Not even a little bit...Did you scrum?
Nana is 97 and here we were watching a live game that started at 10:00pm, I left just after midnight and she walked me to the door and down the hallway, like she always does. Amazing lady and my lil buddy.
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Not even a little bit...Did you scrum?
Not even a little bit...
Nana is 97 and here we were watching a live game that started at 10:00pm, I left just after midnight and she walked me to the door and down the hallway, like she always does. Amazing lady and my lil buddy.
Extra good thoughts for your Nana. Precious times.Not even a little bit...
Nana is 97 and here we were watching a live game that started at 10:00pm, I left just after midnight and she walked me to the door and down the hallway, like she always does. Amazing lady and my lil buddy.
...take a dang shower!!!!...I can smell ya clean over here!....Well, that was probably my worst outing ever.
No one, nothing, is to blame. When you try authentic in a new place, no one guarantees that it's going to be butterflies and rainbows.
It started with me asking the people out front when the hotel shuttle went to the HSR (high-speed rail) station. It was quite a while from then. I could catch a cab. I said, "It's pretty close, right?" They said, "About a 20-minute walk." "Great! I like to walk. I'm going to go to the last station on the route and see what I can find!" The young lady had an uneasy smile. "You're not acting like it's a good plan." "Oh, I'm sure it'll be fine. Have fun."
Well, yeah, I like to walk, but I don't like to wade upright through a highly heated, low-density pool, which is what it felt like. I was wearing a loose shirt, loose shorts, and I started sweating like a Neanderthal in the tropics, which is a pretty accurate description of the actual situation. By the time I got to the station, perspiration was running down my forehead and temples. I went to the bathroom to clean up a little, then came out and navigated the self-service ticket station successfully for a round-trip ticket to the farthest stop away, and got through the gate.
Once past the gate, I asked an engaging young lady attendant, "I can get off at stops along the way, right?"
"Oh, yes. But you cannot leave the station until your destination."
Well, that kind of defeated the purpose for getting a ticket for so far away. I was hoping to hop off and on the train, collecting sights along the way with abandon. In retrospect, it worked out for the best.
I hadn't had anything to eat but wasn't terribly hungry, so I went to a C-store in the station. There was a crowd there. I feel ungraceful in crowds in Asia. Speaking of Neanderthal, I've got the build, wide-bodied even when I'm not overweight, which almost never happens. Asians are generally (generally, I say) a fair bit more slender by comparison, accustomed to crowds, and I feel like a bowling ball moving among crystal figurines, which is terribly overstated, but you get the drift.
I got a small wrap of some kind of salad and a tea-looking drink. I think it cost a couple bucks, just not all that expensive for train station C-store food. I stopped and ate it, trying to decide if it was fish-based or chicken, and then looked for a while before finding a place to throw away the trash.
The most interesting part of the foray was the rail trip itself. It was comfortable, with the middle seat actually wider than the aisle and window seats, which is a pretty darn logical arrangement, and fairly quiet, especially considering that the highest speed that I saw posted was 285 kilometers/hour. For those of us (like me) metric-challenged, that's 177 mph, and I know because I just did the conversion. High-speed rail? They weren't kidding. Fast and comfortable. Unlike the rest of my sojourn. Oh, 15 minutes into the ride, I burped a little lunch. Okay. Fish it was.
I arrived at and left the station at Zuoying and went to explore. Man, there was nothing but heat and traffic. I wandered around, finally said screw this, and went back into the station, browsed a bit because there was a whole three-level mall built into the place, then found an exit on the other side, and whaddya know, there was a town there. So I started walking.
And walked and walked.
I have a well-traveled colleague, far more than I, who says Taiwan is "the most generic place in Asia." Maybe so, until I gather more experiences. I could've been anywhere, and as features go, it was featureless. The shops were blank-faced and frankly uninteresting. The sidewalks were filled with scooters, parked cars, and equipment from the stores fronting the sidewalk - in other words, pretty much taking space for anything except walking. My enduring memories of Taiwan so far are stellar customer service, rampant casual kindness, sweating in an outdoor sauna, and with the pervasive whiff of excrement from small occasional doses to a noxious scent-cloud. The heat, sidewalk obstacles, smell, and lack of anything interesting to stop in made the walking more miserable as I went. I finally stopped at a (sigh) 7-Eleven and grabbed a bottle of cold flavored tea. 20 dollars NTD. About 65 cents.
