Sick, but Good, Days in Toraja
Friday, June 29, 2007--Rantepao
My cold has now shifted to the right side of my head and has loosened on the left. That means I am at least half way through it. It's keeping me rather weak, however, and I occasionally have a slight fever with it.
I washed laundry this morning. It's one of the less glamourous things that must be done when traveling. Since I am here for enough days for the things to dry, I thought I should. I washed a pair of shorts and 3 shirts. Later, I must wash the bottoms of my zip-off leg pants, because they have mud splatters on them. They dry fast, however, so I will wait until my last day so that they won't get messy again. Here, it tends to rain sometime each day.
I did too much today. I felt better, so I went walking. It was short for my usual length of a walk--only about 12 km (7 miles). I first went to a nearby native village called Buntu Pune. It actually was more like a family compound consisting of two rows of nice old Torajan houses with swooping roofs. Two children were in the space between the rows flying homemade kites. Then their mother came out and their grandparents came out. The mother talked to me in English and escorted me to their family gravesite where the coffins were just out in the open along a rock cliff. Some were rotting. Some were built in the style of the houses. One coffin had about 3-4 sculls and some bones on top. I enjoyed the visit and was there maybe 20-30 minutes. I felt like the family had gone out of their way to make it a good experience for me. That made me think they might expect something for having done so. I told the mother that I appreciated her being so kind to me and that I felt I should offer her some money for having done so. But she said, "No, no." And it seemed genuine, so I put the money back in my pocket. I said good-bye to all of them and left feeling that it had been a wonderful experience.
From there, I walked further to another larger village of traditional homes called Ke'te' Kesu'. It was more attractive with the homes less "organized." In other words, it seemed to have grown up naturally over time, whereas the other village seemed to have been planned and built all at once.
Between the two villages was a beautiful countryside with rice fields and mountains in the background. People were in the rice fields harvesting. I took lots of pictures of both the villages and the scenery.
On the way back to town, I detoured for another village, but I never came across it. When I got back to my hotel, I was totally exhausted and a fever had developed again with some aches. I took a nap. Then I took a long, hot shower. Finally, I felt a little better and went out for dinner. I had fried rice, fried egg, rice crackers, chile sauce, tamarind juice, and fruit salad. I was so tired that I returned home and went back to bed after reading for a while.
I finished The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell. I guess Nurse Grethe or Robert gave it to me, because it is a British publication about the Danish invasions of England in the 900s. I enjoyed the book, giving it 3 stars out of 4.
Saturday, June 30, 2007--Rantepao
I can tell I have been taking my mefloquine now for two weeks. That's my anti-malarial medication. It causes me to have vivid dreams. Last night, it was just one after another. It's kind of a nice side effect. Sometimes I get great ideas from those dreams.
My neighbors across the hall were an Indonesian family last night. I visited with them this morning. When they left, they were checking out and left their door open. I looked inside their room, and they had a stronger light bulb than I have in my room. I quickly switched bulbs. One problem I have had here is that it is not light enough in my room for me to read at night. With the new bulb, there is no problem. They use the florescent bulbs here. The one I replaced had only 2 tubes; the new one has 3 tubes.
They are having a motorcycle grand prix here this weekend. I was still not feeling well, so I decided to stay in town and go to the races this afternoon. There were many people there. I noticed, however, that they seems to be the poorer people who attended. I really couldn't see much of the race, but I spent most of my time watching the people. It was an interesting experience, but as far as races go I still have the same feeling I had the first time I went to the drag races with my family. There's a whole lot of waiting for a very short period of seeing vehicles move by quickly!
Again, I was totally exhausted when I returned from the races. I slept for 1 1/2 hours. This cold has really gotten me down. It's good, however, that I have had it while at such a good place for relaxing and taking it easy.
For dinner I had fried rice noodles filled with lots of shrimp and vegetables. I had ginger tea, but I really couldn't taste the ginger much, unfortunately. I had fruit salad for dessert.
After dinner, I went to the concert where Harry, the young man I met on the bus whose grandmother owns my guest house where I am staying, was performing. The concert was already going, but with an act prior to his. It was a small crowd at the time, and I moved among them. By the time Harry came on stage, it had grown to a rather large and excited crowd. That's when I learned the rest of the story he had not told me on the bus. He was introduced as being from Indonesian Idol. I had wondered on the bus how he did it when he told me that he made enough money from singing to live without taking an engineering job. Now I knew. I asked someone in the crowd about it. They said he had not won the competition, but he had been in the top 5. He's a good singer and the crowd loved him. They really came alive, jumping up and down and waving their hands in the air as he sang. They had been watching me and smiling at me when we made contact (indicating that they were happy I was there with them) during the evening. Well, after Harry's introduction, he came out and said hello in Indonesian. Then he looked at me and said, "Hello, Mr. Randell," and I waved to him. I think they were surprised and impressed that I knew him.
As the night progressed, a number of the local people around me were friendly and started making an effort to get me more involved. A boy and a girl held up my arm and started waving it. There were many more people making eye contact and saying things to me. It turned out to be a lot of fun. By the time I left, I had interacted with at least 10 people, I think. And, best of all, I felt good. My body was not tired and my nose not stuffy.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Among the Natives in the Highlands of Sulawesi
Tuesday, June 26, 2007--Makassar (Continued)
I awoke this morning with a bit of a sore throat and a stuffy nose and head. Guess I am catching a cold. Many people here have coughs, so it is something going around. I can't ride buses and touch doorways without taking a chance. I just hope it won't be too severe.
