Clean-forgotten to follow up my first post on Taipei with a second. So, a bit late, more than a year late in fact and therefore recapping, I was flying from Australia to the Netherlands on China Airlines, naively thinking that the great international stoush about Taiwan couldn’t be all that serious if a mainland Chinese airline flew through Taipei. I had to ring them up before I left Sydney to check on something and was disabused in that process.“No, no, dis China AIR, Peoplepublic”, the call centre told me, “you wan China airLINE, Taiwa-a-a-an!”
The attraction of flying through Taipei was the eighteen-hour layover there on the way over and on the way back. Actual flying time from downunder to Amsterdam is give-or-take-an-hour twenty-two hours, so I counted on a nice shower and a sleep in a real bed at roughly the halfway point. What I had not counted on was the very strict approach taken by the democratic Chinese republic to hotel check-in times, 3pm and not a minute earlier. Both my arrivals were early-morning arrivals, but after a bit of searching online I found a hotel, City Suites, close to the airport, which permitted early check-ins at an extra charge.
In my first Taipei post, I describe how I killed time, by going for a walk through central Taipei and discovering Taiwan seems to have fork issues, and that’s when and where I left the reader: in central Taipei around noon on a sunny weekday, in 35 degrees Celsius and 90-plus per cent relative humidity. Apologies, dear reader.
The return trip on the driverless MRT was uneventful, and I arrived at the City Suites a mere two hours before regulation check-in time. I didn’t have to pay extra and was given a keycard to a room on the top floor with a view of planes coming in for landing, a view only, because the room was either soundproofed against outside noise, or the heavy drone of the air conditioning on the utilities floor above the top floor cancelled out all outside noise. Not perfect but very acceptable after a ten-hour flight and a four-hour morning walk in the 35-degree heat and 90-plus per cent relative humidity already mentioned. I had a shower and had a look at the folder spruiking local tourism attractions, which also contained a sheet headed House Rules, formulated in that wonderful English, the result of only a very basic grasp of English combined with a very good bilingual dictionary, for example: “In case of damage and breakage, indemnity is a must be.” Or my favourite, rule 11: “Suffering from contagious diseases and insanity guests, please notify our staff in advance.”
Unfortunately, AI is busily getting rid of this blend of English. I removed the sheet with the City Suites House Rules from the folder, and, neatly framed, it now has pride of place on the wall behind reception in the Institute’s lobby as an artifact from an age when natural intelligence still roamed free.
I sank in Morpheus’ arms and in the evening caught my flight to Amsterdam, a drama-free 18-hour layover.
How different the 18-hour layover on the way back to Sydney would prove to be.
For starters, a typhoon was blowing, Typhoon Krathon. Note, typhoon not hurricane, East Asia sticks with Joseph Conrad on that point.
Strangely enough, no announcement had been made during the flight that we were going to land in typhoon conditions, not even euphemistically, say, a reference to ‘minor crosswinds’ or ‘a bit of turbulence’ nothing-to-worry-about sort-of-thing, check out-our-duty-free-merchandise. It has to be said that the landing had been as smooth as a baby’s bottom.
But as soon as we got into the arrival hall, the typhoon hit and all hell broke loose, so to speak, because every TV-screen big and small showed, on a continuous loop, destruction, mudslides, floods and desperate rescue workers, interrupted only by automated announcements of cancelled train and bus services and warnings to stay indoors, which led to alarmed arriving passengers hitting their mobiles to ring family. Once out of the arrival hall, having cleared immigration, I was in an area where you could actually see outside, and, yes!, the fronds of the palm trees lining the road where taxis and buses picked up passengers were moving a bit, but I mean palm trees are the drag queens among trees, bending and their fronds flapping up and down in the slightest breeze and looking very dramatic, but a typhoon?, really?
Everybody seemed to think Taipei was in the midst of a natural disaster, though. I decided it was inadvisable to try and find Hulk Fried Rice back or go for another walk downtown, so it was a City Suites early check-in, probably paid-for this time.
