Most, if not all of the articles which Google suggested when
I searched “taipei with toddlers” were written by mothers who had put a great
deal of effort into planning a trip well in advance of said trip. Their posts
contained reviews of indoor playgrounds, the Taipei Zoo, and a ton of other kid-friendly
activities and places to eat. Clearly, keeping the kids happy was the foremost
consideration.
Those posts are well and good if you are the type of parent
who is conscientious about planning family holidays and taking leave, and if
you are generally more concerned about your child’s well-being on holiday than
your own. However, three and a half years or so of being parents has shown that
Husband and I are definitely not that type of parent; obviously, this is not
going to be one of those types of posts. I should also add that we chose Taipei
because I knew I was going to end up live-streaming the MBC Drama Awards on 30 December (I had special reasons for wanting to catch it this year – yes, okay,
judge me – I acknowledge my facepalm behaviour) and I wanted to go to an Asian
city so that there would be the right vibes when I watched it. Seoul was out of
the question, somehow, because it was just too cold and it didn’t feel right to
go at the time.
Anyhow, for what it’s worth, since this was my first trip
with the boys that I genuinely enjoyed (the first holiday we had as a family of
four was to Bali, earlier in 2017), I thought I would write about it in case
you have small children and are suddenly struck with a case of the YOLOs. Of
course, if you’re reading this and intend to do some sort of “planning” based
on our “itinerary”, you won’t achieve the same sort of YOLO, but there’s
nothing wrong with that. The key to enjoying a trip with small children, I have
found and as you will see, is to generally DGAF about certain things (there is
no other way to say it but in this crude millennial way. I apologise for any
offence this may cause).
I set out as follows a detailed summary of the events
leading to the trip, and each day of the trip itself.
***
3-4 weeks out:
Husband comes home from work one day, declares he is tired, and that he has applied
for what will be his second block of long leave for 2017. Soon after his
declaration, his leave is approved. Husband says, “Let’s go on a trip!” He is
persistent, asking almost every day, sometimes multiple times.
Although I feel slightly resentful and put up a protest
because I’ve lost so many work days during the year to HFMD (Andy Lau got it
three times in 2017. THREE. TIMES. All mild, but the quarantine periods add up
to more than a month of work days), other viruses, childcare centre closures
and grandparents going on holiday, and now that Husband is finally on leave I
can catch up on my work while he takes over some childcare duties, I eventually
agree because I know in my heart that this is something God wants for me and the
family. Despite the fact that I am also deep in the depths of drafting hell and
all my other work has suffered greatly as a result and I have no idea whether I
will be able to get documents out before the holiday.
N.B. I went to Manila the second weekend of December for CNBlue’s
Between Us in Manila, and to Jakarta the third weekend of December for Husband’s
colleague’s wedding, but those were just weekend trips, and much needed ones at
that. If you had told me at the beginning of 2017 that I would have taken so
many trips in December, I would have laughed in your face and told you you were
mad. I had come to hate travelling, because of post-holiday laundry and a fear
of terrorists and plane crashes. God had blessed me with a period of all-encompassing
emotional release (I will write about this when the time is right) in November
last year, and in such an unexpected manner; if I didn’t agree to this holiday,
then what was the point of His opening my heart to simple joys such as this?
1.5-2 weeks out: I accept that I am still in drafting hell, and that I am falling sick
because I am constantly worrying about the documents but also fed up with the
entire project. I convince Husband to go to Taipei because it will have the end
of year vibe the both of us are looking for, and point out that we have already
been to Bali earlier in 2017. I am honest with Husband about the MBC Drama
Awards and why I am probably going to live-stream it. Collectively, Husband and
I baulk at the price of air tickets to Taipei, but purchase them anyway. I get my
brother to research hotels in Taipei with the hope that he will be able to get
us a family rate. He says that the only hotels where he can get us said family
rate are too far out from the city centre, and because he is nice enough, he
then helps me to search for a more central hotel.
Again, Husband and I collectively baulk at the room rates,
but agree to get rooms at The Landis Taipei.
Five days out:
Go to Uniqlo to purchase cold weather clothing for the boys.
