day13: checheng, jiji

thursday, 4/10/08:

got up again at 4:30am to catch the 6:05 train from taichung to ershuei. this is a "qu jian" train, which means it's really slow. the train finally gets to ershuei at 7:09am (over an hour later!) and ershuei is not really that far from taichung! at ershuei i bought a oneday pass train ticket for the jiji line.

the ticket guy suggested i take the train all the way to the last stop, checheng, and make that my first stop, since it was so early in the morning and not much was going on yet. (man, and i had made such an effort to get an early start to the day!) the next train on the jiji line left ershuei at 7:55am, and it took about an hour to get to checheng.

very few people were on the train, and by checheng there were even fewer people, and none of them looked like tourists. checheng was dead. i walked around. the train station is made of beautiful wood boards, and the surrounding view is beautiful too. the town seems to be built on a hill and surrounded by mountains. i walked up the narrow, steep streets and looked at all the homes and small food shops that were packed together. there was no one on the streets, and the homes and stores had no sign of people. the town seemed to be from another time. then i saw a little path that went into some trees and decided to take it. the path was basically a lot of stairs through trees, and by the time i got to the end, i had gotten two misquote bites, one right below an eyebrow and one on a knuckle, both were incredibly itchy spots. the end of the path was a large road that was winding up the mountain, so i turned around and went back down the path, this time trying to avoid more bites. walking back toward the train station, i finally saw an information center, next to what looked like a pond. the lady at the information center suggested i go see the big water reservoir, which apparently is a really nice view, but its way is back through the path of steps and a little farther, and i decided the risk of mosquitoes was not worth the view. checheng is an old logging town, so there are a lot of woodcraft diy shops and wood souvenirs. apparently in checheng you can get lunch in a wooden bucket, so i set out to find a place to get my wooden bucket. the information center lady said there were two restaurants, and one of them appeared to be closed, so i went to the open one, which of course was dead at 10am. they were still able to make me up a lunch to go. the lunch was 300NT (~$10)!!! and later i was to find out it was definitely not worth it! instead of going to see the water reservoir, i toured the plum winery in checheng, which was basically me walking through some halls with rooms of distillation equipment on one side, then walking through a bar, where i tasted plum wine and plum vinegar, and then walked through the gift shop. by now it was about time to wait for the next train. i didn't want to miss it because there was only one every two hours. i'll be honest, checheng wasn't thrilling, but i can see how it is a nice place to go to get out of the city.

i got to the jiji train station (the oldest train station in taiwan) and ate my wooden bucket lunch in front of the train station, not because i was hungry, but because i figured that would make it lighter. jiji wasn't lively either, since it was a weekday. there are at least two bike rental places right across the street from the train station, and as i was peering at them, one of the bike rental owners came and guided me to her shop. it was 100NT (~$3) for the whole day. the lady set me up with a bike, a lock, and a map. and she let me leave my wooden bucket at her shop. by then it was pretty sunny, and although i had been drinking water all day, i decided to be careful on this biking experience. i asked if there was a more shady place to bike and she directed me toward the green tunnel, basically a road with trees lining both sides. turns it it would all involve biking on roads...with cars again. in fact, while jiji is known for its biking, the majority of its biking is still on roads. the bicycle shop lady assured me that since it was a weekday and there were very few people and very few cars, i would be okay. and so off i went. after the hualien biking experience, i was less afraid. and now i have found the trick to biking on the road. when i hear a car coming, i just try to bike really straight and let the car do what it needs to to avoid me. and since there isn't too much traffic in jiji, looking both ways is sufficient at the intersections. the lady at the bike shop said that there would be a small hill, but in reality, the green tunnel (at least from the jiji side) starts as a very steep, winding road up a mountain/hill. i couldn't go very long before i got off the bike to walk it, and then didn't go for much longer before i realized i would be too scared to bike down the hill too. so i turned around and skidded my way back down, giving up on the green tunnel. (there's plenty of roads in the states with large trees lining both sides anyway!) i biked onward and saw the jiji weir, a big watershed. then biked back toward jiji train station, along the way enjoying jiji's countryside and agricultural type scenery (picture). as i was biking past these guys fishing by a river created by the jiji weir, i heard a large flopping near the ground and yelped and came to a stop! the fishing guy had a chuckle. i looked down and saw that he had caught a fish, and just put it by the side of the road for the moment! later, his friend came and put the fish in a bucket...there were two fish total in the bucket! i was biking and trying to look at my map at the same time, but i did arrive back near the jiji train station smoothly, as the town is pretty small. near the train station is the start of a bike path that runs along the train tracks (and cars cannot enter). as i was biking by the tracks, i noticed that every once in a while there was a shop or a cafe that was across from the tracks. one was a seashell shop, which i visited. one of the destinations along this path is an old confucian school, which looks like a temple. as tourists (including me) were checking out the confucian school, right next door is a normal middle school. i could have just walked right off the confucian school and into the kids having recess in the middle school... seems like a lot of tourist destinations in taiwan have schools right next to them! shortly after the confucian school, i started biking back to the train station. by now, midafternoon, the area was slightly more lively. i went to return my bike, and i think the bike shop owners were happy to see me back in one piece after my uneasy start. although the bike trip may sound unexciting, it was actually very nice to just bike along and notice the agriculture and people along the way. there were interesting crops and interesting people, which i haven't listed, but have to be experienced on your own. after returning the bike, i walked along the street next to the train station. one of the stands i walked by was selling banana egg rolls, that they were making right there on the spot. after the really nice owners encouraged me to eat at least 5 pieces of their sample egg rolls, i realized the egg rolls really were quite good (i usually like banana flavored things, but not things that have multiple flavors including banana), and i bought some to eat while waiting for the train and a box to bring home to the states and a box to bring to my relatives in shilin. since jiji is known for bananas, i also bought a bunch of tiny bananas...worst bananas i have ever had...completely no flavor! then i went to wait for the next train back to ershuei, i had spent about 4 hours in jiji. then from ershuei another train back to taichung, and called me uncle who came to pick me up from that station.

my grandma, uncle, aunt, and two cousins, and i went to dinner. then my uncle to took me to the high speed rail station. the station looks a lot like a small version of a large airport. everything is very efficient. you go in, there is a big lobby, and then escalators on both sides that go up to the platform, depending on what car your ticket is for. they don't want you going up to the platform too early, clogging the way. so i waited in the lobby area until about 10 minutes before my train, which is at 9:58pm. in each car of the train there is a luggage compartment, which was handy because i had a very big piece of luggage with me! the seats and the whole feeling of the train is a lot like a plane, and the whole atmosphere is very different from taking a normal train, probably because it is so much more expensive. on the back of the seat in from of me there was a map of all the cars and what they had inside. some cars even have public telephones and vending machines! and there is even a business class car on the train! the lunch boxes and snacks they sell on the high speed train are also way better than on the normal train, but that is also reflected in the prices. the whole experience was beyond comfortable and relaxing. exactly one hour later, the whole idea is that the train is fast but it's so comfortable i wouldn't have minded more time on that ride, i was back in taipei train station. (taipei is the only high speed rail station that is in the same building as the normal train station.) to get from the high speed rail to the mrt part of taipei train station seemed ridiculously long with my VERY heavy luggage, but i got there okay. when i got to shilin, thankfully my uncled called me and came to pick me up from the mrt station so i didn't have to drag my luggage all the way back home. an end to another long day!

WORTH SEEING: checheng and jiji countryside scenery

full set of pictures at picasa!