Month: April 2015

I'm going to try to catch up by doing a multi day entry.

Tuesday April 21, Guantian District

We'd planned on a morning trip to Alishan, but when we woke up it was pouring rain, so we decided not to go. We went to a local market to get some food. Too bad our room doesn't have a kitchen, Yanmei is missing cooking her own food.

It stopped raining around lunch time, so we went to visit Yaya where she works at a university. She gave us a little tour of the university, then dropped us off at the Wusanto Reservoir Park, and said she'd be back to pick us up at 5:30pm after she finished work. The park is centered around the Wusanto Dam, which was the largest dam in Asia when it was completed in 1930, although it has since been surpassed.

The dam has proven to be extremely resistant to earthquakes, which are common here. The dam was designed by a Japanese man named Hatta Yoichi, and really boosted the local economy by providing irrigation to grow rice and also preventing flooding. There is a museum and memorial dedicated to Yoichi in the park.

We almost had the park to ourselves, maybe because of the weather. It started raining again.

At 5:30 we waited outside the park for Yaya. I noticed not a single other person was in sight in any direction, very strange in the densely populated Taiwan. The only shops we could see were closed and in fact the only signs of life were two stray dogs lying in the middle of the main road. It was surreal and felt like a scene from the zombie apocalypse. 😮

Then Yaya showed up and took us for dinner.

Wednesday April 22nd, Tainan City

This was out last day in Tainan so we decided to look around the city. We went to a Confucius temple.

While we were there I heard the roar of a jet airplane flying low. It sounded like a fighter jet to me, but I couldn't see anything because of the trees and buildings. After we left the temple I heard it again and this time I saw two fighter jets flying in tight formation arcing across the sky. This happened several more times, but no one seemed perturbed so I guess it was routine stuff. Obviously it would suck if China decided to invade while we were here.

We went to see a fort built by the Dutch in the 1600s for the Dutch East India Company.

Thursday April 23rd, Alishan

We got up early and took the train to Chiayi, where we could catch the 9am train to Alishan. Finally going to Alishan! Yanmei told me there is a popular song in China about Alishan. Unfortunately the train to Alishan was sold out, so we decided to take a bus instead. It was almost a 3 hour bus ride, ugh. The trip was pretty scenic though, winding up through the mountains, we could see some tea plantations and apparently they grow wasabi here too. I didn't take any pictures, thinking I could get some better ones from the top. Unfortunately by the time we got to the top a huge bank of clouds rolled in and you couldn't see anything.

Alishan is definitely a tourist trap. It was crowded and everything was overpriced.

Both Yanmei and I were a bit disappointed. While we were waiting outside the 7-Eleven for our return bus, I could hear a truck driving nearby playing upbeat electronic music, it sounded like an ice cream truck. When it finally got close I saw it was a garbage truck! I guess the music tells the shops when to bring out their garbage. I'm not sure if this is common in Taiwan or it is something special in Alishan because of the tourists (kind of like a garbage truck in Disneyland might not be normal).

We stayed the night in Chiayi. Yanmei told me she misses her garden, kitchen, car and bed already. It's only been a little over two weeks. I think we need to slow down a bit. We've stayed in three different places the last three nights, and packing/unpacking and moving luggage is tiring. We're heading back to Taipei next, maybe we will take a day off and rest.

-David

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After Taipei we had a debate on what to do next. Yanmei wanted to go to Alishan, a famous mountain park, but she also has a friend near Tainan she wanted to visit. Alishan is on the way to Tainan, but Yanmei found there is only one train going to the park at 9am, from Chayi, which itself is 2 hours from Taipei. We decided we didn't want to get up very early to try to catch that train. So we ended up just booking the high speed rail to Tainan.

This was my first time on a high speed train. What a great way to travel! Walk in and buy your ticket 10 minutes before departure from an automated kiosk, then board, find your seat and off you go. No security hassles or lines. The train left exactly on time. Smooth, quiet and comfortable.

The train got up to 275 km/h. It only took about 1 hour 40 minutes to get to Tainan. Unfortunately we found out the Tainan high speed rail station isn't really in Tainan. We had to transfer to a regular train and ride about 30 minutes to get there.

We got to our room, then went to a 7-Eleven to pick up some water. Yanmei still needs a hat ;).

Then Yanmei's old friend Yaya, who she met in the UK came over. They hadn't see each other for 7 years. Yaya gave Yanmei that brown bag in the picture 7 years ago and Yanmei still uses it every time she travels.

Yaya is a good host, she found a fancy vegetarian restaurant for us. Here is a night picture of Tainan while we were hailing a cab. The scooters are still omnipresent.

The restaurant was good, but it was more western style.

There was the appetizers, pictured above, then salad, the soup, then the entree, then a fruit juice, and finally dessert. All this worked out to about $14 USD per person. Not bad! In general food is cheap here. Most of our meals at small shops cost $3-4 USD for both of us. By the way, we'd heard that you don't need much cash in Taiwan because everyone takes credit cards, but we've found the opposite. We use cash for most things, all these little shops don't take credit cards, and even places that do it is often easier to just use cash.

After dinner we went back to our room to sleep. We planned on going to Alishan the next morning because it is much closer to Tainan than Taipei, then meeting Yaya again in the afternoon.

-David

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