Maid in Taiwan

So, after lots of maybe/maybe nots, I booked my tickets and set off this week to visit C in Taipei. In the end, given that I was in the area to visit friends in HK, I settled on a two-day excursion. Not the longest of stays but enough to see C's home city and sample a bit if the culture. Not long enough for C, who accused me if putting my friends before her but more of that anon, perhaps.

My first impressions of Taiwan were not good. First, the national carrier EVA messed my flight up, chopping four hours off an already truncated trip. They then took 15 minutes to check me in and took off forty minutes late although, to be fair to them, they provided plenty of legroom and are the only carrier I know that has pot plants in their planes' toilets. Awaiting me at Taoyuan Airport was a vast immigration queue, serviced by an officious and unfriendly woman who moved at a glacially slow pace. The plaque she displayed which read "Priority Counter" was just a cruel joke!

This was followed by a queue for taxis which was truly biblical in proportion, inversely matched by the conspicuous absence of anything even vaguely taxi-like. Which, given that it was midnight by the time I escaped from the terminal, could possibly have been predicted. Having no obvious alternative, I joined the line and contemplated the possibility of spending my entire 40 hour trip to Taipei waiting for a taxi to complete the last ten miles of the trip.

Taipei was cold (unusually) and wet; grey and particularly charmless in a lot of ways. Perhaps I've been spoiled by HK and was expecting Taipei to be the same. It wasn't - lots of low-rise, blocky concrete buildings, covered in billboards. Where HK is narrow and twisting, hilly, Taipei is wide and flat, with broad roads and public squares.

It rained pretty much the whole time I was there; heavy, constant rain, occasionally blown sideways by howling gales that ripped the umbrella inside out and left us soaked in an instant. Given the weather, the sensible thing to do would probably to have switched the indoor activities - no, not that! I mean museums and art galleries. Instead, we trudged about in the rain, my feet squelching in sodden shoes, my mood gradually greying to match the weather.

My mood probably wasn't helped my the reason for my visit. C and I have been having difficulties and my trip, in part, was to give us the chance to talk and straighten things out. I'll draw a veil over that, if you don't mind. I might write about it later but for now I don't want to. It went okay but it still feels like there's something missing between us and since I got back things seems to have returned to "normal" - minimum, almost emotion-free contact. I wonder whether it was worth the trip.