Then I walked some more. Oh, there were mildly notable things. A couple blocks that were parks with not that much to see. The biggest elementary school complex I've ever seen, and then I turned the corner of the campus and saw the biggest senior high school complex I've ever seen. I mean, the school buildings were vast and multi-storied.
I kept walking, and I really should've been hungrier at this point, because that little salad back at the station wasn't much by this time of the day, but with the oppressive heat, while I usually like to stop in streetside cafes for a nibble, the thought of the boiled and fried stuff that I was passing by held no attraction whatsoever. It got to the point where I would've even welcomed a Western sign of a TGI Fridays, or Chili's, or a Hard Rock Cafe, but it was not to be.
Indeed, Taiwan does not have a Hard Rock Cafe. I checked, because T-shirts for descendants. What it needs is a bar and grill to stop in for a beer and snack and escape this wicked heat for a bit.
After three hours of walking, because I'm stubborn, I gave up. Time to admit defeat, catch a cab back to the station, and head back. Where can I catch one? That corner looks likely. Nothing. Oh, they're passing by over there. I go over there. Nothing. Look across to the corner I just vacated. A stream of cabs goes by.
I finally figure that although I don't feel thirsty or hungry, dehydration and lowered energy might be affecting my thinking. I go into another 7-Eleven (double sigh) and get a little package of sushi (I know, but it was just rice, vegetables, and fake crab, and it was cold) and a bottle of green milk tea. Unlike the places at home, they have a counter and chairs. I pull one up, start eating my minilunch, and look down.
My shirt looked like I've played the part of Humphrey Bogart in "The African Queen" when he's pulling the boat through the swamp. It's soaked from midchest down. I can only imagine what my back looks like, and I don't want to.
Okay, look. I don't mind being alone. It's my natural state, and you can ask people who have seen me try to socialize to verify that. I don't mind at all being the only Caucasian in sight for miles. I'm comfortable with who I am, and I can't help and won't be bothered with how others think of me at first sight. I don't mind being in strange places on my own, because that's one way to learn about other cultures.
What i do mind is walking around in a moving pool of either my own sweat or its sticky aftermath, not needing to urinate for about five or six hours because of dehydration, and completely failing in any level of communication, even to the extent of, "Take me somewhere interesting. I'll pay you."
Now, the lack of communication is no one's fault but mine. I'm in their country, their culture. I have a dear friend who can immerse and find friendship and fascination in the middle of the Sahara, but I don't have her exquisite social skills. And it also bothers me to be the only one visible who's drenched in sweat, because if I were one of them, I sure wouldn't want to be around me. They are built for this climate. I obviously am not.
I finally got a cab. From maybe a hundred yards away, he saw the sad, tired white guy standing out in the street looking for someone like him. He broke five or six traffic laws and gathered 18 honks getting to me, and I was grateful. He couldn't figure out where I wanted to go, didn't know the term HSR, until inspiration finally broke through the fatigue and I showed him my train ticket home. He laughed and said one of the ten English words he knew, "Funny!" and broke a dozen more traffic laws getting me to the station. I tipped him handsomely over his meager charge. A fare got in as soon as I got out, so his karma was running good for all his traffic transgressions.
We're not quite done, sorry. I had my ticket to pop into the machine, but the little piece of paper had been residing in my shirt pocket, getting a bit soppy from my overactive pores, and the machine couldn't handle it and ate it. The engaging young lady attendant (it's a common theme) came over, took the machine apart, signed off on the ticket, and let me through. I first got on the wrong train, figured it out before it left, found the right one, and had a nice ride back home, thankfully with no one sitting next to me.
The up side: For three and a half hours of walking, I got my daily exercise in. And the train ride was really pretty neat. The down side: Everything else.
I'm here for two or three more weeks. The next excursion, I'm going to have a guide. I need to talk to my dear friend about making friends in strange places, as she does so adroitly.
View attachment 22331The 177-mph train I was on.