I'm not happy with my hotel in Makassar. It's dreary. But there aren't any good budget hotels in the city apparently. If it were worth staying here to see more, I would move up to a higher class establishment, but this afternoon I think I saw all of consequence here after spending the morning arranging to leave tomorrow. I walked to the waterfront where there is a very nice new huge area of congregating. In the distance is a very nice big convention center. I walked down the main street to the area with the port and with the old Dutch fort--Fort Rotterdam. I circled around past nice churches, mosques, parks, shopping malls, etc. It's a big city, but there isn't a lot here for tourists.
As the day progressed, so did my cold. I decided to eat an early dinner and go to the room for the night. I stopped at a "Pedang" eatery--one with already prepared food in the windows. I picked out a piece of tuna cooked in a sauce (the tuna being locally caught), eggplant cooked and served in oil, cooked cabbage, and rice. It was a good dinner at a very good price.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007--Makassar to Rantepao
I took at pete pete (pronounced pet-te, pet-te), a small van which follows a set route to the bus station which was quite a ways from town. Until recently, buses could pick up customers at their ticket offices in town, but the local transport union fought against that. Now it is necessary to pay for local transport to the edge of town where the bus station is. I got to the station early and bought some water for the trip. Then I visited with a local young man who was waiting for a package to arrive on an incoming bus. Finally, a little after 10:00, our bus departed. Everyone kept saying it would be a 7-hour trip to Rantepao, the tourist center for Tana Toraja. But that must be with no stops! We stopped off and on to pick up new passengers along the way. We stopped almost an hour for lunch. We stopped again for a rest room stop. It was 20:00 when we finally arrived. I was exhausted, especially since the woman sitting beside me became more and more restless as the trip progressed. Being a local native, she prefers sitting with her feet up under her. Toward the end of the trip, she was starting to push against me, taking up my space.
Arrival was a mess. There were at least 5-6 guys wanting to take me to housing. I had already picked out a first and second choice of places to stay. They were at my first place waiting for me because they knew it was full. Fortunately, I got rid of them by going to my second choice place, since they knew there would be a room there for me. An interesting coincidence is that I began talking with a young man on the bus the last 20-30 minutes of the trip. He was going to visit his grandmother who rents out rooms. He told me the name of the place. When I looked it up in the guidebook, it was the one I had chosen as my second choice. When we parted, I told him I could come there if the first place didn't work out. When I arrived a few minutes after he did, he and his grandmother were expecting me.
The young man was coming here because of a huge religious conference. This town is mostly Christian, and it is full of people from all over Indonesia here for a conference. He is singing in a band that is performing Saturday night. I hope to be able to go to the concert. He sang a couple of songs on the bus and has a nice voice.
Thursday, June 28, 2007--Rantepao
My cold is bad. As is often the case, it is only on one side of my head right now--the left side. That helps, since the left nostril is clear for breathing. Still, I must sleep on my back to be able to breathe easily. I think I have a slight fever today, also.
The place I am staying had a nice breakfast this morning. They served a seasoned rice with a fried egg on top. I ate it with chile sauce. They also had bread with butter and marmalade. We had freshly made juice from an exotic fruit, hot tea or coffee, and fresh bananas off the tree. A couple here from Sumatra for the religious festival brought a cake to the table that she had made. It was good, too, with a strange texture. It looked like noodles standing up and snuggled together.
The tourist office suggested that I go to Bogu today. It has the best area market with native peoples from the villages coming to sell their goods. The market is held only every 6 days, so I would have only this one chance to see it. Actually, it was a good plan, since Bogu is only a short distance away. With my cold, I just didn't feel like going far. I walked through the countryside taking photos of the local architecture with tall swooping roofs. The market was so crowded that I could hardly get around. Many people were in native costumes. They were selling tomatoes, peppers, coffee, etc. Many live pigs were there; they were tied with pieces of bamboo to hold them in place for people to see them. Trucks had water buffaloes in them. They are mainly for sell for the funeral ceremonies that take place here at this time of the year.
When a person dies here, there is an immediate ceremony. Then the body is kept in the house until the July-August dry period. Then an elaborate funeral ceremony is held with the killing of buffaloes and pigs to serve food to the guests. Finally, the body is "buried" by placing the coffin in a tree or a cave. It's common to go to these ceremonies, but I have decided not to. It requires hiring a guide and taking a gift to the family. Mostly, I worry about it becoming boring after a while. I don't want to watch the killing of the buffaloes. And I don't want to spend 6 hours or so with people I don't know. I will go to see some of the burial places, but I will skip the ceremonies.
I had a nice dinner at a local place near my room. I had a noodle soup with lots of fresh vegetables and pieces of chicken. For my cold, I ordered a hot ginger tea with lemon. Then the owner gave me a nice fruit salad (really a homemade fruit cocktail with thick juice) for dessert.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007--Makassar (Continued)
I awoke this morning with a bit of a sore throat and a stuffy nose and head. Guess I am catching a cold. Many people here have coughs, so it is something going around. I can't ride buses and touch doorways without taking a chance. I just hope it won't be too severe.