Day of trip: I send
drafts to my boss at 2am. I wake up to pack (the flight is in the afternoon,
thankfully), and acknowledge that I am a bit sicker than I was before, and that
my jaw hurts like crazy because I probably clenched it through the night
worrying about the documents. As we get close to take-off, I decide that it’s
time to start the DGAF-ery, and the taxi ride to the airport is a happy one.
N.B.: I did not pack the boys’ toothbrushes. They did
not brush their teeth for four nights.
Taipei, Day 1: Nobody
sleeps on the flight; although Husband and I do our level best, THEY do not
let up. Daniel watches in-flight TV for most of it – he watched an episode of
some cartoon I cannot remember the name of about 4 or 5 times, but it was a
decidedly boy one, and then he insisted on an episode of Elena of Avalon or
whatever it’s called, which I was secretly horrified by because it’s a show for girls! but a desire to get him out of my
hair won the day. Again, I think he watched the same episode about 4 or 5
times, chortling every single time. Oh, to be three again.
Andrew lies down at our feet on the aeroplane, and also
takes great joy in playing with the stuff in the pocket behind the seat. I
neglected to bring hand sanitiser. However, as these activities occupy him for
fairly long stretches of 10-15 minutes (my concept of time is warped), I shut
both eyes to it (but not to sleep).
It’s around dinnertime by the time we get to the hotel, so
we go to a nearby beef noodle place for dinner. Hospital Ship is showing on the
TV there. The beef noodles are so so, but seeing Ha Ji Won and Kang Min Hyuk
puts me in an even better mood. Husband is not amused.
Neither Daniel nor Andrew’s hands are washed before dinner, and
both use their hands to shovel rice which fell down their fronts into their
mouths. Daniel also eats rice off the slightly greasy table. The adults each have
a traditional pastry for dessert, from a shop further down the road which sells
savoury tau huay, jian1 bing3, and other such delicacies.
We return to the hotel, everyone has a warm bath and gets
into bed thankfully.
Level of DGAF-ery for
Day 1 (out of 10): 10
Taipei/ Taizhong, Day
2: After breakfast at the hotel, we head to Zhongxiao Dong Lu (made famous
by the Power Station song) for a walk. We chance upon the Xiao Hei Ren Mee Tai
Mak stall, and the adults have a bowl each. It is very good mee tai mak.
Best part of this activity:
Lustily singing Zhongxiao Dong Lu Zou Jiu Bian over and over again with Daniel,
and being together as a family in a foreign land. So much like Singapore, and
yet so different.
Daniel becomes fixated on taking the gao tie, so we decide
to go to Taizhong. When we get there, we hop into the first taxi in the queue,
and tell the taxi driver we have some idea of going to try some famous soy bean
stall (which Husband visited when he went up for Y’s wedding earlier in the
year). En route, it becomes apparent to the taxi driver that we have no plans
at all, so he suggests we visit this Rainbow Village, then go to the Gaomei
Wetlands, and end the day at the Fengjia Night Market.
Seeing as we truly have
no plans at all, we agree. Taxi driver insists that Taizhong is THE place to go
to to “play”, so you may wish to bear that in mind the next time you plan a
trip to Taiwan.
Rainbow Village:
Only worth going if you are looking for a new place to take selfies. We spend
less than 10 minutes there and take a token photograph because our taxi driver
was so excited for us to go and we didn’t want to disappoint him.
Gaomei Wetlands:
Andrew lay down on the floor of the taxi a couple of times on the way there,
because the drive was so long. We half-wondered if it would be worth our while
because the meter fare was quite steep, but whaddya know, we had an excellent
time. The boys ran around to their hearts’ content, we had piping hot fries and
fried chicken and grilled squid in the cold, and I allowed Daniel to drink
Lemon Duo Duo (sort of like Lemon Yakult) from a straw which had fallen on the
floor a few times because I essentially just gave up on maintaining hygiene
standards in that regard.
Fengjia Night Market:
We didn’t eat much, but Husband and I agreed the food may well have been better
than what you can get at the Taipei night markets.
All in, pretty much a perfect day. Even though Daniel had to
be cajoled to take the gao tie back to Taipei because he inexplicably developed
a fear of it on the way to Taizhong, and on the ride back to Taipei, Andrew lay
on the floor of the train.
Level of DGAF-ery for
Day 2 (out of 10): 15. For obvious reasons.