View attachment 22332
The train station at Hsinchu. Have I mentioned that scooters are really, really popular?
View attachment 22333
Crossing over to this corner where a bunch of cabs had just passed by.
View attachment 22334
I took this photo for a specific illustration. Note on the left, the 7-Eleven. Look to the right, about a block. Gasp! Another 7-Eleven. I can only imagine that the Southland Corp offers a great, affordable franchise deal.
Well, that was probably my worst outing ever.
No one, nothing, is to blame. When you try authentic in a new place, no one guarantees that it's going to be butterflies and rainbows.
It started with me asking the people out front when the hotel shuttle went to the HSR (high-speed rail) station. It was quite a while from then. I could catch a cab. I said, "It's pretty close, right?" They said, "About a 20-minute walk." "Great! I like to walk. I'm going to go to the last station on the route and see what I can find!" The young lady had an uneasy smile. "You're not acting like it's a good plan." "Oh, I'm sure it'll be fine. Have fun."
Well, yeah, I like to walk, but I don't like to wade upright through a highly heated, low-density pool, which is what it felt like. I was wearing a loose shirt, loose shorts, and I started sweating like a Neanderthal in the tropics, which is a pretty accurate description of the actual situation. By the time I got to the station, perspiration was running down my forehead and temples. I went to the bathroom to clean up a little, then came out and navigated the self-service ticket station successfully for a round-trip ticket to the farthest stop away, and got through the gate.
Once past the gate, I asked an engaging young lady attendant, "I can get off at stops along the way, right?"
"Oh, yes. But you cannot leave the station until your destination."
Well, that kind of defeated the purpose for getting a ticket for so far away. I was hoping to hop off and on the train, collecting sights along the way with abandon. In retrospect, it worked out for the best.
I hadn't had anything to eat but wasn't terribly hungry, so I went to a C-store in the station. There was a crowd there. I feel ungraceful in crowds in Asia. Speaking of Neanderthal, I've got the build, wide-bodied even when I'm not overweight, which almost never happens. Asians are generally (generally, I say) a fair bit more slender by comparison, accustomed to crowds, and I feel like a bowling ball moving among crystal figurines, which is terribly overstated, but you get the drift.
I got a small wrap of some kind of salad and a tea-looking drink. I think it cost a couple bucks, just not all that expensive for train station C-store food. I stopped and ate it, trying to decide if it was fish-based or chicken, and then looked for a while before finding a place to throw away the trash.
The most interesting part of the foray was the rail trip itself. It was comfortable, with the middle seat actually wider than the aisle and window seats, which is a pretty darn logical arrangement, and fairly quiet, especially considering that the highest speed that I saw posted was 285 kilometers/hour. For those of us (like me) metric-challenged, that's 177 mph, and I know because I just did the conversion. High-speed rail? They weren't kidding. Fast and comfortable. Unlike the rest of my sojourn. Oh, 15 minutes into the ride, I burped a little lunch. Okay. Fish it was.
I arrived at and left the station at Zuoying and went to explore. Man, there was nothing but heat and traffic. I wandered around, finally said screw this, and went back into the station, browsed a bit because there was a whole three-level mall built into the place, then found an exit on the other side, and whaddya know, there was a town there. So I started walking.
And walked and walked.
I have a well-traveled colleague, far more than I, who says Taiwan is "the most generic place in Asia." Maybe so, until I gather more experiences. I could've been anywhere, and as features go, it was featureless. The shops were blank-faced and frankly uninteresting. The sidewalks were filled with scooters, parked cars, and equipment from the stores fronting the sidewalk - in other words, pretty much taking space for anything except walking. My enduring memories of Taiwan so far are stellar customer service, rampant casual kindness, sweating in an outdoor sauna, and with the pervasive whiff of excrement from small occasional doses to a noxious scent-cloud. The heat, sidewalk obstacles, smell, and lack of anything interesting to stop in made the walking more miserable as I went. I finally stopped at a (sigh) 7-Eleven and grabbed a bottle of cold flavored tea. 20 dollars NTD. About 65 cents.
Then I walked some more. Oh, there were mildly notable things. A couple blocks that were parks with not that much to see. The biggest elementary school complex I've ever seen, and then I turned the corner of the campus and saw the biggest senior high school complex I've ever seen. I mean, the school buildings were vast and multi-storied.