I'm not happy with my hotel in Makassar. It's dreary. But there aren't any good budget hotels in the city apparently. If it were worth staying here to see more, I would move up to a higher class establishment, but this afternoon I think I saw all of consequence here after spending the morning arranging to leave tomorrow. I walked to the waterfront where there is a very nice new huge area of congregating. In the distance is a very nice big convention center. I walked down the main street to the area with the port and with the old Dutch fort--Fort Rotterdam. I circled around past nice churches, mosques, parks, shopping malls, etc. It's a big city, but there isn't a lot here for tourists.
As the day progressed, so did my cold. I decided to eat an early dinner and go to the room for the night. I stopped at a "Pedang" eatery--one with already prepared food in the windows. I picked out a piece of tuna cooked in a sauce (the tuna being locally caught), eggplant cooked and served in oil, cooked cabbage, and rice. It was a good dinner at a very good price.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007--Makassar to Rantepao
I took at pete pete (pronounced pet-te, pet-te), a small van which follows a set route to the bus station which was quite a ways from town. Until recently, buses could pick up customers at their ticket offices in town, but the local transport union fought against that. Now it is necessary to pay for local transport to the edge of town where the bus station is. I got to the station early and bought some water for the trip. Then I visited with a local young man who was waiting for a package to arrive on an incoming bus. Finally, a little after 10:00, our bus departed. Everyone kept saying it would be a 7-hour trip to Rantepao, the tourist center for Tana Toraja. But that must be with no stops! We stopped off and on to pick up new passengers along the way. We stopped almost an hour for lunch. We stopped again for a rest room stop. It was 20:00 when we finally arrived. I was exhausted, especially since the woman sitting beside me became more and more restless as the trip progressed. Being a local native, she prefers sitting with her feet up under her. Toward the end of the trip, she was starting to push against me, taking up my space.
Arrival was a mess. There were at least 5-6 guys wanting to take me to housing. I had already picked out a first and second choice of places to stay. They were at my first place waiting for me because they knew it was full. Fortunately, I got rid of them by going to my second choice place, since they knew there would be a room there for me. An interesting coincidence is that I began talking with a young man on the bus the last 20-30 minutes of the trip. He was going to visit his grandmother who rents out rooms. He told me the name of the place. When I looked it up in the guidebook, it was the one I had chosen as my second choice. When we parted, I told him I could come there if the first place didn't work out. When I arrived a few minutes after he did, he and his grandmother were expecting me.
The young man was coming here because of a huge religious conference. This town is mostly Christian, and it is full of people from all over Indonesia here for a conference. He is singing in a band that is performing Saturday night. I hope to be able to go to the concert. He sang a couple of songs on the bus and has a nice voice.
Thursday, June 28, 2007--Rantepao
My cold is bad. As is often the case, it is only on one side of my head right now--the left side. That helps, since the left nostril is clear for breathing. Still, I must sleep on my back to be able to breathe easily. I think I have a slight fever today, also.
The place I am staying had a nice breakfast this morning. They served a seasoned rice with a fried egg on top. I ate it with chile sauce. They also had bread with butter and marmalade. We had freshly made juice from an exotic fruit, hot tea or coffee, and fresh bananas off the tree. A couple here from Sumatra for the religious festival brought a cake to the table that she had made. It was good, too, with a strange texture. It looked like noodles standing up and snuggled together.
The tourist office suggested that I go to Bogu today. It has the best area market with native peoples from the villages coming to sell their goods. The market is held only every 6 days, so I would have only this one chance to see it. Actually, it was a good plan, since Bogu is only a short distance away. With my cold, I just didn't feel like going far. I walked through the countryside taking photos of the local architecture with tall swooping roofs. The market was so crowded that I could hardly get around. Many people were in native costumes. They were selling tomatoes, peppers, coffee, etc. Many live pigs were there; they were tied with pieces of bamboo to hold them in place for people to see them. Trucks had water buffaloes in them. They are mainly for sell for the funeral ceremonies that take place here at this time of the year.
When a person dies here, there is an immediate ceremony. Then the body is kept in the house until the July-August dry period. Then an elaborate funeral ceremony is held with the killing of buffaloes and pigs to serve food to the guests. Finally, the body is "buried" by placing the coffin in a tree or a cave. It's common to go to these ceremonies, but I have decided not to. It requires hiring a guide and taking a gift to the family. Mostly, I worry about it becoming boring after a while. I don't want to watch the killing of the buffaloes. And I don't want to spend 6 hours or so with people I don't know. I will go to see some of the burial places, but I will skip the ceremonies.
I had a nice dinner at a local place near my room. I had a noodle soup with lots of fresh vegetables and pieces of chicken. For my cold, I ordered a hot ginger tea with lemon. Then the owner gave me a nice fruit salad (really a homemade fruit cocktail with thick juice) for dessert.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Goodbye, Bali; Hello Sulawesi!
Monday, June 25, 2007--Ubud to Makassar
Last night I went walking in the dark and discovered many fireflies in the area where my room is. How beautiful they were in the night.
This morning, Sabine, a traveler from Belgium who is staying in another room came to visit while I ate my breakfast. She is a nice young lady, although a bit naive. She is here on her own, but friends will join her soon. She is doing a good job of getting out and exploring, although it is only her first trip to Asia and her first time so far from home alone.
