Taipei, Taiwan

We are flying from Taipei to Bangkok now.  The first time in our lives we barely made our flight.  As usual we arrived at the airport 2 hours before the departure time, but to the wrong airport.  By the time we realized that, we had about 1.5 hours left and 1 hour bus ride to the right airport.  What happened next, sums up perfectly the type of people Taiwanese are.  At the check-in window, the service personnel called the gate to ask them to wait for us.  Then he closed the window to take us to the gate personally.  We skipped all lines.  We passed security check together with pilots and stewardesses.  Then we passed the immigration line with disabled and children.  We made it to the gate in 15 minutes.  As soon as we boarded, the plane left the gate.  We started our trip exactly as scheduled.

We are flying Eva Air (Chinese airlines).  We were served our meals first because we ordered vegetarian, since the meat never tastes good on the flights.  We also were lucky to have one empty seat in between us.  I almost feel like flying first class.  The service is much better that flying any American airlines.
We only had one week in Taipei, Taiwan.  Originally, we planned to start our trip with Thailand.  Since the cheapest flight was through Taiwan, we decided to explore its capital at least.  We did not do much research about the country before starting our trip.  So, we were a little surprised to learn that the prices were comparable to US prices.  We decided to spend our first night in the airport.  Since we were tired after the 13-hour flight, we did not want to pay for a taxi into the city and search for a place to stay in the middle of the night.  We took the first bus the next morning to the center of Taipei.  It took us about 3 hours to find a hostel for $30 (the cheapest we could find).  Finding a place to stay was much more difficult than in South America.  In Taipei, everyone seems to follow the rules.  Nobody wanted to let us in the room until the official check-in time of 2PM or 3PM, without paying for the previous night.
We went to sleep right away.  We slept for 12 hours straight to wake up at 10PM.  The bed was a little short for us, but the room was very clean as the hostel itself.  It took us 4 days to get used to a time change of 13 hours between Chicago and Taipei.

The cleanliness and order of the city reminded me of London.  The clean streets, floors and sheets and neatly arranged lines in the stores, escalators and bathrooms make me happy.  The Taiwanese culture is opposite to South American culture.  Also, we have never felt safer on the streets, even in the middle of the night.  The Taiwanese people are very friendly, helpful and hospitable.

China and Taiwan split up only after the Second World War, but their culture already differs a lot, as we were told.  The Taiwanese culture was not influenced by the Soviet regime and follows the traditions more diligently.  We learned a lot about the history, politics and culture of Taiwan from our new couchsurfing friend Sherry.  After staying in the hostel for 5 nights, we decided to give couchsurfing.com a try.  We found out about the website during our travels in South America.  We send only 5 requests and got 2 positive responses.   Just for comparison, we have sent 50 requests to stay in San Diego and got only 1 positive response.  We were introduced to the everyday life, staying in the residential area.  The night market was not crowded with tourists.  The locals went to see an opera performance in the yard of the temple every night.  There were flowers growing in the balconies, since space is an issue.  The design is always about the function.  Everything is thought through.  Even the bathrooms have the SOS buttons in public spaces.  People are cautious of their health.  The parks are filled with people, practicing tai chi or just stretching.