Taiwan is also a curiosity for me and thus it's a lovely treat for me and my mom to celebrate her birthday. We did get a shock 1 week before we left when my dad suffered a stroke and we had to rush him to the hospital. It was a stressful period for us and I'm surprised that to see my sister and brother (who have moved out) cried when they heard the news (you have to understand that he is a traditional dad who doesn't hug us or say he loves us).
But I think it's a blessing in disguise as it brought us closer and also created the opportunity for my dad to rest and relax (no stress about his construction project and horrid vampire boss) and enjoy the compassion and love from everyone (and stops being a painful stubborn cow ;)
He is especially close to the two cats - Lola and Mimi - who spend most of the time with him watching TV and napping together on the couch. Animals are such great therapy indeed.
After working out a detailed roster for his care, mom and I flew to Taipei on SIA (best flight ever) and my third aunt and her sister joined us the next day. Taipei was pouring cats and dogs when we got to the city centre by bus from the airport but luckily we met a kind cab driver who joked and happily brought us to MAI hotel nearby.
The locals are really friendly and helpful, from the hotel staff to the taxi drivers (some with a great sense of humour), and are great ambassadors of Taiwan. I really enjoyed speaking Mandarin in Taiwan too (I have a A in Chinese ok!).
We met le mie amiche Margherita and Paola (we studied Italian together in Perugia) who played guides for the most of Saturday. We enjoyed lunch at Taipei 101's massive food court where you can also find Din Tai Fung and shopped around the city centre.
On day 3, we took the metro (30mins) and then a cab (15mins) to the beautiful hot spring town of Wulai outside of Taipei. There are in fact many hot spring towns such as Beitou but I chose Wulai which felt like a clone of Hakone in Japan. Not suprisingly, the Japanese colonised the country before and thus there is a strong Japanese influence here. We splurged on a night's stay ($280) at the 5-star Pause Landis resort for a great nudist spa experience. Mom was giggling non-stop as we watched naked women walking around in the sauna and the indoor pool. We could soak in the hot spring pool for hours as it was so relaxing with the water beating down on your back... ahhhh.
Before that, we had walked 15mins to the Old Street in Wulai and enjoyed a great lunch of local declicacies like wild boar dumplings, bamboo rice, and crispy fried river shrimps. I especially liked the white bittergourd-pineapple-pork rib soup and the array of mountain veggies including the bird's nest ferns (I didn't know it could taste so crunchy and smooth).
Thereafter we burnt off the calories by walking to the hillside and hopped onto a rickety old trenino to see the waterfall. On the scenic way back on foot, we came across a lovey-dovey pair of cats that posed for me above an aboriginal signpost. It was drizzling and made us more sleepy so we headed back for a nap. By now we have gotten used to the sleep-eat-sleep routine.
The next day, we then took a train from Taipei to Hualien (3 hours) and the owner of our minsu (homestay) Rachel picked us up from the train station as promised. According to a friendly cab driver, apparently there are thousands of minsu at Hualien (some not legally registered) and that was why I had booked the Sunrise Hostel to experience the local hospitality.
We also booked a Taroko Gorgeo national park tour and it was definitely worth the time. The marbled ravines were breathtaking and visitors must be ready to hike up some of the demanding trails to see the more scenic areas deep in the lush forests. A tip: try to go early in the day to avoid the sun and the mad stream of tour buses carrying hordes of Chinese tourists. 
We then returned to Taipei and had more slices of night markets and shopping at Ximending. After a while, the markets like Shilin all offered around the same street food.
The Zhi Qiang night market at Hualien had the most interesting variety like oyster soup, bbq meats, deepfrid 'coffin' french toasts stuffed with all kinds of fillings. We had a good relaxing trip and I'm most pleased that I got to speak Mandarin everyday with the locals. Chinese is such a beautiful eloquent language and more of us should hold on to this heritage. Come to think of it, Singaporeans have the luxury of being tri-lingual (Eng, Chinese, dialect) - we should encourage our kids to not forsake our mother tongues.
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