The landlord has created a problem and asked my advice. After hearing versions of the story several times, I THINK I have figured out the true story: When Anna came yesterday, they promised her my room for a week at only 50,000 rupiahs per night. (I'm paying 70,000.) Then in the evening they got a call from a lady who knew about that particular room and wanted it for a longer period of time and would pay a higher price. So they promised it to her and started worrying about how to deal with Anna. They asked me if I knew Anna's present hotel so they could go and tell her. I didn't. Then they asked if I could help talk to her when she came. (The version to be told to Anna [and that they told me at first] was that these people had been there before and had left a deposit for today which the landlady had forgotten to post. Then they called last night to say they would arrive around noon.) Anyway, Anna didn't come before I left in the afternoon. So they had to deal with her on their own. They did take my advice and contacted a neighbor with a similar room and made arrangements to tell Anna it was available for her if she wanted it. I'm sure it was a mess.
I went walking on the ridge where I had been yesterday. It had such nice views, and I missed getting photos of most because of my camera battery going dead and my not having a replacement with me. Today, I visited again with one of the painters as well as taking the photos. I got back to the room at 13:00 when I had told the owner I would need my ride to the station (which he offers to everyone who stays there).
I got my bus to the airport and arrived with over 3 hours to spare. I read for a while and then checked in. I just happened to be seated on the place beside an interesting young guy. He is afraid of flying. His chest was really heaving as he breathed quickly and deeply. He even grabbed my knee at one point when we bumped a couple of times going through clouds. Most of the flight, he sat with his eyes closed and his lips moving.
Indonesian airlines are not known to be among the safest. In fact, several countries, including the U.S., have warned against traveling on them. But there is really no alternative to go from island to island without spending many hours or even days on ferries. The government supplements fuel costs, so tickets are less than $100 between destinations. One interesting thing I noticed was that there is a prayer card in the seat pockets. It had prayers that could be read according to religions: Islam, Protestant, Catholic, Hindu, and Buddhist.
I got frustrated trying to find a hotel after taking a taxi into town. The one I had selected had only superior rooms available which meant a price above the limit I wanted to pay. I found a place at a reasonable price, but I am not happy with it. It is dark and it is old. It's fine otherwise, but I find it depressing to be there.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007--Makassar, Sulawesi
I awoke with a bit of a sore throat and with a stuffy nose and stuffy head. I hope I'm not taking a cold. It might just be allergies. Anyway, I am a bit sluggish. That just made me more depressed with the room. I decided to leave town, so I have spent most of the day making arrangements.
I bought a bus ticket to take me tomorrow to Tana Toraja (spelling?). It's a mountainous area in a remote part of this island where people bury their dead in unusual ceremonies. There are hiking trails. So it will give me a chance to be out in nature again.
After buying the bus ticket, I bought an air ticket to get me out of here on July 2. The plane will leave in the evening, so I will be able to take the bus back from the mountains and get off at the airport without coming back through the city. I like that, since I don't really find it that appealing. Unfortunately, I could only get an air ticket to the port city in Java rather than to the more artisitic city where I want to go. I'll have to deal with staying overnight or taking a night train once I get there, I guess.
Travel in Indonesia is not easy. Often, it takes 3 forms of transportation to go to one place. For instance, I have to take local transport to get to the bus tomorrow morning. The bus used to leave from the office in the city, but the local transport union got the government to restrict it to the outskirts so they could get money from everyone going there. Sometimes it is necessary to even go in the wrong direction at first because of the way transport is structured. For instance, people leaving from Ubud in Bali to go almost anywhere northward, eastward, or westward has to first go southwards to Denpasar, then take local transport across Denpasar to another station where a bus leaving for the other direction will depart. It makes it frustrating for a tourist who doesn't speak the language and who doesn't know the exact fare to pay for all the local connections.
For lunch today, I ate at a very local place. People share tables. It's a soup place. I got a bowl of broth with chunks of beef in it. On the table are everything else needed. I put some soy sauce in the soup and some chile. I squeezed some lime juice into it. Then I opened a woven banana leaf package of sticky rice and used the spoon to dip out some rice and then retrieve some of the broth. It was really very delicious. They served boiled, iced water for free. The meal cost about 50 cents U.S. The place is open 24 hours and had all kinds of people eating there, but more poor ones than any other kind.
Note: Internet connections will be expensive and slow in the mountains. If they are as bad and as expensive as I have heard, I may not post again until July 3 or 4, so don't worry if there is nothing here. If I am wrong, I'll be online posting as usual.
Monday, June 25, 2007--Ubud to Makassar
Last night I went walking in the dark and discovered many fireflies in the area where my room is. How beautiful they were in the night.
This morning, Sabine, a traveler from Belgium who is staying in another room came to visit while I ate my breakfast. She is a nice young lady, although a bit naive. She is here on her own, but friends will join her soon. She is doing a good job of getting out and exploring, although it is only her first trip to Asia and her first time so far from home alone.
The landlord has created a problem and asked my advice. After hearing versions of the story several times, I THINK I have figured out the true story: When Anna came yesterday, they promised her my room for a week at only 50,000 rupiahs per night. (I'm paying 70,000.) Then in the evening they got a call from a lady who knew about that particular room and wanted it for a longer period of time and would pay a higher price. So they promised it to her and started worrying about how to deal with Anna. They asked me if I knew Anna's present hotel so they could go and tell her. I didn't. Then they asked if I could help talk to her when she came. (The version to be told to Anna [and that they told me at first] was that these people had been there before and had left a deposit for today which the landlady had forgotten to post. Then they called last night to say they would arrive around noon.) Anyway, Anna didn't come before I left in the afternoon. So they had to deal with her on their own. They did take my advice and contacted a neighbor with a similar room and made arrangements to tell Anna it was available for her if she wanted it. I'm sure it was a mess.
