Taipei Part II: Arrival at A-ma’s
Arriving in Taipei was really exciting. The city is enormous and absolutely packed with people, scooters, colorful signs and high-rise towers. The Taipei Main Station is a giant, sprawling maze of tiled underground tunnels and rails, including connections to trains, buses, the subway system, a two-story underground mall and a food court with lots of delicious Taiwanese and Japanese food, including the most magnificent mochi café I have ever seen. Kevin and I ate some dumplings and niu rou mian tang (beef noodle soup) before setting out on the last few steps of our journey to his grandmother’s house.
The Taipei Metro system is really nice as well – clean, uncrowded, and with a very clever payment system which combines the convenience and flexibility of the Boston “Charlie Card” system with the environmental sustainability of the old token system. The sun was blazing when we emerged from the Shilin station. We hailed a bus and took it to Shuangxi Gongyuan, a park near Kevin’s grandmother’s house. The park was just beautiful, and we wandered around a little bit (admittedly part of our objective was to get some shade for part of the last leg of our journey). Eventually we found Kevin’s family’s street, and, after some slightly hair-raising street-crossing, found ourselves on a small, cool street bounded closely on either side by tall apartments.
Kevin’s grandmother (A-ma, pronounced “ah-ma”) lives in a building which belongs to the entire Jwo family. The house is five stories high, with a pretty courtyard out front with a koi pond, and an elevator inside. The first floor features a large, beautifully decorated room where the entire family sometimes gathers to eat large or fancy meals. The rest of floors 1 and 2 belong to Kevin’s aunt, uncle and cousins, while another part of the building belongs to still another family group. The third and fourth floors are where A-ma lives, while the fifth floor is (I think) typically reserved for guests and has a large outdoor balcony housing A-ma’s garden.
We were greeted at the house with a dining room table laden with a huge number of dishes… Kevin made the mistake of mentioning that we had stopped to eat at the Taipei Main station. Instantly A-ma’s hands went to her hips. “Weishenme?” [Why?] she demanded. Kevin hastened to amend the situation and we were soon seated at the table eating fried taro roots, bamboo soup, tofu squares, vegetarian smoked "sausage," chicken, stir-fried eggplant, green beans, and some kind of beef or pork. After that, we headed upstairs to investigate the rooms A-ma had prepared for us.
(Pictures from top to bottom: me at Shuangxi Gongyuan, three times; koi in A-ma's pond, two times; and me at the lavish banquet A-ma made for us. I'm making a weird face because I have a piece of taro in my mouth and am mid-chew.
posted by Kelly @ 6:00 PM
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