Taiwan, Day 2

I went to sleep pretty late but still woke up early, too early.  Stayed in bed for a little while, very comfy, but then got up and went down for breakfast.  There was bread and even french toast but I didn't try them.  There were all sorts of Taiwanese dishes.  Meats, veggies, salted fish, salted duck eggs - both way too salty for me - noodles, fruit and salad.  OJ and grapefruit juice/drink, hot soy milk and coffee.  My favorite was a cauliflower dish with some kind of yellow sauce - not curry - and cheese.  Yummy.  Off to a good and interesting start.

It went downhill a bit from there.  I had to choose between the zoo (pandas and koalas) along with a mountain that has a gondola ride - the cars have glass bottoms! - and there is a tea museum, 'dancing water' and a temple in the same area.  Or, a special sulfer hot spring area with a geothermal, sulferic area in the morning and a special temple in the afternoon.  It was also supposed to rain, a consideration.  So I choose the latter but at the transfer point on the subway I changed my mind since it wasn't raining and decided to do the gondola since it's supposed to rain tomorrow as well.  LUCKILY I was only 1/2 there when I had to transfer again and LUCKILY while I was going to the next train I noticed the monitor which LUCKILY was broadcasting in English as I was walking by (it switched between Chinese and English).  It said the gondola was having regular maintenance and was closed.   Since that was my main reason for going I turned around and went to the hot springs.  Bad luck again!!!  The whole town was closed (on Monday) but the girl at the station didn't mention that when she gave me the brochures!  I found out by walking uphill in 90 something degree weather, sweating bullets, it was actually dripping off my face!  The Japanese hot spring museum was closed, ok, but surely the geothermal park would be open - it's an outdoor area!  Nope.  Closed (I wasn't the only disappointed person there).  But that little trip wasn't a total loss as I found some yummy orange sherbert...  but stupidly, or hopefully, depending on how you want to look at it, I kept going up... hoping that the folk museum or the zen garden would be open.  No.  Dripping, shirt clinging to me, backpack soaked with sweat I made my way down the hill / mountain? taking a wrong turn and ending up in a little area overlooking the geothermal area.  It was a beautiful pool, kind of murky light blue and slightly sulphery smelling.  And the mist rising off it (it's hot) would swirl and dance at the slightest of breezes.  So that was a lucky mistake.  And there were signs there to get me back to the main part of town - yeah - and back onto the train.

My subway station - Luzhou

 The train to Beitou, the hot springs area.

Beitou train station.

map of Beitou hot springs area

a local exercise area

dragonflies, black and red

Japanese hot springs museum

 

I'd decided to go into Taipei - a city that never sleeps - everything should be open there.  My plan was to go to Taipei 101 the skyscraper in the city center, shops, air conditioning, restaurants.  But I didn't.  I went to the main train station's 2nd floor (Lauren's friend suggested it) which is a 'food court' if you can call it that.  There's a Japanese area, a Taiwanese area, a sweets area, and a fast food area.  I opted for the Taiwanese of course.  A very nice lunch of a Taiwanese style fried chicken leg, thick rice noodles and vegetables in a good broth (unfortunately it was very difficult to eat with round plastic chopsticks and I splashed some on my favorite shirt and there was oil in the soup.  I'm doing my laundry as I write this... free use of washers and dryers in the hotel too!  Hopefully it will come out because I only have a few shirts).  Anyway.  I felt a little better (when will I learn - EAT).

metro

scooters everywhere

Taipei main station

 

 And I decided to go to the temple.  But while I was on the subway I noticed that I would pass the station for the Chiang-Kai-Shek memorial.  So I made a detour.  And finally - a lucky break!  There were soldiers performing (I forget what it's called - they march and do things with their rifles, I know there's a word for that... drill team?) in the square.  First on their own then with music.  I thought it was the changing of the guard that I'd read about but when I went up to the actual memorial the changing of the guard was going on there.  Down below it was practice for something - the commander actually stopped them a couple of times to make them start again.

 

 

Ok, a little walk through the garden and back to the train.  The subway is VERY easy to use.  It's color coded and marked very well in English.  On the train, the stops are announced in Chinese, Taiwanese (a little different), Hakka? (an aboriginal dialect) and English and there is a LED sign inside and a map over the doors.  I haven't gotten on a wrong train once and I've been on and off all day - amazing (for me)!  BUT, as easy as it is, it is also a LOT of walking up and down numerous stairs or slow escalators, down long corridors, etc.  I bet more than 1/2 of my walking has been in the subway stations.  By the end of the day I finally figured out it's worth it to ride a few extra stops if it means one less transfer!  Can't always do that but when I can I will.  And transfer at smaller stations if possible. 
The subway cars themselves are spotless and very well air conditioned (not like Boston).  They are quite safety conscious (nowhere else...) and there are glass walls and doors that are closed until the train stops and then they open, the people are supposed to get off straight out and the people waiting go in from the lines they've made on the sides.  Quite efficient.
Longshan Temple started as a Buddist (but more like Indian Buddist than Japanese Buddist) temple but other dieties (Tao? Confucius?) were added.  It is VERY ornate, not like the simple and (in my opinion more beautiful) Japanese temples.  It was originally built in 1736 but what is there today was finished in 1919.  It was quite interesting, lots of people buying offerings of food, flowers, incense, candles - again more like India - praying, reading from books, chanting, but also chatting with friends, snacking, etc.  It seems like a real meeting place, especially for old women. The old men were all across the street at a park playing go or shoji or something.
I walked down some of the neighboring streets but didn't care for them (dirty, old, yuc) so I headed back to the hotel, sticky and exhausted around 6:30pm.  But I really wanted some bubble tea.  So I went searching for that, found some, couldn't ask for anything specific but ended up getting just what I wanted!  Yeah.  Finally back to the hotel, showered and put my laundry in.  Which I'd better go and change now.  I haven't used a dryer in a year and a half!
Ended up with an interesting calzone for dinner.  No tomato sauce, it was stuffed with broccoli, cauliflower, nicely seasoned chicken and cheese.  And the rest of my bubble tea, although as I was drinking that I read an article about a maelic acid in the tapioca scandel so I left the rest...  I'll have to ask about that before I get any more, might have to stick to ice cream...

Great take out carry contraption

from my hotel window