I went walking on the ridge where I had been yesterday. It had such nice views, and I missed getting photos of most because of my camera battery going dead and my not having a replacement with me. Today, I visited again with one of the painters as well as taking the photos. I got back to the room at 13:00 when I had told the owner I would need my ride to the station (which he offers to everyone who stays there).
I got my bus to the airport and arrived with over 3 hours to spare. I read for a while and then checked in. I just happened to be seated on the place beside an interesting young guy. He is afraid of flying. His chest was really heaving as he breathed quickly and deeply. He even grabbed my knee at one point when we bumped a couple of times going through clouds. Most of the flight, he sat with his eyes closed and his lips moving.
Indonesian airlines are not known to be among the safest. In fact, several countries, including the U.S., have warned against traveling on them. But there is really no alternative to go from island to island without spending many hours or even days on ferries. The government supplements fuel costs, so tickets are less than $100 between destinations. One interesting thing I noticed was that there is a prayer card in the seat pockets. It had prayers that could be read according to religions: Islam, Protestant, Catholic, Hindu, and Buddhist.
I got frustrated trying to find a hotel after taking a taxi into town. The one I had selected had only superior rooms available which meant a price above the limit I wanted to pay. I found a place at a reasonable price, but I am not happy with it. It is dark and it is old. It's fine otherwise, but I find it depressing to be there.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007--Makassar, Sulawesi
I awoke with a bit of a sore throat and with a stuffy nose and stuffy head. I hope I'm not taking a cold. It might just be allergies. Anyway, I am a bit sluggish. That just made me more depressed with the room. I decided to leave town, so I have spent most of the day making arrangements.
I bought a bus ticket to take me tomorrow to Tana Toraja (spelling?). It's a mountainous area in a remote part of this island where people bury their dead in unusual ceremonies. There are hiking trails. So it will give me a chance to be out in nature again.
After buying the bus ticket, I bought an air ticket to get me out of here on July 2. The plane will leave in the evening, so I will be able to take the bus back from the mountains and get off at the airport without coming back through the city. I like that, since I don't really find it that appealing. Unfortunately, I could only get an air ticket to the port city in Java rather than to the more artisitic city where I want to go. I'll have to deal with staying overnight or taking a night train once I get there, I guess.
Travel in Indonesia is not easy. Often, it takes 3 forms of transportation to go to one place. For instance, I have to take local transport to get to the bus tomorrow morning. The bus used to leave from the office in the city, but the local transport union got the government to restrict it to the outskirts so they could get money from everyone going there. Sometimes it is necessary to even go in the wrong direction at first because of the way transport is structured. For instance, people leaving from Ubud in Bali to go almost anywhere northward, eastward, or westward has to first go southwards to Denpasar, then take local transport across Denpasar to another station where a bus leaving for the other direction will depart. It makes it frustrating for a tourist who doesn't speak the language and who doesn't know the exact fare to pay for all the local connections.
For lunch today, I ate at a very local place. People share tables. It's a soup place. I got a bowl of broth with chunks of beef in it. On the table are everything else needed. I put some soy sauce in the soup and some chile. I squeezed some lime juice into it. Then I opened a woven banana leaf package of sticky rice and used the spoon to dip out some rice and then retrieve some of the broth. It was really very delicious. They served boiled, iced water for free. The meal cost about 50 cents U.S. The place is open 24 hours and had all kinds of people eating there, but more poor ones than any other kind.
Note: Internet connections will be expensive and slow in the mountains. If they are as bad and as expensive as I have heard, I may not post again until July 3 or 4, so don't worry if there is nothing here. If I am wrong, I'll be online posting as usual.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Beautiful Bali
Saturday, June 23, 2007--Ubud, Bali (Continued)
Spent the afternoon walking. I took a loop road that went out west of town. It went through small villages and along rice terraces. Then it came back into town on a major roadway. People were so friendly. I stopped several times to visit with local people along the way. It was nice being out of the city, and it was nice to visit with people who weren't wanting business from me. I talked to one young painter who was not working and was taking care of his nephew. He explained to me that the men in Bali get tattoos usually get them in places that will not show because it is considered lower-class to get them. Then he raised up the legs of his shorts to show me a tattoo he had on his upper leg that he liked but was normally hidden. I stopped at a nice exhibition space that had a beautiful printed program of the art on display and telling about the artists. The route back into town was lined with fancy homes and hotels and a museum. Bali is beautiful when out in the countryside or in the nicer parts of town--as beautiful as all the pictures make it look. I was tired when I returned. It must have been about a 15 km (9 mile) walk I took.
In the evening, I returned to Roda Restaurant for dinner. It has such a nice atmosphere. It is a rooftop (which also means treetop) restaurant that is open-air with a high thatched roof. I ordered mixed rice with meat and a bowl of vegetable soup. The mixed rice actually was a variety of forms of rice--boiled, in rice cakes, in rice chips, etc. It was interesting, but it wasn't what I had expected. I thought it would be mixed with vegetables in a stir-fry. The soup was so thick with vegetables--spinach, carrots, and others--that there was little broth. It was delicious.
Sunday, June 24, 2007--Ubud, Bali
I had a spicy breakfast this morning. It came wrapped in a paper cone. It was a mixture of rice, noodles, cooked papaya, chicken, pork, frog sausage (yes, sausage made from frogs), and strips of some kind of green vegetable. There was a fruit plate with papaya, watermelon, pineapple, bananas, and shredded coconut. It was a feast and quite interesting.
