Kyoto

After visiting Taiwan, my parents and I went to Kyoto for a few days, our first ever time in Japan.  It was fascinating to see where certain aspects of Taiwanese culture originated.  Every place is unique, but Japan almost didn't feel like Asia.  The small neighborhoods with quaint houses and extremely clean streets with sidewalks with no curb almost felt European.  The sidewalk traffic was not as politely orderly as in Taiwan, but maybe because we were constantly forgetting to walk on the left.

Visiting the Giant Buddha of Nara, a temple complex roamed freely by deer

Our first full day in Japan, we did a self-guided bike tour (with my mom on an electric bike) to various sites.  Every time we hit a hill, my mom's pedal assist would suddenly engage and she would zoom past us.  The climax of the day was a climb to Kinkaku-ji, the Temple of the Golden Pavilion.  It glowed in the sunshine of a chilly day.  I was struck by how the weather was opposite that of Taiwan; Japan was dry, sunny, and cold.  It was comforting to once again be around locals who react nonchalantly to chilly weather.  On a 65 degree day, you could expect Taiwanese people to be wearing parkas, hats, and gloves, whereas Japanese people wore less on a 45 degree day.

Arashiyama Bamboo Forest

Kinkaku Temple, covered in gold leaf

Ending the biking day at a nice teahouse with traditional desserts

New Year's miso soup with mochi balls

The next day, we went to Kiyomizu-dera, the most striking temple complex of the trip.  To reach the temple at the top of a hill, you walk up winding cobblestone streets (including one claiming to be the most beautiful in all of Kyoto) packed with tourists in kimonos and vendors selling snacks and souvenirs.

Attending a Japenese tea ceremony was radically different than drinking tea in China or Taiwan.  Part of the experience is the aesthetics of the flowers and the painting chosen for decoration in the tatami mat room.  The tea leaves are ground into a powder called matcha, whereas Chinese tea is the leaves steeped and then filtered out.  The tea is drunk from bowls rather than cups, and there is an emphasis on purity, or everything being clean.  Since being in Taiwan, I'd already become obsessed with matcha so I enjoyed every tea, ice cream, crepe, cream puff, waffle, mochi, cocktail I could find in matcha flavor.

Kodai Temple

For dinner, we had kaiseki, a traditional meal of small courses, at Roan Kikunoi, my first ever two Michelin star restaurant.  It was a spectacular feast.  The first course was a small saucer of sake with gold flakes.  It did feel very different than Western haute cuisine.  There were quite a few cold, mushy dishes--as my mom said, even in Taiwan after having too much mochi and boba, Westerners like more crunch.  A lot of emphasis was placed on the aromas, the variations of umami flavors, and how the handcrafted pottery paired with the dishes.

The next day, we hiked all around the one-of-a-kind Fushimi Inari shrine.  The tunnels of red tori were stunning to walk through in person; just like the bamboo forest, there was a special ambiance that couldn't be captured in photos.

As we decided to hike all the way to the summit all the other tourists disappeared.  We ended up following an abandoned path through a cemetery (where my dad managed to suddenly get lost) down the backside of the mountain to another temple, this time in the middle of a private residential community.

Tofuku Temple

Nishiki Market

None of the restaurant portions were ever big enough for my mom, so one night on our way home from dinner we stopped at an Ichiran Ramen.  Only Japan could have created a dining concept where you order from a machine, are seated in an individual booth, and delivered your food under a curtain.  The only time you saw your server was when they lifted the shade just enough so that you could see their deep bow.  If we heard arigato gozaimasu once that trip, we heard it five hundred times.

Lombardos Come to Taiwan

As soon as winter break began, my brother came to visit me for a special Christmas in Taiwan--to be followed several days later by my parents.  My brother and I went to Midnight Mass near Da'an Park with a few of my friends.  We kept the tradition alive of going to IHOP afterwards to make New Year's resolutions by going to a 豆漿 (a Taiwanese breakfast restaurant that stays open late).

We flew down south to Taidong Province for a few days to surf in Dulan and bike around Chihshang 池上, whose open fields were made famous by an Eva Airlines tourism commercial.  We also hiked into a riverbed to soak in the 紅葉橋 natural hot springs.

Having my brother here reminded me how far I'd come in my Chinese language journey, and how different immersion is to any other language-learning experience.  I've grown so accustomed to life here that it was funny to accompany my family as they processed everything for the first time.  My brother read the Mass Rapid Transit sign as the Mr. T.  I forgot that it's not normal to be the tallest everywhere I go or have strangers secretly take photos of me on the street.  My family made me realize how little/cheaply I eat normally, how much I walk daily, and how stinky stink tofu is.  They were most shocked by how orderly and reserved everyone is in public.

Passing stinky tofu stall in night market

At a teahouse in Maokong

We took a short, incredible trip to 小琉球 Lambay Island, a new place even for me.  As predicted, my brother loved getting to drive a moped around the circumference of the small island (my parents were reluctant passengers), and I loved snorkeling in the surf with a bale of huge sea turtles.  We hiked through caves and played mahjong as a family.

We stayed at a hot springs resort in Beitou

For New Year's Eve, I took them to the party inside the 101 observatory deck, from which the fireworks are launched.  It is meteorologically impossible for Taipei not to be cloudy in the last hours of a calendar year, but we probably still could see the fireworks better than anyone on the ground or surrounding hillsides.  As the only foreigners at the party, we were the only ones dancing--and probably drank more Taiwan Beers than any one else.  My family was shocked by how everyone was sitting to listen to the live performers.  Afterwards they got to experience Taiwanese excellence in crowd control firsthand as we took the MRT home on the one day a year it runs all night.