We loved Taiwan. A lot. Except the weather. That sucked. A lot.
The food is fabulous, what we saw of the country is clean and modern, it offers a lot to tourists. I feel ripped off that we didn’t get to see more… really I still feel everything I wrote here, and I won’t repeat it here.
There is a big language barrier.
Although I kind of loved this at the beginning (I like the satisfaction of working everything out), it is annoying when something goes wrong or not quite right, and by the end of the week, never knowing if I was understood when doing things like ordering food, started to get to me a bit. Or not being able to buy train tickets without a lot of bother. Things like that.
It was very possible to be able to cope just fine without Chinese though. I am now feeling inspired to learn some, as we do want to return here and to mainland China (we loooove that country), and I think it would help a lot.
Come at a different time of year.
The weather at this time of year sucks, quite frankly. Wet all the time. It is also humid and nothing dries, so it felt like we were always wet, and we couldn’t get clothes dry. We had clothes hanging up in Taipei for four days without drying, until, thankfully, there was the only bit of sunshine we had seen the whole time for a couple of hours.
We did look up what the weather should be like before booking, but there just really isn’t much useful information about Taiwan online in english. What we saw contradicted itself and wasn’t clear.
There was also a downside on travelling here with young kids.They got lots of smiles, some attention (although nowhere near as much as the Philippines, and it was mainly at S) and lots of comments about how cute they are.
But, I also felt that their behaviour was often frowned upon.
We didn’t often see young kids out here in normal places, like anywhere you could eat, and any kid we saw was quiet. I saw a kid S’s age fall over on a train, and they didn’t even make a sound!! Even when their mum dragged them up by the hood of their coat. Unfortunately, I don’t have Taiwanese children, and a volume switch just isn’t possible on my two year old and even less possible on my 12 month old. For this reason, although I definitely wouldn’t advise against coming to Taiwan with young children (it’s still an awesome place), if you were tossing up a time to come, I would wait until the kids were old enough to understand and mostly use “inside voices” and preferably don’t tantrum much.
There are a lot of fun things to do with kids though. Our favourites were Taipei zoo and the hot springs at Beitou.
How are we going?
It is going well, but not as well as it was when we left the Philippines.
The end of Taiwan saw more stress from all of us, but Z, who is as happy as ever. S’s tantrums/moods have started getting a bit out of control again. I think this has partly been caused by the tighter control we have tried to keep on her behaviour because of feeling like her unbridled, very loud, toddler joy was not appropriate at times. I hope so anyway!! She is also having toilet accidents every day, suddenly, after only having had a couple of the whole trip previously. I really hope this passes soon as it’s stressful on all of us and always at the worst moments (like in a restaurant, taxi, plane, bus etc).
I don’t think about the fact that our trip is coming to an end soon consciously. There are still lots of great things to look forward to. However, I feel like my subconscious is, as the fantastic mood I have been in, and the inner equilibrium I have been feeling is starting to switch to back to how I felt before we went away.
I really don’t want to go back.
If I was to psycho analyse it, I think at home I am still very much struggling to redefine who I am since having children. It is difficult to have “me” time and do the things that interest and satisfy me. While travelling, I don’t have problems with this at all. I am doing what I love, and it combines pretty much perfectly with being a mum, as I don’t mind the restrictions that travelling with children places on me, and I love sharing it with them. If only I could find a way at home to better combine my passions and what satisfies me with being a parent. This trip is giving me some food for thought.
I also have two assignments due in the next week, and that is stressing me out as I struggle to find the time and energy to work on them. Unfortunately, my bad mood rubs off on the others.
J is starting to worry about getting a job. He has just started looking and applying which makes it all the more real that we are returning home with no income. We are not overly worried as he is already having some positive results, and we budgeted for a period of unemployment when we got back, but looking for work is just not fun.
On the upside, I had worried that our energy may be lagging by this stage of the trip, and we may have had enough. This has not happened. I still feel like I could do this forever. Z is still sleeping much better than he was which is probably helping with this.
Anyway, onwards we go!! I am looking forward to what the final week and a half hold in store for us!!
Tags: Taiwan Travel Blog