Wednesday will be a big festival day here. Unfortunately, I won't still be here. I am flying out tomorrow. But they have this festival only two times a year. They are making preparations for it all over the island. They use long bamboo poles which are arched and have grain hanging from them. They make special foods. All the temples are being prepared. The husbands do the cooking for the festival, and my landlord was busy this morning making the first of several dishes he will make over the next few days. He gave me a bit of taste of the spicy vegetable mixture and the sambal (hot paste) that he had already made when I took my breakfast dishes back over to the kitchen.
I took another walk today. Each walk just gets better and better. Today, I took one along the Campuan Ridge. It is a ridge between two valleys formed by rivers. It goes through small villages and through rice fields. The scenery is fantastic. And across the river to one side are the backs of huge estates where people live in Bali-style mansions. I stopped many times along the way to talk to local people. Some were artists who showed me their work. One was a man doing volunteer work cleaning the temple in preparation for Wednesday. One was the owner of a local food shop (very small). All were so friendly and nice. I really enjoyed visiting with them. It makes a trip so much nicer to have contact with other people, especially locals who can teach about their culture.
When I returned to the room, I took a nap and read. My landlady then arrived about 15:00 with a plate of food that has been prepared for the festival. It had pieces of pork, rice, a spicy vegetable, and a very spicy thick, dark paste she said was made from coconut and chile peppers. It was wonderful and left my lips tingling!
Just a little while later, a woman was brought by her landlord to see my room. She will take it when I leave. She stayed and the two of us visited about two hours. Her name is Anna and she is from the U.S., too. She is staying here for several weeks. (She just walked in the door of the cybercafe as I am typing right now!) Anyway, she has been traveling outside of the U.S. for a year now and plans to remain outside the U.S. for another couple of years. She is making extended stays in various places in Southeast Asia and is now in Indonesia for several months. I gave her my Bali guidebook and two novels I had finished so that she could read and enjoy them. She said she would pass them on to others when she finishes, which is what I like people to do.
While Anna and I visited, my landlords brought us two fresh coconuts off the tree with straws in them for us to drink the juice. Then they brought us bananas off their tree for us to eat. Anna had some cashew-ginger-cinnamon cookies we shared, so it was a nice treat and an interesting visit. It's possible we may be in the same place at the same time again sometime in the future. She is planning to go stay about a year in India when she tires of Indonesia.
Tomorrow, I will fly to Makassar on the island of Sulawesi. There are supposed to be good cybercafes there, so maybe I can do a better and more frequent job of posting from there.
Saturday, June 23, 2007--Ubud, Bali (Continued)
Spent the afternoon walking. I took a loop road that went out west of town. It went through small villages and along rice terraces. Then it came back into town on a major roadway. People were so friendly. I stopped several times to visit with local people along the way. It was nice being out of the city, and it was nice to visit with people who weren't wanting business from me. I talked to one young painter who was not working and was taking care of his nephew. He explained to me that the men in Bali get tattoos usually get them in places that will not show because it is considered lower-class to get them. Then he raised up the legs of his shorts to show me a tattoo he had on his upper leg that he liked but was normally hidden. I stopped at a nice exhibition space that had a beautiful printed program of the art on display and telling about the artists. The route back into town was lined with fancy homes and hotels and a museum. Bali is beautiful when out in the countryside or in the nicer parts of town--as beautiful as all the pictures make it look. I was tired when I returned. It must have been about a 15 km (9 mile) walk I took.
In the evening, I returned to Roda Restaurant for dinner. It has such a nice atmosphere. It is a rooftop (which also means treetop) restaurant that is open-air with a high thatched roof. I ordered mixed rice with meat and a bowl of vegetable soup. The mixed rice actually was a variety of forms of rice--boiled, in rice cakes, in rice chips, etc. It was interesting, but it wasn't what I had expected. I thought it would be mixed with vegetables in a stir-fry. The soup was so thick with vegetables--spinach, carrots, and others--that there was little broth. It was delicious.
Sunday, June 24, 2007--Ubud, Bali
I had a spicy breakfast this morning. It came wrapped in a paper cone. It was a mixture of rice, noodles, cooked papaya, chicken, pork, frog sausage (yes, sausage made from frogs), and strips of some kind of green vegetable. There was a fruit plate with papaya, watermelon, pineapple, bananas, and shredded coconut. It was a feast and quite interesting.
Wednesday will be a big festival day here. Unfortunately, I won't still be here. I am flying out tomorrow. But they have this festival only two times a year. They are making preparations for it all over the island. They use long bamboo poles which are arched and have grain hanging from them. They make special foods. All the temples are being prepared. The husbands do the cooking for the festival, and my landlord was busy this morning making the first of several dishes he will make over the next few days. He gave me a bit of taste of the spicy vegetable mixture and the sambal (hot paste) that he had already made when I took my breakfast dishes back over to the kitchen.
I took another walk today. Each walk just gets better and better. Today, I took one along the Campuan Ridge. It is a ridge between two valleys formed by rivers. It goes through small villages and through rice fields. The scenery is fantastic. And across the river to one side are the backs of huge estates where people live in Bali-style mansions. I stopped many times along the way to talk to local people. Some were artists who showed me their work. One was a man doing volunteer work cleaning the temple in preparation for Wednesday. One was the owner of a local food shop (very small). All were so friendly and nice. I really enjoyed visiting with them. It makes a trip so much nicer to have contact with other people, especially locals who can teach about their culture.
