Taipei, Taiwan. The land of boba tea and white sneakers. To be honest, I did not really know anything about Taiwan before booking my trip other than what I have seen from the infamous TV show, Meteor Garden, that the whole of the Philippines was crazy about back in 2001. It was a spur of the moment decision after all. Taipei, Taiwan to me back then were people on cute motorcycles, streets lined with tea houses, long-haired Taiwanese boys called Mei Zuo. That’s right. When people were drooling over Dao Ming Si and Hua Ze Lei, I was fantasizing over Mei Zuo. I digress.

I flew to Taipei and you know what? That is exactly what I got minus the Meteor Garden characters and storyline. I was there in July 2019 and I remember walking around and getting to know the city and thinking how it looked exactly like how it did back then. Like I just stepped into a time capsule from 2001 with the technological conveniences of 2020.

I felt very much like an outsider. A voyeur, watching people interact with each other and go about their lives seemingly unaware of my intense scrutiny. No-one stopped me on the street to make me buy something or ask me if I needed a ride somewhere. Everything was in Taiwanese which made it slightly difficult to get to places but one of the things I loved tremendously about it. “Welcome, we love you for being here but we are not going to translate everything to make it easier for you guys to be here.” the country seems to say.

Taipei is a land stuck in time in the best way possible and I wish you would have been there to witness it.

I always look back at the time I spent there with fondness. I miss the pineapple cake I brought home with me, the Lu Rou Fan I ate almost every day, the Dou Hua that I cannot seem to find anywhere else but Taiwan, my friend Ryan (English name) who let me stay at his place and who was so generous to share his story with me, the train rides (i love trains), the unbeatable night markets and the people who were always so patient and understanding whenever I try and fail to communicate with them.

I cannot wait to meet this place again and be pleasantly surprised as I did back then.