MAY 13 — Google Taipei travel recommendations and it’s invariably many variations of “hot springs”/”night markets”/”bookstores”/”food tours.”
Within my first day in the city, I learned something no travel guide told me about: Taiwan is weeb paradise.
There were gachapon machines everywhere, Hello Kity, Pokémon as well as various other cute mascots from all the Japanese popular IPs everywhere from pharmacies to cafés.
I confess my wallet trembled even if my inner five-year-old was ecstatic.
A little shamefacedly I admit that when I wasn’t eating Taiwanese food, I was eating Japanese cuisine instead, but it was very good Japanese food, all right?
Japanese food, brands, clothes, pharmacies...I wondered if I’d bought myself the wrong plane ticket.
I will talk about the food some other day but I was rather mystified at the many things I recognised as Japanese, considering Taiwan was under Japanese rule for 50 years.
Contrast that with the very fraught relationship between South Korea and Japan.
Back to my shopping temptations.
I am a fan of the Sentimental Circus line from the brand San-X.
San-X is the brand behind the fluffy mascot Rilakkuma and the equally cute and fluffy Sumikkogurashi.
Sentimental Circus is a different character line and perhaps the one with the saddest backstory.
”Stuffed animals abandoned in room recesses and on street corners that sneak away at night to form a secret circus. Tonight, their strange friends will gather together before showtime.”
When I was a little girl and often, as eldest daughters are stuck doing, I would have to entertain (keep out of trouble) my younger siblings.
Sometimes it would be some roughhousing, but often It would just be me staging little pantomimes with our stuffed animals, making various voices and inventing what passes for drama for under 10-year-olds.
How could I not be charmed by the premise of stuffed toys deserted by their owners finding some meaning to life by creating their own little “sentimental circus?”
That’s the thing about sadness and pain; it’s easy enough to sit in it, cling to it as though it wasn’t bleeding you of the will to breathe.
A friend of mine once said that making sense of the world, and its sadness, is something writers do very well — and that is why so many of them are so very sad.
So it felt like a blessing, or maybe a little nod from the Gods of Emptying My Pockets Via My Whims that Instagram told me there would be a Sentimental Circus pop-up store happening right around when I would be in Taipei.
Getting there was a bit of an adventure; I do not read Chinese characters (I really need to get on that) and I was trying to get to the Q Square Mall.
As always, the map apps decided I needed a lot of exercises so I found myself going back and forth, up stairs, up escalators, through tunnels and various doors until finally I saw a sign that said Q Square was in that direction.
The little pop-up was very charming. One part of it was dedicated to more Sentimental Circus merch than I had ever seen in my life, and another part to another San-X character.
While I did like looking, nothing caught my eye until I saw a plush from an older line, that had the label “Eat Me” stuck prominently on its side.
Ah, an Alice in Wonderland reference.
Again it felt like a nod to my childhood when I’d read nearly everything by Lewis Carroll though it is such a pity to find out now he was a paedophile.
Such is life.
Plush in hand, I decided to venture to another mall that was also accessible via train to go to another holy grail — Taipei’s Pokémon Centre.
It is the largest Pokémon Centre outside of Japan and I hoped at the very least it would be less dull than Singapore’s.
When I arrived it was crowded, adults and children excitedly looking at Pokémon goods with long queues.
Again, I picked up another plush, of a Pikachu with pineapple goggles, a nod to Taiwan’s famous pineapple tarts. Then I bought some of the said tarts as souvenirs along with Pokémon-themed seaweed snacks, a shopping bag and then I was free to wander around the city and get dinner.
All through the day, my first day in Taipei, it rained nearly non-stop but not harsh or heavy rain just a constant patter of raindrops, sometimes light, sometimes more persistent with the clouds blocking my view of the sky.
It should have felt depressing but I was too busy navigating the malls and trains to be put off by the weather.
Compared to the Klang Valley’s torrents and flash floods, Taipei’s March rain didn’t feel so bad. If I get to return anytime soon, I’ll be sure to pack a much nicer coat... and a larger suitcase.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