When I returned to the room, I took a nap and read. My landlady then arrived about 15:00 with a plate of food that has been prepared for the festival. It had pieces of pork, rice, a spicy vegetable, and a very spicy thick, dark paste she said was made from coconut and chile peppers. It was wonderful and left my lips tingling!
Just a little while later, a woman was brought by her landlord to see my room. She will take it when I leave. She stayed and the two of us visited about two hours. Her name is Anna and she is from the U.S., too. She is staying here for several weeks. (She just walked in the door of the cybercafe as I am typing right now!) Anyway, she has been traveling outside of the U.S. for a year now and plans to remain outside the U.S. for another couple of years. She is making extended stays in various places in Southeast Asia and is now in Indonesia for several months. I gave her my Bali guidebook and two novels I had finished so that she could read and enjoy them. She said she would pass them on to others when she finishes, which is what I like people to do.
While Anna and I visited, my landlords brought us two fresh coconuts off the tree with straws in them for us to drink the juice. Then they brought us bananas off their tree for us to eat. Anna had some cashew-ginger-cinnamon cookies we shared, so it was a nice treat and an interesting visit. It's possible we may be in the same place at the same time again sometime in the future. She is planning to go stay about a year in India when she tires of Indonesia.
Tomorrow, I will fly to Makassar on the island of Sulawesi. There are supposed to be good cybercafes there, so maybe I can do a better and more frequent job of posting from there.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Beautiful Bali
Friday, June 22, 2007--Ubud, Bali
Before setting out for the day, our local hostess serves Fahmy and me a local breakfast at an outdoor table on our porch each morning. Today, she served us satay (meat on skewers with peanut sauce), rice cakes, spicy strips made of peanuts and chile peppers, fried patties of corn and egg, and a plate of fresh fruit. We each had tea with the meal.
Fahmy and I had a long day of walking. We were following a suggested trail but got busy talking (as we seem to be constantly doing) and took a wrong turn that took us at least 8-10 km out of the way. By the time we returned to town, we figured we had walked 15-20 km (9-12 miles). That wouldn't be so bad except that too much of it was along narrow roads with lots of traffic and with little if any space to walk off the roadway. But we saw some beautiful countryside with rice terraces and normal rice fields, beautiful homes, old temples, etc. It is the "real" Bali that is seen in the photographs of magazines such as National Geographic. And the people are so nice. A man who was off work for the day visited with us for quite a while. We stopped at a local shop and bought me a sarong (required for entering temples) at a price 1/3 of what they wanted for the same brand in town. We stopped at local stalls and bought snacks of local food.
One of the nice things about traveling with Fahmy is that he speaks Indonesian. He talks in the local language and learns about places to see and things to eat that I would never know about, since only basic English is spoken by the same people. The landlords of our guesthouse fell in love with him. That was partially due to his speaking the local language, but the fact that he is handsome and charming helped, too. He has a positive, happy attitude toward life and is always smiling both with his face and with his eyes.
We were tired and hot and returned to the guesthouse in mid-afternoon. We cleaned up and rested. We decided NOT to go to another performance in the evening, since the one we had seen the night before was so good. Instead, we went back into town and went to a restaurant while everyone else was attending performances. We had a nice leisurely meal sitting on a mat at a low table. I had a nice spicy chicken and noodle soup followed by a plate of rice with eggplant curry. Unfortunately, the curry needed a little more flavor. I drank a banana juice with the meal--thick and creamy. We were back home before 22:00 and were exhausted again from the busy day.
Ubud is such a nice town. It has far more atmosphere than the beach area where I was staying. There are many more buildings of architectural interest and many more garden areas that can be seen while walking down the streets. The temples are lavish and so attractive. I'm enjoying being here.
Saturday, June 22, 2007--Ubud
Well, I said good-bye to Fahmy today. He wanted to attend some festival events in Denpasar today. And he flies out of the airport tomorrow to return to Bintang Island where he lives and works. It was sad to say good-bye. I get used to being alone when I travel. But when I meet someone like Fahmy where a friendship develops and we travel together, then I have to go through the withdrawal pangs again before I am adjusted to being alone. He and I seemed to really click. We talked and talked and talked. He is an interesting person. And he likes to travel, too. He is planning a great adventure in 6 years that sounds like fun. He has a 4 year-old car. In Singapore, a person cannot keep a car after 10 years; it's a law to help handle polultion problems. So he plans to try to leave Singapore in his 4-wheel-drive vehicle and see if he can drive as far as Jerusalem. He said he will go as far as he can get, but he hopes to make it for there, since it is the seat of 3 major religions. I hope he makes the trip and that he keeps a blog. Wouldn't it be fascinating to follow him on such an adventure? I would like to try something like that, I think.
Our breakfast this morning was another good one. We had rice with two vegetable dishes that were both spicy. With that were more peanut strips and pieces of tofu. We had another big fruit plate to go with all of that. It was so filling that both of us agreed we probably would skip lunch today.
On the way to catch Fahmy's bus we stopped at a travel agency and I bought a ticket for my next destination. I will fly from here to Makassar on the island of Sulawesi on Monday evening. A new adventure will begin then. In the meantime, I will spend today and tomorrow relaxing some and taking walks out into the countryside. I'll make a special effort to visit with locals to offset the loneliness Fahmy's departure has caused.
