Day 1–En route to Taipei–Seamless Travels and Blazers Rule
The day in Singapore started very early at 0430am when we woke up to get ready for our early morning flight to Taipei. There were six riders going today with more to follow later in the week. It was also our first trip to Taipei so it was great to be going somewhere new and exciting. The trip was to include five days of riding in Taipei with ten riders. Johnny B has planned the trip and it should be a good one. (despite being planned by Johnny B.)
Johnny B in the lounge in Singapore
The flight was only 4.5 hours long but we managed to get a bit of rest and east some decent food (for a change. Pretty smooth trip to Taipei from the airports in Singapore all the way to the hotel in Taipei. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the van to the hotel had WIFI inside it. This is the first time I had been in a vehicle with WIFI. The airport in Taipei was very efficient.
Kim arrival at Taipei Airport
After we arrived at the hotel (we are staying at the Shangri La and Dan John and Johnny B are all at the Sheraton) we realized that we did not have a floor pump for our bike tires. We quickly headed over to Howard’s bike shop to pick one up along with some supplies that we would need for the rest of the week. The temperature here is much colder than Singapore so many of us needed to get gloves, pants, etc. Lee was rather excited by the extensive supply of power gels. Howard is actually the guy who will be leading the bike rides each day.
Lee @ Howard’s Bike Shop
After sorting all the stuff out at Howards, we headed to a well known and popular dumpling place called Din Tai Fung. I had heard about this place before as we have it in Singapore. Dumplings were awesome. It was during this meal I realized that we had forgotten something at the bike shop so I said we had better go back and get what we needed for the early ride the next day at 0630. We walked out of the restaurant and hailed a cab. Since the driver spoke no English and we spoke no Chinese we decided to show him the card for Howards Bike Shop. The driver looked at it mystically and then said ‘Guang Du’ which sounded a lot like Guang Fu (which is where Howard’s Bike shop is) so I figured this guy must know. ‘Sure let’s go’ I said. Needless to say we hopped on the highway toward the airport and realized that he must be taking us to Howard’s ‘other’ shop. After thirty minutes of complaints from the back seat (read Kim and Lee) the guy finally turned off and then said ‘Guang Du’ in the middle of nowhere…definitely no bike shops around. So I then pulled out the Shangri La card and said just take us here….(angrily)…….so it was actually a nice tour around the city which was not what we had in mind but S$50 later we ended back at the Shangri La for evening cocktails. (tipped the cabby for angry-man reaction)
The local beer is called Taiwan Beer (good beer, a bit weak on the creativity on names). If we had only three it would have been good. Unfortunately we ended up at the Marco Polo Lounge at the Shangri La Hotel until midnight debating politics, fashion, cycling teams and other strange things. The final conclusion was that we stayed up too late and that blazers are extremely cool.
If that was the worst part of the day it would have been fine…but unfortunately I realized I had lost my cycling camera on day 1 of the trip. No camera on my first trip to Taiwan was definitely not good.
The first ride was to start at 0630 at the Sheraton….so much for sleeping in on holidays.
