A perfect antidote for all the stress of the past few weeks, was to completely forget about jobs and interviews by swanning off to Taipei for a long weekend. My friend K and I had booked this trip a couple of months back as a short break before the winter set in.It was really nice to flight direct from Sapporo to Taipei, no transfers at Narita or Kansai to add to the journey- well that was the theory anyway.
The new international terminal in Sapporo, is all clean and shiny with a silver birch/outdoor and nature motif throughout, its also a bloody long walk from the main terminal building and only has a couple of restaurants and cafes, fortunately it wasn't a long wait until we were boarding our flight. Our seats were in the middle of a noisy Chinese tour group and the women who was assigned to our row was clearly unhappy to be sharing with two whities and kept trying to swap seats while the plane was loading. Eventually she found an empty space leaving us with an extra seat free on our row.
Shortly after takeoff our "fun" started. An announcement came over asking for any medically trained people on board for a sick passenger in business class. I felt for the little J-woman who got up, I bet it must be a situation you never want as a doctor. All the tour group around us are standing and trying to see whats going on by this point. As K is vegetarian her meal was served up first, somewhere over Tohuku 30 mins into our flight. Just as she started eating, the plane made a huge bank around and we headed back to Sapporo- goodbye to her meal.
Back on the ground in Sapporo, it seemed to take ages to take the passenger off, meanwhile half the plane were up being nosy and K and I contemplated our plans for the evening. Now 2 hours late, we would miss our dinner plans with my Taiwanese friend and the karaoke that was planned after, with no way of contacting him or the hotel to let them know we'd be late. Eventually 2 hours late now, we set off again for Taipei, into the night. Our 4 hour flight seemed to take forever, endlessly dark outside, with no lights to give a reference that we were actually getting anywhere, endless turbulence. I had visions of that Steven King novel about that plane with only a few people left on it (the Langoliers?). I really noticed the difference between the J-passengers and C-passengers, who were always standing and moving around, even though the air hostesses were trying to get them to sit down as the plane bounced and shook through the sky.
Just as we thought the plane should be landing we remembered that Taiwan is actually an hour behind Japan, so another hour of torture ensued. It was a relief to finally see the lights of Taiwan and get off the plane. Thankfully, the car we had booked to take us to the hotel was still waiting for us and I could ring my friend and let him know where we were. A luxury blacked out window sedan with a silent driver and water helped ease some of the tension from journey. My Taiwanese friend was waiting for us at the hotel, we dinner and karaoke still on, so a quick change and freshen up we headed out into the muggy night for some hot pot.
My friend persuaded me to try the congealed duck blood that comes as standard in the spicy side- actually not that bad! I guess all the years of eating pickled seaslug guts and the like are paying off, that and the black pudding I like at home too...Finally around midnight we headed off to Karaoke- taiwanese style, which is pretty similar to Japan, except there seemed to be a buffet for the food and you got the original pop videos for the songs. The choice of english songs was more limited,but as we only had an hour of energy left in us, there were enough. My taiwanese friend and I also sang some enka together, a memory of our times together in Sapporo.
The bed at the end of this day was very welcome, I think I was out like a light less than 10 seconds after turning out the light.
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