We went to Taipei last weekend and got refreshed. We started our trip flying to Taipei on Friday night with China Airlines. In fact we had to wait more two hours at Kansai Airport, because our flight was delay. So we arrived at our hotel in down town Taipei around 1 AM Taipei time.
The Next morning, we woke up 8 AM. It's so late for us, but no problem, because we had no plan for the day time. After breakfast, we walked around the traditional market in Zhongshan, Taipei. The market in Taiwan are really interesting. You can get everything there, like a food, sweets, clothes, and toys there. We enjoyed and love that market.
Around lunch time, we headed to Samaoshan hot springs. This hot springs is located north of Taipei. You can get there easily by subway and bus, just half hour ride from Taipei station. There're many good hot springs with restaurants. You can enjoy hot springs and Taiwanese meals at same place. Of course, we got to refreshed our soul and enjoyed the meals with Taiwanese beers.
After the hot springs, we headed to Taoyuan Baseball Stadium by train from Taipei. This stadium is the largest and newest in Taiwan. On this day, the pre championship game took place in Taoyuan, Chinese Taipei which is the national team verses Chiba Lotte Marines which is the Japanese team in the Pacific League. It's a practice game for Chinese Taipei, because this national team is planning to join the Asia Professional Baseball Championship in Tokyo, November 16th to 19th. Countries joining this championship match are Taiwan, Korea and Japan. All players are professional and under 24 years old.
It was first time we've been to an international game in a foreign country. It was really interesting, because everything was different. Especially, the baseball style was different between Taiwan and Japan. I think Japan plays really fundamental baseball. Sometimes it makes me bored.. By the way, the stadium had more Taiwanese fans than Japanese, so we really felt like the away team. However, Taiwanese baseball fan were really friendly and respected the Chiba Marines. It was a nice game, but finally Chiba Marines won the game. We enjoyed Taiwanese baseball and culture in the game.
