Are you planning to get away during the Winter holidays? Stay tuned for more of our Taiwan Travel Series and get ideas for your next travels! You can also see our Taiwan travel itinerary here, a story ab0ut breaking travel myths in Taiwan here, some shameless self-promoting here and a story of a beautiful sunset in Taipei here.
My birthday is my least favorite holiday.
There. I said it.
I hate my birthday. It’s not because I’m getting older (because, like hell I’ll ever be a day over 30!).
The fact is, my birthday practically shares the day with “the most wonderful time of the year.” That’s right. Christmas. You know, when sleigh bells are ringing, an angel gets its wings and Robin laid an egg. You would think my mom would have the courtesy to hold it in for another week, but that’s really hard to do when a 10+ lb. baby desires to rip you a new one (and succeeded!).
Let me tell you what every Christmas Baby -or extremely-close-to-Christmas-baby–experiences every year: you share your birthday with the pagan holiday that somehow was deemed the birth of a bro named Jesus. The practically impossible virgin birth of Mr. Baby Christ will overshadow your own, because -hi- he’s a baby; when you’re a kid in elementary school, NO ONE will come to your birthday party because everyone is on holiday; when you’re a kid in middle school, NO ONE will come to your birthday party because things basically don’t change from elementary to middle school–with the exception of the growth of armpit hair; when you’re a kid in high school–I think you get my point.
A lot of Christmas Babies will complain of the one-gift rip-off. I’ve never had this problem, but I can tell you that for many, it does exist (and if you do this: STOP IT, CheapyMcCheapskate because kids can tell when they’re being treated differently).
But, anyway, back to Christmas. This is pretty much everyone’s favorite time of year. I, however, gave up on it after working Black Friday 2005: people pushing, children yelling, and listening to Christmas songs on a 30-minute loop (you did not see Mommy kissing Santa Claus, kid, because he. doesn’t. exist…sidenote: holy cow, what a traumatic Christmas it must have been for that kid…).
There’s nothing wrong with consumerism, per se. But, the dark side of consumerism has basically ruined a holiday that was originally supposed to be about family, food and love. Having to buy a gift for someone because you feel forced is not what the holiday should have been about. There’s probably a lot of people who love that about Christmas. There’s probably a lot of people who can avoid the whole consumerism thing. There’s also probably a lot of people who could really care less, because it’s one of only 11 national holidays where we can finally get a day off. But, for about 27 years, that was the only way I knew Christmas.
That is, until Taipei.
We spent the few days leading up to Christmas in Taipei. There were some decorations reminiscent of a Christmas all around the city. A large decorated tree stood outside Taipei 101. Some shop windows and restaurants were decorated in red and green. I heard the occasional “Merry Christmas” being exchanged between acquaintances. But that was pretty much it.
This is basically the extent of the Christmas decorations in Taipei.We started out our Christmas morning getting breakfast from a street vendor. There were people waiting in line. Looking around, we noticed there were people walking around pretty much everywhere. In LA on Christmas morning, seeing people is a rarity. Most people are with their families reaping the rewards of Santa’s bounty. In fact, days like Christmas are the best days on the freeway where we live, because they’re practically a ghost town.
I was mildly surprised that people were going about their day on Christmas. Then Frank reminded me that Christmas isn’t really a celebrated holiday in Taiwan. It was actually pretty refreshing: the pressure to shop was off, the pressure to drink egg nog (bleh) was off and for once, Christmas was relaxing.
“We have to see a mall….” I asked Frank without actually asking (more of a demand, really). The thing about major cities in most of the Asian countries we’ve visited is that there are a lot more places to shop than anything I’m certainly used to. There’s shopping malls on what feels like practically every street corner in Taipei. Nobody was in there. Now, granted this was the middle of the day on Christmas Day in a country where Christmas is not a national holiday. But, this is also exactly like one of the malls looked like on Christmas Eve (and, again, you can’t help but walk into one in Taipei, because they’re everywhere. It’s not an exaggeration). There was no hustle and bustle purely for the sake of having a gift under a tree. We watched a couple of people make purchases. They didn’t look tired, worn down or ragged, which is inevitably how a lot of people feel during and after Christmas.
Taipei 101 from the Sun Yat Sen Memorial.
That day, we visited Taipei 101, a monstrous building shaped like a bamboo, or maybe a dragon’s tail. It towers over every nearby building and is now the sixth tallest building in the world. The price to go up to the observation deck is steep, but well worth it. Taipei 101 has an amazing bird’s eye view of the city.
The view from the observation deck in Taipei 101.
The observation deck was decorated for Christmas, but very minimally like other places we saw around the city. For example, they dressed up Damper Baby for the holiday. Damper Baby is the cute character (let’s just be honest: marketing ploy) of the REALLY huge damper at the top of the building. The damper keeps Taipei 101 from swaying in heavy winds and earthquakes. There’s nothing really exciting about a giant damper, except science. If you’re into physics and just generally like being a nerd, then you should go visit the damper chamber (nerd…). But, science isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. However, gushing over the cuteness of Damper Baby is totally my idea of good time.
Agh, you’re adorableness is…adorbs.
Some of the decorations were walls full of decorative wishes. We also made a wish. Ok, at this point, you’re probably thinking: “for hating Christmas, you sure do love money!” This is true. I love money. If you’ve been following our travels, you would know that I’ve wished to be a billionaire –well, a lot. But, I hate spending money, so there’s the difference…I guess.
Forget longevity and good health. Buddha and the dandelion wishing gods know what you really want.
Then we visited Elephant Mountain. This park is a mountain close enough to the city where you can get a little bit of countryside feel without actually having to go out to the country. Climbing is pretty easy, albeit sweaty (ugh, stupid middle school puberty and my armpits…). At the top, there is a beautiful view of the city. We sat there and took in the view for a little while because it’s very peaceful.
The view from Elephant Mountain.
If you’re looking for a place to travel this Christmas, why not consider Taiwan. You’ll spend a peaceful day doing exactly what Christmas was invented for: loving life with your loved ones and experiencing life the way it should be: fun.
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