I kept walking, and I really should've been hungrier at this point, because that little salad back at the station wasn't much by this time of the day, but with the oppressive heat, while I usually like to stop in streetside cafes for a nibble, the thought of the boiled and fried stuff that I was passing by held no attraction whatsoever. It got to the point where I would've even welcomed a Western sign of a TGI Fridays, or Chili's, or a Hard Rock Cafe, but it was not to be.
Indeed, Taiwan does not have a Hard Rock Cafe. I checked, because T-shirts for descendants. What it needs is a bar and grill to stop in for a beer and snack and escape this wicked heat for a bit.
After three hours of walking, because I'm stubborn, I gave up. Time to admit defeat, catch a cab back to the station, and head back. Where can I catch one? That corner looks likely. Nothing. Oh, they're passing by over there. I go over there. Nothing. Look across to the corner I just vacated. A stream of cabs goes by.
I finally figure that although I don't feel thirsty or hungry, dehydration and lowered energy might be affecting my thinking. I go into another 7-Eleven (double sigh) and get a little package of sushi (I know, but it was just rice, vegetables, and fake crab, and it was cold) and a bottle of green milk tea. Unlike the places at home, they have a counter and chairs. I pull one up, start eating my minilunch, and look down.
My shirt looked like I've played the part of Humphrey Bogart in "The African Queen" when he's pulling the boat through the swamp. It's soaked from midchest down. I can only imagine what my back looks like, and I don't want to.
Okay, look. I don't mind being alone. It's my natural state, and you can ask people who have seen me try to socialize to verify that. I don't mind at all being the only Caucasian in sight for miles. I'm comfortable with who I am, and I can't help and won't be bothered with how others think of me at first sight. I don't mind being in strange places on my own, because that's one way to learn about other cultures.
What i do mind is walking around in a moving pool of either my own sweat or its sticky aftermath, not needing to urinate for about five or six hours because of dehydration, and completely failing in any level of communication, even to the extent of, "Take me somewhere interesting. I'll pay you."
Now, the lack of communication is no one's fault but mine. I'm in their country, their culture. I have a dear friend who can immerse and find friendship and fascination in the middle of the Sahara, but I don't have her exquisite social skills. And it also bothers me to be the only one visible who's drenched in sweat, because if I were one of them, I sure wouldn't want to be around me. They are built for this climate. I obviously am not.
I finally got a cab. From maybe a hundred yards away, he saw the sad, tired white guy standing out in the street looking for someone like him. He broke five or six traffic laws and gathered 18 honks getting to me, and I was grateful. He couldn't figure out where I wanted to go, didn't know the term HSR, until inspiration finally broke through the fatigue and I showed him my train ticket home. He laughed and said one of the ten English words he knew, "Funny!" and broke a dozen more traffic laws getting me to the station. I tipped him handsomely over his meager charge. A fare got in as soon as I got out, so his karma was running good for all his traffic transgressions.
We're not quite done, sorry. I had my ticket to pop into the machine, but the little piece of paper had been residing in my shirt pocket, getting a bit soppy from my overactive pores, and the machine couldn't handle it and ate it. The engaging young lady attendant (it's a common theme) came over, took the machine apart, signed off on the ticket, and let me through. I first got on the wrong train, figured it out before it left, found the right one, and had a nice ride back home, thankfully with no one sitting next to me.
The up side: For three and a half hours of walking, I got my daily exercise in. And the train ride was really pretty neat. The down side: Everything else.
I'm here for two or three more weeks. The next excursion, I'm going to have a guide. I need to talk to my dear friend about making friends in strange places, as she does so adroitly.
View attachment 22331The 177-mph train I was on.
View attachment 22332
The train station at Hsinchu. Have I mentioned that scooters are really, really popular?
View attachment 22333
Crossing over to this corner where a bunch of cabs had just passed by.
View attachment 22334
I took this photo for a specific illustration. Note on the left, the 7-Eleven. Look to the right, about a block. Gasp! Another 7-Eleven. I can only imagine that the Southland Corp offers a great, affordable franchise deal.
