During my stay at MCUT we had to opportunity to spend a weekend at the home of a local student. On our trip we went to the Yangmingshan National Park outside of Taipei. For that we traveled through Taipei on a Scooter. There we visited the Bamboo Lake and walked trough the landscape. The climate was very different from the city. Much colder and while in the city it was sunny fog and cloud lined the mountainside. In a small local restaurant we stopped for our lunch break. Like very recently in Switzerland you could only pay in cash. However since the pandemic in Switzerland QR-code based payment is quite common even in small shops.
We also visited the Luodong Night Market. For that we traveled through the countryside. It was a stark difference in architecture compared to Taipei or New Taipei City. There are a lot of run down or unoccupied buildings. Riding through the night was quite exciting. The market was well visited. There were street artists who preformed dances with fire or played music.
For the ride back I opted to choose the bus to go back. In contrast to other local buses you had to buy a ticked beforehand.
As someone who drives motorcycle in Switzerland I was fascinated by how to ride through the city and countryside. The first obvious difference is how smaller scooters with 125 ccm are treated. In Switzerland every motorcycle above 125 have to follow the same rules and can use the same streets. An obvious difference here is that with a white plate you can’t use the highway and no direct left turns are allowed. A big benefit is that many scooter can use their dedicated lanes and the possibility for lane filtering and splitting. However yellow and red plate motorcycle are treated like cars and still can not use all streets. From this point of view, I see why larger motorcycles are basically in-existent.