Taipei – staying awake on day one.

Happy to be off the 13 hour flight from SF and in Taipei.

Wednesday February 12, 5:30 am. We left San Francisco on Monday February 10th near midnight. Look at those happy but tired faces. We love Taiwan, and this is our third trip here. Transitions are tough and stressful and leaving San Francisco, sneaking in one more catch up visit with friends, putting stuff back in storage and making notes about where things are, is tiring. We were both looking forward to, and dreading, the long plane ride.

How lucky are we to have so many friends to catch up. A walk and dinner with Anne and Vic, and the Golden Gate Bridge view from Tunnel Tops park.

I have to be quick to snap a screenshot of the city mascot in CityMapper, still the best transit app we use. I love this little dude holding his Boba Tea and a lantern to send into the sky.

Less than 3 hours left of the 13+ hour flight, flying over Japan in the early hours of the morning.

On the express train from the airport to Taipei Main station – Rich using the magnetic wireless cell phone charger on the train. Such a fun convenience.

Heading to our hotel on the rush hour metro escalators. Metro is trying to get folks to stand on both sides of the steps, instead of standing right and walking left, to increase capacity at rush hour. Yes, the escalators carry more people when everyone stands.

Dropped our bags at the hotel (check in is at 2pm) and walked out for breakfast at a nearby cafe. Rich looking slightly dazed.

Mine is a peanut butter, ham, and cheese on a croissant. A tasty combo. My expression doesn’t make it look so tasty, but it was.

Rain was threatening so we borrowed umbrellas from the hotel and walked around a bit waiting for rush hour on the metro to ease off before heading to the Taipei Zoo. This is in the Shilin District of Taipei.

The lanes have numbers and names, and are too small for cars, but scooters and bikes abound.

Day one was all about staying awake! And what’s a great way to stay awake? Head to Asia’s largest (or one of the largest, depending on who you ask) zoo. Taipei Zoo.

The Shiba Inu is the safety and politeness poster mascot dog.

Public transport for the win again, Metro right to the zoo.

This Lunar year is the year of the snake, so snakes on the zoo tickets. Save them for the mythical scrape book.

The map. Do not be fooled into trying to walk the grey line, that’s the train route.

Zoos can be problematic. They promote conservation and awareness, but a sad depressing zoo is just awful. Thankfully the Taipei Zoo is quite good. It moved to its current site in 1986 and has 90 hectares (222 acres) open to the public with more land available for expansion. We walked our poor jet lagged feet off – almost 9 miles total on day one, probably 5 of those at the zoo. The tropical vegetation is really lovely, the animal habitats are good sized, and boy do you get your walking in as the zoo is huge.

You can climb into the big yellow poo to experience life as a maggot. We passed.

A capybara in front of the Pangolin Dome.

The dome has multiple species all out in the open to experience and was quite well done. My favorite were the Cotton-top tamarins wandering the enclosure.

A common marmoset saying “hey.”. If you do go to a zoo, go early in the day when the animals are most active and about to be fed.

One of the two pandas at the Taipei Zoo, snoozing with an appreciative audience.

And the second one (I think) wandering their outdoor environment.

After the zoo and a quick snack of Onigiri from the 7-11 we headed to our neighborhood and had a noodle lunch before checking in to our hotel and having a much welcomed shower. There are showers at the airport, near baggage claim carousel number six (in T2) but we decided against using them since there is one for men and one for women and the men’s was occupied. We changed into a few new clothes when we dropped our bags at the hotel that morning.