...take a dang shower!!!!...I can smell ya clean over here!....
Well, that was probably my worst outing ever.
No one, nothing, is to blame. When you try authentic in a new place, no one guarantees that it's going to be butterflies and rainbows.
It started with me asking the people out front when the hotel shuttle went to the HSR (high-speed rail) station. It was quite a while from then. I could catch a cab. I said, "It's pretty close, right?" They said, "About a 20-minute walk." "Great! I like to walk. I'm going to go to the last station on the route and see what I can find!" The young lady had an uneasy smile. "You're not acting like it's a good plan." "Oh, I'm sure it'll be fine. Have fun."
Well, yeah, I like to walk, but I don't like to wade upright through a highly heated, low-density pool, which is what it felt like. I was wearing a loose shirt, loose shorts, and I started sweating like a Neanderthal in the tropics, which is a pretty accurate description of the actual situation. By the time I got to the station, perspiration was running down my forehead and temples. I went to the bathroom to clean up a little, then came out and navigated the self-service ticket station successfully for a round-trip ticket to the farthest stop away, and got through the gate.
Once past the gate, I asked an engaging young lady attendant, "I can get off at stops along the way, right?"
"Oh, yes. But you cannot leave the station until your destination."
Well, that kind of defeated the purpose for getting a ticket for so far away. I was hoping to hop off and on the train, collecting sights along the way with abandon. In retrospect, it worked out for the best.
I hadn't had anything to eat but wasn't terribly hungry, so I went to a C-store in the station. There was a crowd there. I feel ungraceful in crowds in Asia. Speaking of Neanderthal, I've got the build, wide-bodied even when I'm not overweight, which almost never happens. Asians are generally (generally, I say) a fair bit more slender by comparison, accustomed to crowds, and I feel like a bowling ball moving among crystal figurines, which is terribly overstated, but you get the drift.
I got a small wrap of some kind of salad and a tea-looking drink. I think it cost a couple bucks, just not all that expensive for train station C-store food. I stopped and ate it, trying to decide if it was fish-based or chicken, and then looked for a while before finding a place to throw away the trash.
The most interesting part of the foray was the rail trip itself. It was comfortable, with the middle seat actually wider than the aisle and window seats, which is a pretty darn logical arrangement, and fairly quiet, especially considering that the highest speed that I saw posted was 285 kilometers/hour. For those of us (like me) metric-challenged, that's 177 mph, and I know because I just did the conversion. High-speed rail? They weren't kidding. Fast and comfortable. Unlike the rest of my sojourn. Oh, 15 minutes into the ride, I burped a little lunch. Okay. Fish it was.
I arrived at and left the station at Zuoying and went to explore. Man, there was nothing but heat and traffic. I wandered around, finally said screw this, and went back into the station, browsed a bit because there was a whole three-level mall built into the place, then found an exit on the other side, and whaddya know, there was a town there. So I started walking.
And walked and walked.
I have a well-traveled colleague, far more than I, who says Taiwan is "the most generic place in Asia." Maybe so, until I gather more experiences. I could've been anywhere, and as features go, it was featureless. The shops were blank-faced and frankly uninteresting. The sidewalks were filled with scooters, parked cars, and equipment from the stores fronting the sidewalk - in other words, pretty much taking space for anything except walking. My enduring memories of Taiwan so far are stellar customer service, rampant casual kindness, sweating in an outdoor sauna, and with the pervasive whiff of excrement from small occasional doses to a noxious scent-cloud. The heat, sidewalk obstacles, smell, and lack of anything interesting to stop in made the walking more miserable as I went. I finally stopped at a (sigh) 7-Eleven and grabbed a bottle of cold flavored tea. 20 dollars NTD. About 65 cents.
Then I walked some more. Oh, there were mildly notable things. A couple blocks that were parks with not that much to see. The biggest elementary school complex I've ever seen, and then I turned the corner of the campus and saw the biggest senior high school complex I've ever seen. I mean, the school buildings were vast and multi-storied.
I kept walking, and I really should've been hungrier at this point, because that little salad back at the station wasn't much by this time of the day, but with the oppressive heat, while I usually like to stop in streetside cafes for a nibble, the thought of the boiled and fried stuff that I was passing by held no attraction whatsoever. It got to the point where I would've even welcomed a Western sign of a TGI Fridays, or Chili's, or a Hard Rock Cafe, but it was not to be.
