Friday, October 3... arrived in Tainan, but I'm backlogged a bit.
I haven't been writing much lately... the loss of Typepad's instant publishing to Ajax foofaraw has taken some of the immediacy away. I did have more fun in Taichong on my second day, once I got off the main drag, and started seeing how lively the neighborhoods can be. People are very friendly too.
My second day, though, was mostly spend in two hours on a bus up to Sun Moon Lake, and two hours back, with only a half-hour to walk along the pier inbetween. I wanted to get down the hill before dusk, because rain was due.
The bus going there was delayed. At first the air-conditioning was broken, and a new bus had to be set up. "New" is relative... the little ashtrays were filled with food wrappers, paint was peeling.... fifteen minutes in, the driver stopped on the freeway because the strapping tape holding the exterior left mirror was working loose. Unwrapping and rewrapping the tape didn't seem to work, but fortunately he had a fresh roll of strapping tape with him. With traffic whizzing by on the both sides, he finally arranged the mirror as he liked it, and we started up again. We were maybe a half-hour off schedule.
The trip back downhill took much less time, so I guess we made it up.
I liked the ride to Sun Moon Lake an awful lot. There were a pair of Asian-American ladies from San Francisco, one of whom had grown up in Taiwan and had good Mandarin, the other with less Chinese than me. They helped me get my bearings ("Oh, you have to buy tickets the next block over, thanks"). Nice to meet them.
We passed lots of rice paddies, and banana plantations, and sugarcane fields, and tons of what were either palm trees or betelnut trees. Saw lots of Binliang Beauties too... the tipoff is the green neon tubes, often in a radial pattern, so truck drivers can try for an upskirt look as they approach. Very efficient.
Speaking of betel nut, I really like the high. I've had only one packet so far, and it reminds me most of my brief exposure with cocaine... not a big explosive buzz, just a calm feeling of capability. I started out slowly, calibrating my dosages, and by the end wasn't spitting the juice so much as swallowing it. Never held a chaw for more than ten minutes, although I did sequence a few hits in a row while walking. I'll look for more in San Francisco, whether in this leaf-wrapped format or as Indian paan. Alkaloids, gotta love 'em.
Anyway, lots of Binliang Beauties on the freeway roadside. I was looking for more here in Tainan, but haven't found any in city center yet.
Lots of road construction on the way up into the mountains, lots of abandoned buildings (from the earthquake?), lots of wide riverbeds (not even filled across after the typhoons), lots of giant bridges being built across chasms, lots of tunnels, lots of trees, lots of beauty.
And lots of lake. Man, that thing is big, and 'way up in the mountains too. I just caught a flavor of it, but it was big.
When I got back I tried to make reservations for Alishan Mountain House. Expensive, on a Friday, but I went for it. But then... I learned the railway was down, due to Jangmi. I had been searching the web for news on it, but Google/English didn't give me the info I sought. Railway was down though. Can't ride the choo-choo, not this trip.
That was yesterday. Let me do today in another post.
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