Taipei, Day 3: We
find out that W and YL are in Taipei too, and meet them in Ximending, where Ah
Zong Mee Sua is had and enjoyed by all adults. We make plans to meet for hotpot
at night. After lunch, Daniel asks to go back to the hotel to sleep but I’m in
the mood for walking around so I go with Andrew to the main Eslite Bookstore
where I purchase Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (Jeanette Winterson) and The
Noise of Time (Julian Barnes) because it has been a long time since I purchased
any hardcopy books. For some reason, I feel like I’m on exchange in Beijing again,
31 going on 21 going on 22, walking back to my apartment at the tail-end of
winter with J after we had ma la tang on a whim after dinner, from a dodgy roadside
stall, sharing a can of Qingdao. That remains one of my best memories of that
time. My feet are aching like they wouldn’t have ten years ago, probably from
baby-wearing my fat baby, and I will never again have that lack of responsibility.
But I marvel at how this is the first time in a long time, probably since we
found out that Husband had that cancerous tumour (end of 2013), that I have
felt so keenly in the moment.
I buy a bowl of savoury tau huay on the way back to the
hotel. The pieces of you tiao have expanded and softened by the time I get
back, but the taste of it is familiar, a cold morning in Chengde at a roadside
stall, or it may have been night time – but does it matter? The clang of the
cover of the pot as the stall owner removed it, the steam rising and
disappearing rapidly in the cold air. Soy sauce, chili, fresh coriander leaves,
a metal spoon with a shallow bowl.
We go to Man Tang Hong Ding Ji Ma La Yuan Yang Guo
(Songjiang Lu) for dinner (W managed to get a reservation). Skip the Haagen
Dazs ice-cream, the other brand of ice cream (it’s no longer Meiji and I didn’t
take the name down, unfortunately) is better. The chocolate and fruit flavours (save
for the pineapple) were good, the latter having the right balance of sweet and tart.
Level of DGAF-ery for
Day 3 (out of 10): This doesn’t need to be considered anymore, because I
clearly gave up maintaining hygiene and being shocked by the lack thereof on
Day 2. There were thankfully no episodes of diarrhoea on the trip so building
immunity in this manner may not be such a bad thing, really.
Taipei, Day 4:
Husband was worried that it would rain – we wanted to go to Danshui. I told him
I was sure that God wanted us to enjoy this time together, and I was confident
it wouldn’t.
The sky was somewhat overcast on the way there, but when we
reached Danshui, and for a good three to four hours thereafter, the sun shone
brilliantly, there was just the right amount of wind, and the boys, again, got
to run around to their hearts’ content. We ended up doing the historical
walking tour quite by accident (i.e. we just walked around and suddenly found
ourselves at the attractions), which offered us some nice views of the bay
(from Fort Domingo). We even “visited” Jay Chou’s high school (other tourists
were talking about it loudly and excitedly). We ate some of the usual rubbishy
things – quail’s eggs on a stick, pork wrapped chives on a stick – tried Castella
cake with cheddar cheese (neither of us saw what the big deal was), Daniel got
to try shooting a BB gun at some balloons, and after walking all the way to the
Fisherman’s Wharf and taking a taxi back to the Danshui Old Street (I plead
aching feet and baby-wearing), we ended our time at Danshui with a late lunch at
Ah Xiang Ah Ji – homemade fishballs filled with lorbak, lorbak rice, smelly
tofu and Taiwanese-style oyster omelette.
Everyone co-operated by falling asleep quite quickly when we
got back to the hotel. I streamed the MBC Drama Awards while chatting with V on
WhatsApp and eating beef noodles which Husband bought back, followed by
Toblerone from the minibar. Ha Ji Won won Best Actress in a Miniseries for
Hospital Ship and got a hug from SAEMONE, and it was a nice end to the holiday.
***
I think this holiday provided affirmation of some of my earliest ideas about
being a parent, namely that it would take time to build a relationship with
your child, because they are ultimately separate people from us, and that keeping
at it through the downright horrible and exhausting times, choosing to love
them and to be patient with them, pays off just as it does with any other
relationship. I woke up one day and realised that I no longer thought of them
as parasites but as people, and that was what made all the difference.
At Fort Domingo