Presenters Of Cats

The journey to Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan (or the Republic of China as they call it for long and protracted reasons I cannot be bothered going into) was relatively smooth although I made my usual mistake of turning up to an airport way too early and having loads of time to kill before having to board my flight. Add to this a 30 minute delay and one of the world's dullest airports in terms of amenities and you had the recipe for one board puppy. And you don't want a board puppy! Still, eventually we boarded and the two hour flight was largely uneventful aside from a couple of exciting spells of turbulence which will be the closest I ever get to a rollercoaster, a long snooze and a beef stew which was the very definition of the word acceptable.

Upon arrival, I had minimal delays getting through customs even though the walk was miles. I was out in the arrivals hall in no time, where four furries were there to greet me, two of them in Fursuit. It certainly made spotting them tremendously easy, a bright yellow dog and a black and white puppy are certainly hard to miss - all I needed to do was follow the unamused states from the other passengers at the terminal. Having said that, as soon as the doors opened between customs and the arrivals hall, I spotted them as they were stood right in front of me. A pleasant surprise after a long day to this point.

Furrfoxx is my main contact here and the only one of the group who can speak English. He's actually Paraguayan with Taiwanese parents and came here 18 months ago to study. He acted as my translator and guide throughout the day, although I'll admit that a lot of the socialising was done by the others in Mandarin Chinese while I spoke to the fox alone. It turned out we have many similar interests and so we clicked pretty quickly. Still, I did connect with the other furs too, the language barrier just made things a little more tricky. But through the international language of fursuiting, we soon bonded.

The furs had very kindly bought me a couple of presents - a Chinese lantern and a wooden amulet with a carved tiger. They also bought me a huge selection of Taiwanese cake in a fancy box - the pineapple cake is my favourite - and some cow tongue snacks which are so called because they look like bovine tongues rather than that's what they are. They seem to be dried banana and nuts or something, they tasted a little like cardboard.

The furs had brought their car with them, the airport being nearly an hour away from downtown Taipei, and we were soon driving down the autobahn and heading to the city. There are two things which strike you about Taiwan having arrived from Manila. The first is how neat and ordered it is compared to the chaos of the Philippine capital. The second is the incomprehensibility of the place - everything is written in Chinese, there is very little English and it's not like Russian where you can learn the alphabet and make a few educated guesses. I can't read ANYTHING here, it's quite debilitating and yet also fun at the same time. I'm way out of my comfort zone and yet I'm pretty relaxed. Of course my new fur friends were relaxed and understanding, and without a guide I would definitely struggle - English is not well known here - but this is one of the delights of travelling.

We headed over to a furry house to meet two additional furries, where we sampled Taiwanese tea, served cold, and observed the seven fursuits that they own between them. We also got to play with their dog Toto, a cute black haired little chap who took a shine to me. He was certainly very cute. We didn't stay here long, perhaps only half an hour, but it was good to see the inside of a traditional Taiwanese house, noting that it was very similar to its British equivalent. My new friends were very interested in housing size for some reason.

The duo picked up their scooter and we clambered into the car for a short drive to the Da Fo Buddhist temple, which had some wondrous statues and architecture. Completed within two years in 1969 and situated on the top of a hill, there is a large bell just by the gate, which can be rung by pulling on a rope attached to a huge metal lintel. Bitty, the black and white puppy, did this in suit and I had a go ringing the bell too. Puppies like making lots of noise. At the centre of the complex is a huge statue of Guan Yin Pusa (the bodhistattva who hears the sounds of the people in the secular world) inside which there is a smaller icon to which prayers are offered. This is flanked by two rather large and scary looking gold ligers, rampant in their protection of the statue of the deity. To one corner of the modestly sized complex, there was a wishing well, at the bottom of which (around five metres down), there was a spinning wheel with eight spokes with upturned hands rotating. The idea is to drop a coin in the well and make a wish, and if it lands on a hand then it'll come true. The symbol which later became the swastika is everywhere as it was a Buddhist icon before it was misappropriated. Furthermore, it was great looking at the views of the port from the hillside, spying all the huge ships which were currently docked there.

The kids loudly riding their tricycles loved Bitty in Fursuit, while I loved the mechanical furry dogs you could ride around the park for 30 new Taiwanese dollars (about 66p). Bitty was less impressed. On our way out, Furrfoxx kindly bought me a local dessert - a crepe covered with nuts, a sweet green plant and three small scoops of various flavoured ice cream. I opted for chocolate, peanut and strawberry. To get the nuts, the vendor had to shave nutty shavings off a giant nutty block, which looked like a giant coagulated Snickers bar.

Next, a little fursuiting was in order. I had been wearing my tail and ears around the temple complex but the suiting was to take place at the nearby Ershawan Fortification, which was initially built in 1840 at the time of the First Anglo-Chinese war. It was decimated by the French in the Sino-French War and rebuilt in 1885 as its strategic position overlooking the whole of Keelung Harbour made it too important a site to neglect. All of this of course has been gleaned by research rather than from what I learnt there as the visibility in the suit was somewhat restricted.

I didn't bring my Fursuit to Taiwan but there were some spare partial suits in the car, one of which, appropriately a pale pink glitter pup, I was allowed to wear. A quick change from shorts to trousers later, I donned the costume in 31 degree heat in a lay-by by the fortress while the three other suiters did the same. The suit fit surprisingly well, it was perhaps a tad tight but not uncomfortably so. I delayed them a bit due to my trouser change behind the car, but soon we see frolicking about, taking pictures at every opportunity and entertaining the somewhat bemused locals. Oh and tripping up as I wasn't used to the visibility in the suit. Navigating the steep windy road - I have never seen streets so steep - was a challenge too. This suit had a moving jaw, which was the first time I had worn a suit with such a feature, so it was fun practicing speaking in suit and operating the muzzle. Furrfoxx is certainly the one for finding good photo opportunities and we took plenty, which I will share with you later (along with the other photographs from this trip). Effectively the Fortress was a tranquil park with stunning views but after half an hour in suit the heat was getting to all of us, with even wearing a partial becoming somewhat uncomfortable (this was the first time I had worn a partial too). We therefore desuited and headed into the heart of swanky East Taipei for some noms.

Here we spied Taipei 101, which became the world's largest building upon completion in 2003 (it was beaten by Dubai's Burj Khalifa in 2009). It dominates the skyline, as you would expect, and at night looks very pretty all lit up in purple. It was designed to resemble a stick of bamboo.

We parked the car in an underground car park, where I noticed that there were two cars occupying many individual spaces, with one elevated higher on a metal platform like you see on car transporters in the UK. Apparently some spaces can fit four cars in such a manner, a neat idea to increase the number of spaces in a car park.

The meal was unremarkable in all honesty, cafe fayre of the kind you can get back home but it was tasty enough and afforded us the opportunity to talk some more. We had intended to go to the night market in Ximen but this was busy so with time pressing, we opted for the simple option. After this, we dropped Bitty off at the Metro before I was seen to my opulent hotel room in the heart of downtown with a strangely compelling Japanese porn channel and Spongebob Squarepants dressed as a monkey, speaking Chinese. Sadly, nearly all programmes are dubbed and there are many shopping channels but at least I have Japanese porn I suppose...