I went to Danshui, it’s located to the north of Taipei. It’s considered as the old city, it’s part of Taipei county and not Taipei city. It sits right on the Danshui River and has a lot of history. The Spanish were here and they built the Fort San Domingo to defend against the Dutch who were occupying south Taiwan. The fort was later used to host the British consulate. To my greatest surprise and with a lot of pride I found that Canada has some good peaceful history in this part of the world. In 1832 a medical doctor and missionary from Canada named George Mackay came here to open a hospital and spread Christianity. He’s well respected and has a couple of status in Taiwan. At Fort San Domingo they dedicated a whole section to Dr. Mackay and there was an exposition about Canada history, people and of course hockey 🙂 how can’t you not be proud to be a Canadian when you see that.
On the way to the fort I was walking around and stopped by a bakery that makes a special Taiwanese dessert. The shop owner Jean Lee, had a microphone and it turned out that he spoke French. He started explaining to me about the different flavors of dessert he has. He then turned on the CD player and played the French song “Une Femme Amoureuse” – it’s the French version of Barbra Streisand’s song “Woman in Love”. He then handed me the lyrics for the song that were written on the paper and we started singing the song. Some customers were watching and laughing, it was fun. After that, he offered me some green tea, I thought he was more interested in singing than selling 🙂 As I said in previous posts Taiwanese people are very friendly.
Notice in one of the photos the potato chips on a stick. It’s called the 101 tower, in relation to the Taipei 101 tower. It comes with different flavors such as; cheese, spicy, or sweet.
Nice pictures Tarek ! Continue to update your blog.