Keelung, Taiwan - February 17

bus beer

15 degrees, cloudy in the morning, rain and wind in the afternoon

Keelung, Taiwan is the port city for Taipei. We sail right into the heart of the Keelung. It makes it extremely easy to just walk off of the boat to stroll around the town. 

Our tour today is in the PM, so we decide to check out Keelung on foot in the morning. It’s quite something to be wandering around a place and not be able to read any of the signs.

The most interesting thing to look at are the tiny markets on the sidewalk or in a tiny shop and the food stalls. Of course I don’t buy anything…I can’t even read a menu. I wouldn’t know what I’m buying or how much anything costs. I could always point, but I’m way too scared at this point. All of the food stalls and shops are tiny and right on the sidewalk. There is a sidewalk, but most of that is taken up by parked motorcycles and scooters.

can't mess around in this weather

We actually do end up buying food…McDonald’s!! I always like checking out the different food familiar places serve and the prices and we decided to stay. Absolutely everything was the same as home with the exception of the ‘pork sesame bun’ – basically a pork burger topped with sesame sauce, quite good…I’d have another. What would likely cost around 15 at home cost us about 10.

This place strikes me as quite dreary. It might be the weather, but the buildings are particularly drab and dirty looking.

We decide not to actually make it into Taipei as it was a bit far and the tours offered weren’t too appealing. We decide to stay closer to where we are docked.

The afternoon’s tour takes us first for a quick visit to Chung Cheng Park. This place has a Buddhist temple, with its main attraction being a 74 foot statue of Mother Buddha. How huge the statues can be made in this part of the world continues to amaze me.

Lastly, we visit Yeliu Park. This is a park of geological formations on the edge of the sea. This entire place is gorgeous. A combination of waves, wind, rain and the movement of the earth millions of years ago created natural sandstone and rock sculptures. Unfortunately, by the time we got there it was very windy and rainy. Luckily we were given chic rain ponchos!! It was surprising how non-slippery the rocks were in the rain. By the time we got back to the bus I was a bit drenched, but not at all cold. When the bus full of wet passengers caused the windows to quickly fog, up the guide informs us that vehicles don’t have heaters and homes don’t have central heating in Taiwan.

Before getting back to the bus we checked out the food stalls outside of the park. I have a feeling squid is a big product here!! There were countless fresh, dried, cooked and fresh squid – it was incredible. We bought a couple of bus beers (2.00 each) and were on our way back to Keelung.

Before getting back on the ship we were FINALLY able to find some ‘unusual’ chips. One I’m pretty sure is squid (pic on the bag looks like it and everything seems to be squid) and the other is oyster omelet (some English on this package.) I haven’t tried the squid ones yet, but the oyster omelet are not half bad - a bit sweet, herby and slightly fishy. 

docked right in the heart of the city

bus beer

Queen's Head formation

Mother Buddha

I'm lovin' it!