I am in Taiwan, and will be here for at least the next two months, perhaps longer. The rest of the journey was fairly smooth though it was notable how the density of masks skyrocketed – on the flight itself, there was only one small family without masks and they were European. The air of paranoia infected me a little: the Malaysian Chinese woman next to me had a deep, wet cough which made me quite nervous, and I pinched my own mask tighter and used my hand sanitiser a few times. As we got on the flight were were handed out forms to declare exposure to coronavirus, and they were unusually insistent on taking our telephone numbers both here and on the arrival card, which didn’t even have a place to write in a number.
There was a reasonable queue at immigration but my bag arrived just as I stepped into the hall. Then outside, to find an ATM and get a sim card, and then to locate Mr Pan who was waiting there, holding up a sign with my name on it.
It was about a 40 minute drive, very different from my last trip into Taipei which was by bus and in the dark. This time I got to see the port as we drove past it, grey skies and high waves. Since our flat is not in Taipei proper the car bypassed the city and went up in the hills, till we arrived in a cluster of newish condo buildings, like a proto Mont Kiara. Here the Boddhisattva and the Woodland Creature were waiting – they had arrived the previous night and settled in, and provided careful directions and instructions to me, very helpful as it’s always hard for me to navigate on first arriving in a Chinese-speaking country.
The flat itself is quite pleasant. Very brown and bare, and with outrageously bad lighting, white ceiling lights that at night make it all look absolutely miserable. I intend to buy lamps as soon as I might. After I’d showered, the Boddhisattva and I explored the compound a bit, finding the ‘club house’ with its remarkable purple and silver decor and your choice of onsens. Apparently this building is largely used by retirees and for short-term lets for visiors from Mainland China who come here to give birth or have plastic surgery. And now there’s us: me, a Brit, a Finn and a Malaysian Chinese – the landlord was, apparently, rather befuddled by us.
We then caught the shuttle into the town centre, about 30 minutes away. This town is not Taipei, of course, but what was a separate small town named Beitou before being engulfed by the wave of urbanisation spreading outwards from Taipei. Here we wandered about a bit, I had a very late lunch of a sort of sweet-sour rice dumpling filled with meat. We found a wet market and bought some tomatoes, eggs and spring onions. We found a cafe which took a very, very long time so we nearly missed our return shuttle. And then back – we ordered in some dinner, nice and homely tofu and rice, and then I crashed into bed.
This morning, a quick breakfast and some organising, putting away unnecessary kitchen equipment such as the six tongs of different sizes, and lists of things to buy to make the place more comfortable. Foremost amongst these is lamps. The GF is still in London where his move was finally completed. The old house is no more and a new life begins in another part of Hampstead. A rather sad moment for him and his family, and I even I felt a twinge of sadness.