Indeed, Taiwan does not have a Hard Rock Cafe. I checked, because T-shirts for descendants. What it needs is a bar and grill to stop in for a beer and snack and escape this wicked heat for a bit.
After three hours of walking, because I'm stubborn, I gave up. Time to admit defeat, catch a cab back to the station, and head back. Where can I catch one? That corner looks likely. Nothing. Oh, they're passing by over there. I go over there. Nothing. Look across to the corner I just vacated. A stream of cabs goes by.
I finally figure that although I don't feel thirsty or hungry, dehydration and lowered energy might be affecting my thinking. I go into another 7-Eleven (double sigh) and get a little package of sushi (I know, but it was just rice, vegetables, and fake crab, and it was cold) and a bottle of green milk tea. Unlike the places at home, they have a counter and chairs. I pull one up, start eating my minilunch, and look down.
My shirt looked like I've played the part of Humphrey Bogart in "The African Queen" when he's pulling the boat through the swamp. It's soaked from midchest down. I can only imagine what my back looks like, and I don't want to.
Okay, look. I don't mind being alone. It's my natural state, and you can ask people who have seen me try to socialize to verify that. I don't mind at all being the only Caucasian in sight for miles. I'm comfortable with who I am, and I can't help and won't be bothered with how others think of me at first sight. I don't mind being in strange places on my own, because that's one way to learn about other cultures.
What i do mind is walking around in a moving pool of either my own sweat or its sticky aftermath, not needing to urinate for about five or six hours because of dehydration, and completely failing in any level of communication, even to the extent of, "Take me somewhere interesting. I'll pay you."
Now, the lack of communication is no one's fault but mine. I'm in their country, their culture. I have a dear friend who can immerse and find friendship and fascination in the middle of the Sahara, but I don't have her exquisite social skills. And it also bothers me to be the only one visible who's drenched in sweat, because if I were one of them, I sure wouldn't want to be around me. They are built for this climate. I obviously am not.
I finally got a cab. From maybe a hundred yards away, he saw the sad, tired white guy standing out in the street looking for someone like him. He broke five or six traffic laws and gathered 18 honks getting to me, and I was grateful. He couldn't figure out where I wanted to go, didn't know the term HSR, until inspiration finally broke through the fatigue and I showed him my train ticket home. He laughed and said one of the ten English words he knew, "Funny!" and broke a dozen more traffic laws getting me to the station. I tipped him handsomely over his meager charge. A fare got in as soon as I got out, so his karma was running good for all his traffic transgressions.
We're not quite done, sorry. I had my ticket to pop into the machine, but the little piece of paper had been residing in my shirt pocket, getting a bit soppy from my overactive pores, and the machine couldn't handle it and ate it. The engaging young lady attendant (it's a common theme) came over, took the machine apart, signed off on the ticket, and let me through. I first got on the wrong train, figured it out before it left, found the right one, and had a nice ride back home, thankfully with no one sitting next to me.
The up side: For three and a half hours of walking, I got my daily exercise in. And the train ride was really pretty neat. The down side: Everything else.
I'm here for two or three more weeks. The next excursion, I'm going to have a guide. I need to talk to my dear friend about making friends in strange places, as she does so adroitly.
View attachment 22331The 177-mph train I was on.
View attachment 22332
The train station at Hsinchu. Have I mentioned that scooters are really, really popular?
View attachment 22333
Crossing over to this corner where a bunch of cabs had just passed by.
View attachment 22334
I took this photo for a specific illustration. Note on the left, the 7-Eleven. Look to the right, about a block. Gasp! Another 7-Eleven. I can only imagine that the Southland Corp offers a great, affordable franchise deal.
So, Brody Dog made a bunch of new friends today.
On our walk a little girl attending a birthday party in the park came running over to see Brody. I told her she could pet him. She gave him a hug and a kiss. Then her sister and the rest of their family came over to see him and pet him. They took pictures of the kids with the Brodster. Brody loved all the attention. It doesn't help his ego......
Not even a little bit...
