Taiwan Day 3, 6-4-2013

Okay, I'm ready to go home.  But I won't.  Just seeing Taipei would be wimping out.  So on I go tomorrow to the old capital, Tainan.  I'll stay one night instead of my planned 2, and I think I'll skip the Nat. Park to the south, although it sounds terrific it also sounds hard to get to and I'm not sure I could get around and see what I want to without a scooter and I don't have a license.  So I will then go to Sun Moon Lake, spend two nights there, and then one - or more - back in Taipei and then maybe to Okinawa for the snorkeling I'm not doing here. 

Today I went back to try and go up the gondola that was closed yesterday.  Ahhh, closed today because of the threat of a thunderstorm.  So I took a bus up the mountain.  A bus like you see in the movies.  Small, crowded, careening around curves, almost hitting a guy on a scooter, etc. A group of women was going to the same place I was, a tea promotion center, so I followed them.  It was ok.  They offer you some tea upon entering and then you can walk through, see a video, taste some different teas (and buy if you want), etc.  It smelled funny, don't know if it was tea or mildew.  Anyway, I was ready to leave and as I stepped out there was thunder.  But the man there assured me the rain was over.  Ha.  I started walking towards the gondola station, or a bus stop, in a downhill direction and it started raining.  But it was warm so not bad, and the scenery was pretty. 


Tea promotion center.

Help yourself to some tea from a spicket in the wall.

Map of Taiwan's tea producing areas.  It's a small island
and the center is steep mountains.  Most people live on the
north and west sides.

Tea tasting.  First it's poured into the small narrow cup
for sniffing.  Then you pour it into the shorter round
cup for tasting.

Then it started thundering. I ducked under the eaves of a temple I was passing and struck up a conversation wtih a woman who was waiting for a bus.  So I waited with her, and rode down the mountain with her (actually the opposite direction from which I was planning but ended up at the same place at the bottom), and a woman with 2 children who was from Ohio. Actually she was born in Taiwan but plays cello wtih the Ohio symphony.  Turns out her father is allergic to mango and I'm the only other person she's ever met who is also.  (We were talking about foods to try.)  This was their second attempt at the gondola as well.  She did suggest the zoo since the panda and koala are inside. I had been planning on going there after the gondola, but not in the rain.  But I did.  And I ended up spending a leg numbing day there.  It's very big, and my legs hurt from going down that hill/moutain yesterday.  Even though I just went to see the pandas I continually enticed by the other animals and didn't leave 'till around 4:30 by which time I could hardly walk.
It's huge and the people areas are quite run down (like everything else here), but happily the animal's habitats are very nice.  If a zoo has to make a choice on how it spends it's money, that's the way to go.  They also do some eco education and seem to focus on 'poo power' with very cute/funny signs and info.  Even over each toilet (Japanese style crouching toilets).  Amusing.
The zoo was fairly empty.  When I arrived at the panda's house they were sleeping with their backs towards us.  I went upstairs to have lunch (a fruit waffle) 

and when I was done it was pouring so I decided to wait it out and went back to see the pandas again.  Their cages were being cleaned and bamboo was brought in along with giant bamboo shoots.  And when the pandas came back in they put on a very cute show eating the bamboo shoots which must be a special seasonal treat.  I didn't know they ate anything but the leaves.
Rain stopped for a little while although it was off and on all day.  I saw the usual and some unusual, my favorite, and last, being the clouded leapord who had just woken up from a nap and came over to see me.

McDonald's and Starbucks have taken over the world...

Did you know that llamas and camels are related?
I didn't.

You can pet her.

I like this poster.  The food chain.

This patio was my favorite area at the zoo.
I think it's so clever, and so realistic.

Watch out!!

The glass bottom gondolas I never got to ride...

My favorite - the clouded leapord.

Cute lockers.

Great zoo.

I hobbled back to the train - I'm really sore - transferred 2 times and made it back to the hotel.  Went downstairs for dinner, can't believe I forgot my camera... and I had a steak (very tough, but fairly tasty) over spagetti with a fried egg.  This place at the food court specialized in that - beef, pork chop or chicken all served the same way. It came with what I thought was a roll or something, it was round and sort of looked like brown shaved ice.  It turned out to be puff pastry over some corn soup.  It was all ok but nothing great.
Up to the computers to make hotel reservations for the next few nights and then to write this.  I'm going to soak in the tub tonight, maybe that will help my legs.