day10: taichung

monday, 4/7/2008:

monday i took a picture of part of my sunburn to follow up on hualien's mishap. this is now day5 from getting burned. for some reason, this oval spot next to my watch was burned especially bad...reflection off my watch face? anyway, that part went through some extensive peeling in the last few days, became very white, and then got especially red due to the sunny adventures in bali/danshui and the children's recreation center. my arm looked pretty ridiculous.

anyway, that day i planned on going to taichung, to visit my grandma (mom's side) and uncle+family, but didn't get to a very early start. first i ate a gui yuan (some kind of chinese dried fruit) cupcake, which tasted like a normal cupcake, plus a gui yuan flavor, and plus occasional gui yuan chunks. what really held back my start to taichung, though, was finding a hotel for alishan. on my train ride back from hualien, this guy suggested i visit alishan. he said to take the train up the mountain and then there would be a lot of hotels. i asked if there were any he could recommend, but he just said there were lots and not to worry. so this was my plan, just get myself up the mountain and then find a hotel when i get there. my cousin thought it would be better to book one first, and while at first i thought it wasn't necessary, later i was glad we went through the trouble. we started with a list of hotels i had found, and she looked up prices and reviews online. finally we settled on 青山別館 (qing shan bie guan), the reviews said it was affordable and clean, and later i would learn that, the reviews were right! we booked the hotel, it was 1800NT (~$60), a pretty good deal i thought!

with the hotel booked, i went on my way. i pulled this huge suitcase with me (since i was bringing some stuff to my family in taichung) to the mrt station, took the mrt from shilin to taipei main station, and then had to find the greyhound type bus stations, which wasn't that easy. unfortunately, the bus stations are not actually in the train station (unlike the mrt and trains, which are all in the same building). i tried to follow the signs and at least exit from the correct exit (there are like a million exits out of taipei main station), but as soon as i left the train station, the signs stopped. i asked a few people, but they didn't seem to know where the bus stations were. finally i asked this guy that seemed to know. i wanted to take ubus (tong lien), not kingbus (guo guang hao), but the guy pointed to kingbus which he thought was pretty close, and then ubus which he insisted could only be reached by way of a huge skyway across a busy intersection that involved a million little steps up then down (and i had this huge suitcase with me). after his directions, i'm not saying his directions are bad just that this place is seriously this hard to find, i still wandered around a while (pulling my giant suitcase) before finally finding the kingbus station. but then after entering the kingbus station, i realized i just had to cross the street to get to the ubus station, so then finally i got to the ubus station. these buses in taiwan are really convenient. since monday afternoon is not a busy time, you just go and buy a ticket to taichung, and then wait for the next bus, which comes every 15 minutes. since there wasn't a lot of people, everyone could get on the next bus. the drive to taichung is only about two hours. i didn't leave shilin until around noon, but i still got to taichung around 3pm.

i got off the bus at the stop near this big hotel, which is also near my grandma's house. she walked out to get me because i didn't remember how to get to their apartment. on the way back, i guess she didn't want to go all the way back to the apartment (really not that far) to drop off my suitcase, so insisted we stop by the market near the apartment WITH my suitcase. i protested, which she was just like, "let's just put it by the side of this road", and then i was like, "okay i'll roll it through the market". we bought fruit: guava and water apples (only my favorite fruit in the world and you cannot get it at all in the us). we also bought some scallion pancakes and other stuff from this really tasty looking stall (picture). one of the best things we tried there was this flat meatbun with basil and a fried egg on top! we also bought some goose meat, which i like. then it was back to the apartment to eat!

after dinner my uncle asked me my plans for going to alishan the next day. at which point he brought up that, since it was cherry blossom season, train tickets might not be as easy to come by as i had imagined. since i planned on going to alishan on a tuesday, i didn't think there would be any problem. but the alishan forest railway only sends one train up the mountain on weekdays and two trains on weekends, but since it's cherry blossom season two trains everyday. still, the seats for two trains i guess was not enough to go around. the hotel i had booked was surprised i had not already booked my train tickets and gave me the name and phone number of a guy who might have tickets to sell me. the guy said he had nothing at the moment, but told me to just try my luck at the train station, and if i was out of luck to call him 30 minutes before the train was scheduled to leave. of course i would have no problem getting up the mountain because there are buses, but half the experience of going to alishan is the alishan forest railway. i could also buy a standing ticket, but the ride up the mountain is pretty winding and 3 hours long, and more importantly, i wanted to be close to the window.

anyway, all turns out well, in case this post is causing any anxiety.

full set of pictures at picasa!