Nana is 97 and here we were watching a live game that started at 10:00pm, I left just after midnight and she walked me to the door and down the hallway, like she always does. Amazing lady and my lil buddy.
Well, that was probably my worst outing ever.
No one, nothing, is to blame. When you try authentic in a new place, no one guarantees that it's going to be butterflies and rainbows.
It started with me asking the people out front when the hotel shuttle went to the HSR (high-speed rail) station. It was quite a while from then. I could catch a cab. I said, "It's pretty close, right?" They said, "About a 20-minute walk." "Great! I like to walk. I'm going to go to the last station on the route and see what I can find!" The young lady had an uneasy smile. "You're not acting like it's a good plan." "Oh, I'm sure it'll be fine. Have fun."
Well, yeah, I like to walk, but I don't like to wade upright through a highly heated, low-density pool, which is what it felt like. I was wearing a loose shirt, loose shorts, and I started sweating like a Neanderthal in the tropics, which is a pretty accurate description of the actual situation. By the time I got to the station, perspiration was running down my forehead and temples. I went to the bathroom to clean up a little, then came out and navigated the self-service ticket station successfully for a round-trip ticket to the farthest stop away, and got through the gate.
Once past the gate, I asked an engaging young lady attendant, "I can get off at stops along the way, right?"
"Oh, yes. But you cannot leave the station until your destination."
Well, that kind of defeated the purpose for getting a ticket for so far away. I was hoping to hop off and on the train, collecting sights along the way with abandon. In retrospect, it worked out for the best.
I hadn't had anything to eat but wasn't terribly hungry, so I went to a C-store in the station. There was a crowd there. I feel ungraceful in crowds in Asia. Speaking of Neanderthal, I've got the build, wide-bodied even when I'm not overweight, which almost never happens. Asians are generally (generally, I say) a fair bit more slender by comparison, accustomed to crowds, and I feel like a bowling ball moving among crystal figurines, which is terribly overstated, but you get the drift.
I got a small wrap of some kind of salad and a tea-looking drink. I think it cost a couple bucks, just not all that expensive for train station C-store food. I stopped and ate it, trying to decide if it was fish-based or chicken, and then looked for a while before finding a place to throw away the trash.
The most interesting part of the foray was the rail trip itself. It was comfortable, with the middle seat actually wider than the aisle and window seats, which is a pretty darn logical arrangement, and fairly quiet, especially considering that the highest speed that I saw posted was 285 kilometers/hour. For those of us (like me) metric-challenged, that's 177 mph, and I know because I just did the conversion. High-speed rail? They weren't kidding. Fast and comfortable. Unlike the rest of my sojourn. Oh, 15 minutes into the ride, I burped a little lunch. Okay. Fish it was.
I arrived at and left the station at Zuoying and went to explore. Man, there was nothing but heat and traffic. I wandered around, finally said screw this, and went back into the station, browsed a bit because there was a whole three-level mall built into the place, then found an exit on the other side, and whaddya know, there was a town there. So I started walking.
And walked and walked.
I have a well-traveled colleague, far more than I, who says Taiwan is "the most generic place in Asia." Maybe so, until I gather more experiences. I could've been anywhere, and as features go, it was featureless. The shops were blank-faced and frankly uninteresting. The sidewalks were filled with scooters, parked cars, and equipment from the stores fronting the sidewalk - in other words, pretty much taking space for anything except walking. My enduring memories of Taiwan so far are stellar customer service, rampant casual kindness, sweating in an outdoor sauna, and with the pervasive whiff of excrement from small occasional doses to a noxious scent-cloud. The heat, sidewalk obstacles, smell, and lack of anything interesting to stop in made the walking more miserable as I went. I finally stopped at a (sigh) 7-Eleven and grabbed a bottle of cold flavored tea. 20 dollars NTD. About 65 cents.
Then I walked some more. Oh, there were mildly notable things. A couple blocks that were parks with not that much to see. The biggest elementary school complex I've ever seen, and then I turned the corner of the campus and saw the biggest senior high school complex I've ever seen. I mean, the school buildings were vast and multi-storied.