I was beginning to feel like a local, because on the way to City Suites from Dayuan MRT station, two stops from Taipei International Airport, I knew where to take the short-cut through the carpark, filled with commuter scooters, mostly blown over, by Krathon presumably.
On arrival at City Suites at about eight in the morning, I strode up to the reception desk, where they were busy checking guests out. A tallish, pasty-faced young man was in charge. He was clearly in checking-out mode. When I asked for a room, that’s what he said, “We checked out now.” He pushed back his thick-glassed, black-framed spectacles and checked out a family of four, following them out the door to a bus after they had been administratively checked out. It was a very literal form of checking out, I thought. I stayed where I was.
“Could I check in now, please?”, I asked when he had regained his position behind the reception desk, “I have a booking.”
“Of course, of course, my bad, my bad”, he waffled without giving eye contact. Next thing he was checking out another family of four, following them out the door into Typhoon Krathon and a light drizzle, running knock-kneed and hair flapping, a perfect cross between Captain Ahab and Mr Bean.
He clearly had an obsession for checking people out of the hotel. Perhaps that is why he was rostered on in the morning. He hadn’t been there the first time I stayed, when I had shown up around noon.
When he returned, I tried again, but Ahab Bean now lost his patience with me. “Please wait in lobby. Lounge there. Is comfortable for you. Yes. Taiwan had typhoon now. Yes.” And off he was, checking them out in droves again, which meant he didn’t hear me say, “Call this a typhoon? Read your Conrad, pal”.
There was nothing for it, and it wasn’t until ten o’clock that the stream of guests checking out had abated to the point where I dared venture another attempt at checking in.
“Yes? Can I help you?”, asked Ahab Bean, pretending he couldn’t remember me.
“A room, please. I have a reservation.”
“Check in is 3pm”, Ahab Bean said.
“I know, but I’ll pay the extra …”
“You able pay extra but depends availability.”
Long story short, I finally got a room, at $135 extra, on the floor above the noisy dining room, which offered a round-the-clock buffet, and opposite the cleaners’ station, where staff screeched at each other, either because they were laughing or were abusing each other, hard to tell.
The first time I was at City Suites, when dinner time came, one look at the 24/7 buffet had sufficed. I was not eating there.
Fortunately, on the long way to City Suites from Dayuan MRT station before I had discovered the short-cut through the scooter park, I had walked past a noodle place by the name of Big Foot Pasta. Pasta, not noodles. Clearly Italian-themed.
I had wondered about the reason behind the choice of name. Hulk Fried Noodle had perhaps been so named because the proprietor, or more likely one or more of their offspring, loved the Hulk TV-series when they were little. After some thought I concluded that Big Foot was perhaps intended as Big Boot, the charted shape of Italy, home of pasta. Google Maps refers to the eatery as Big Foots Spaghetti.
What is clearly communicated through Streetview, however, is that Big Foot Pasta’s forecourt is absolutely no match for the Piazza San Marco in Venice and, credit where credit is due, the owners of Big Foot Pasta have made absolutely no attempt to give Big Foot Pasta’s patrons that impression. Accordingly, food is served strictly indoors, in my case by a friendly, very obese young waiter with teeth that were literally green, heritage green we call that shade of green in Australia.
How plentiful were the choices gourmets were offered! Streetview (call it Tableview in this instance) provides photos of what looks like all of Big Foot’s menu-ed dishes, you can keep scrolling and scrolling until you develop RSI in your index finger. Granted some of the photographed dishes appear to have been half-eaten, but no doubt that is down to guest appetite and impatience to get stuck in. It’s an additional feather.
I had not had spagbol for ages and ages, and that’s what I had, eaten in the Italian way, and that means: with fork and spoon. Yes Taiwan, you can do it!
The second time round I had the carbonara, cheerfully served up by the waiter with the Heritage-green teeth.
If you ever go to Taiwan, make sure, first, that you bring your own cutlery, and second, that you feast on the offerings of Hulk Fried Rice and Big Foot Pasta, aka Big Foots Spaghetti.
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