together? In one place?

Next we went to a DJ'ed expat pool party -- decided it wasn't our scene, so the next day we went to the beach:

Baishawan (White Sand Beach) at the very northern-most tip of Taiwan. It was the nicest swimming beach I've been to - the waves were calm, the water warm, and no rocks to cut your feet! The sand was indeed white, and the water very clear and clean.

There were some peculiarities though - only 30% of the people there seemed to actually come to swim. The rest were huddled under these individual white shelters that covered the supervised portion of the beach end to end. You had to pay NT$200 to rent one. We took one look and kept walking to a quieter part of the beach. The second curiosity was that half of those Taiwanese who did go in the water were fully clothed - in long jeans and everything! We splashed around in the water happily for awhile till we tried to swim out a bit farther to get past the waves. Just as I did, a speed boat came cruising by and the lifeguard in it started insistently beeping his whistle at me until I moved close enough to the shore that the water was too shallow to swim in.

I tried again once he'd left and again, he came cruising back: "beep beep BEEP!" Well this was really no fun and rather paranoid! These were the calmest ocean waters I'd seen in Asia. The last few beaches I went to (in Taiwan and India, had waves that knocked me right off my feet and beat me up when I wasn't paying attention! Here it was serene!) Just around this time we ran into some friends who were trying to escape the crowds on the other side of the beach. They explained that the paranoid patrols were because 14 people drowned last year. (Well no wonder! They were probably wearing denim jeans and steel boots and sunk!) (Actually, though, I realize Taiwan doesn't really have a swimming culture - most don't really learn, so probably don't have swimsuits either and are happy splashing around in old clothes).

Anyway, Rich pointed out that everyone was being waved back to the shallow end unless you had a surfboard. So I decided to have a go at Cullum's surfboard. I've always thought it looked so hard but I got up on my knees on the first go and sailed right into the beach! It was exhilarating! I can't wait to rent my own board and really go at it.


We treated ourselves to some Taiwanese pepper crab and this tasty fish:


Some views of the boardwalk from the restaurant:


That evening we met up with some friends to drink Chimay in Sofa, a chill loungebar downtown. We talked about visiting the National Palace Museum which houses artifacts stolen from Mainland China. And also how Zach proposed to Rachel, in a park, after she opened a box labeled "Open Immediately" an hour earlier, and finding her boyfriend on a park bench. With a ring.

posted by Pamplemousse @ 11:08 PM