I kept walking, and I really should've been hungrier at this point, because that little salad back at the station wasn't much by this time of the day, but with the oppressive heat, while I usually like to stop in streetside cafes for a nibble, the thought of the boiled and fried stuff that I was passing by held no attraction whatsoever. It got to the point where I would've even welcomed a Western sign of a TGI Fridays, or Chili's, or a Hard Rock Cafe, but it was not to be.
Indeed, Taiwan does not have a Hard Rock Cafe. I checked, because T-shirts for descendants. What it needs is a bar and grill to stop in for a beer and snack and escape this wicked heat for a bit.
After three hours of walking, because I'm stubborn, I gave up. Time to admit defeat, catch a cab back to the station, and head back. Where can I catch one? That corner looks likely. Nothing. Oh, they're passing by over there. I go over there. Nothing. Look across to the corner I just vacated. A stream of cabs goes by.
I finally figure that although I don't feel thirsty or hungry, dehydration and lowered energy might be affecting my thinking. I go into another 7-Eleven (double sigh) and get a little package of sushi (I know, but it was just rice, vegetables, and fake crab, and it was cold) and a bottle of green milk tea. Unlike the places at home, they have a counter and chairs. I pull one up, start eating my minilunch, and look down.
My shirt looked like I've played the part of Humphrey Bogart in "The African Queen" when he's pulling the boat through the swamp. It's soaked from midchest down. I can only imagine what my back looks like, and I don't want to.
Okay, look. I don't mind being alone. It's my natural state, and you can ask people who have seen me try to socialize to verify that. I don't mind at all being the only Caucasian in sight for miles. I'm comfortable with who I am, and I can't help and won't be bothered with how others think of me at first sight. I don't mind being in strange places on my own, because that's one way to learn about other cultures.
What i do mind is walking around in a moving pool of either my own sweat or its sticky aftermath, not needing to urinate for about five or six hours because of dehydration, and completely failing in any level of communication, even to the extent of, "Take me somewhere interesting. I'll pay you."
Now, the lack of communication is no one's fault but mine. I'm in their country, their culture. I have a dear friend who can immerse and find friendship and fascination in the middle of the Sahara, but I don't have her exquisite social skills. And it also bothers me to be the only one visible who's drenched in sweat, because if I were one of them, I sure wouldn't want to be around me. They are built for this climate. I obviously am not.
I finally got a cab. From maybe a hundred yards away, he saw the sad, tired white guy standing out in the street looking for someone like him. He broke five or six traffic laws and gathered 18 honks getting to me, and I was grateful. He couldn't figure out where I wanted to go, didn't know the term HSR, until inspiration finally broke through the fatigue and I showed him my train ticket home. He laughed and said one of the ten English words he knew, "Funny!" and broke a dozen more traffic laws getting me to the station. I tipped him handsomely over his meager charge. A fare got in as soon as I got out, so his karma was running good for all his traffic transgressions.
We're not quite done, sorry. I had my ticket to pop into the machine, but the little piece of paper had been residing in my shirt pocket, getting a bit soppy from my overactive pores, and the machine couldn't handle it and ate it. The engaging young lady attendant (it's a common theme) came over, took the machine apart, signed off on the ticket, and let me through. I first got on the wrong train, figured it out before it left, found the right one, and had a nice ride back home, thankfully with no one sitting next to me.
The up side: For three and a half hours of walking, I got my daily exercise in. And the train ride was really pretty neat. The down side: Everything else.
I'm here for two or three more weeks. The next excursion, I'm going to have a guide. I need to talk to my dear friend about making friends in strange places, as she does so adroitly.
View attachment 22331The 177-mph train I was on.
View attachment 22332
The train station at Hsinchu. Have I mentioned that scooters are really, really popular?
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Crossing over to this corner where a bunch of cabs had just passed by.
View attachment 22334
I took this photo for a specific illustration. Note on the left, the 7-Eleven. Look to the right, about a block. Gasp! Another 7-Eleven. I can only imagine that the Southland Corp offers a great, affordable franchise deal.
Congrats Sundrop . Safe driving and happy travels.Well, I did it.....
Thanks Spidey! It's not new, but it's new to me....2015 with 23k miles. I like it a lot ♥Congrats Sundrop . Safe driving and happy travels.
Well, I did it.....