Taipei Exchanges

Monica likes Taiwan for many reasons, convenient transportation, delicious food, friendly people, most of all, her old friends at the Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto in 2000-2001.

It's been two years since her last visit during the Spring break in 2010. She and Mei stayed my brother Jimmy's place for three days. We had a small school reunion among us to celebrate our 10th anniversary. In the past two years, Monica has achieved a lot, being promoted in her company and purchasing her own house in Hong Kong.

Monica arrived in Taipei at noon on April fool's day. After lunch at Brother Jimmy's place, we headed for the Shilin Official Residence. We enjoyed a pleasant Sunday afternoon walk at the gardens of both Chinese and Western style horticulture before we visited the former home of Chiang Kai-Shek and Soong May-ling. The official residence house opened to the public from January 2, 2011.

After a light dinner at the Shilin night market, we hurried back to Jimmy's place to watch "Taipei Exchanges", a movie features a lovely coffeehouse with side barter service in Taipei. Monica was eager to find the coffeehouse in the movie. I didn't know its existence till after Monica returned to Hong Kong.

The second evening at Jimmy's place, Monica and I watched "You Are the Apple of My Eye". In the morning, we went to Wu-lai for one day tour. We took the cable to Yun Hsien Resort in the mountains, enjoyed a lovely seasonal lunch at the Chinese restaurant on the second floor of the Yun Hsien Hotel. In the afternoon, we joined the crowd to find the hot spring along the river in the old aboriginal town of Wulai.

The third day, we went to the Calla Lily Festival at Yangmingshan National Park. It was when we saw the Taipei Exchanges Sunday evening, we made up our minds to see an ocean of blooming calla lily. On our way to the calla lily farm, it started raining. We took it easy to rest at a coffeehouse sipping latte by the farm. To my surprise, the sun came out in time for us to take a lot of beautiful photos of calla lily of 2012!

Monica caught the night bus to Taichung to visit Mei for two days, followed by a hanami at the Ali Mountain, and the Spring Scream 2012 at the Kenting National Park. From Monica's spring vacation, it's obvious Monica is a planner. I wish her luck to find Mr. Right in her life plan soon in the future.