Note: The computer connections in Bali are SLOW. Therefore, I don't have the time to do searches and provide links related to the things I discuss. Remember that you can go to Google and search for pictures or information about Ubud, Bali, Makassar, Sulawesi or other terms I mention if you are interested.
Friday, June 22, 2007--Ubud, Bali
Before setting out for the day, our local hostess serves Fahmy and me a local breakfast at an outdoor table on our porch each morning. Today, she served us satay (meat on skewers with peanut sauce), rice cakes, spicy strips made of peanuts and chile peppers, fried patties of corn and egg, and a plate of fresh fruit. We each had tea with the meal.
Fahmy and I had a long day of walking. We were following a suggested trail but got busy talking (as we seem to be constantly doing) and took a wrong turn that took us at least 8-10 km out of the way. By the time we returned to town, we figured we had walked 15-20 km (9-12 miles). That wouldn't be so bad except that too much of it was along narrow roads with lots of traffic and with little if any space to walk off the roadway. But we saw some beautiful countryside with rice terraces and normal rice fields, beautiful homes, old temples, etc. It is the "real" Bali that is seen in the photographs of magazines such as National Geographic. And the people are so nice. A man who was off work for the day visited with us for quite a while. We stopped at a local shop and bought me a sarong (required for entering temples) at a price 1/3 of what they wanted for the same brand in town. We stopped at local stalls and bought snacks of local food.
One of the nice things about traveling with Fahmy is that he speaks Indonesian. He talks in the local language and learns about places to see and things to eat that I would never know about, since only basic English is spoken by the same people. The landlords of our guesthouse fell in love with him. That was partially due to his speaking the local language, but the fact that he is handsome and charming helped, too. He has a positive, happy attitude toward life and is always smiling both with his face and with his eyes.
We were tired and hot and returned to the guesthouse in mid-afternoon. We cleaned up and rested. We decided NOT to go to another performance in the evening, since the one we had seen the night before was so good. Instead, we went back into town and went to a restaurant while everyone else was attending performances. We had a nice leisurely meal sitting on a mat at a low table. I had a nice spicy chicken and noodle soup followed by a plate of rice with eggplant curry. Unfortunately, the curry needed a little more flavor. I drank a banana juice with the meal--thick and creamy. We were back home before 22:00 and were exhausted again from the busy day.
Ubud is such a nice town. It has far more atmosphere than the beach area where I was staying. There are many more buildings of architectural interest and many more garden areas that can be seen while walking down the streets. The temples are lavish and so attractive. I'm enjoying being here.
Saturday, June 22, 2007--Ubud
Well, I said good-bye to Fahmy today. He wanted to attend some festival events in Denpasar today. And he flies out of the airport tomorrow to return to Bintang Island where he lives and works. It was sad to say good-bye. I get used to being alone when I travel. But when I meet someone like Fahmy where a friendship develops and we travel together, then I have to go through the withdrawal pangs again before I am adjusted to being alone. He and I seemed to really click. We talked and talked and talked. He is an interesting person. And he likes to travel, too. He is planning a great adventure in 6 years that sounds like fun. He has a 4 year-old car. In Singapore, a person cannot keep a car after 10 years; it's a law to help handle polultion problems. So he plans to try to leave Singapore in his 4-wheel-drive vehicle and see if he can drive as far as Jerusalem. He said he will go as far as he can get, but he hopes to make it for there, since it is the seat of 3 major religions. I hope he makes the trip and that he keeps a blog. Wouldn't it be fascinating to follow him on such an adventure? I would like to try something like that, I think.
Our breakfast this morning was another good one. We had rice with two vegetable dishes that were both spicy. With that were more peanut strips and pieces of tofu. We had another big fruit plate to go with all of that. It was so filling that both of us agreed we probably would skip lunch today.
On the way to catch Fahmy's bus we stopped at a travel agency and I bought a ticket for my next destination. I will fly from here to Makassar on the island of Sulawesi on Monday evening. A new adventure will begin then. In the meantime, I will spend today and tomorrow relaxing some and taking walks out into the countryside. I'll make a special effort to visit with locals to offset the loneliness Fahmy's departure has caused.
Note: The computer connections in Bali are SLOW. Therefore, I don't have the time to do searches and provide links related to the things I discuss. Remember that you can go to Google and search for pictures or information about Ubud, Bali, Makassar, Sulawesi or other terms I mention if you are interested.
More of Bali
Wednesday, June 20, 2007--Legian, Bali
Last night I had a whole snapper at the same restaurant where I ate lunch. It was cooked over charcoal and served with salad and French fries. It was delicious. The meal was a bit spoiled, however, by the guys at the next table. They were drunk and making crude remarks to passing girls and couples while thinking they were being so cute. For instance, they said, "Come here and be with us. He's too ugly for you."
Today there were light showers off and on. I spent most of the morning in my room reading, doing laundry, having hot tea, etc. They bring a thermos of hot water early every morning along with a jar of sugar and a jar with tea bags and place it on the table outside. It's nice to sit there and read and drink tea.
I bought my bus ticket to go to Ubud tomorrow. Then I went to the beach for 1 1/2 hours. I eventually was at the far end of the beach where there are many local people. I was watching a group of young people when one of them approached me and started talking. After half an hour, I had a huge group of them talking to me and taking photos. They were high school students from Bandung in Java who had come here for a week of school holiday vacation--5 bus loads of them. They were nice kids and it was fun to visit with them.
In the evening, I ate muslim food at a local restaurant far from the tourist areas. I had seen it earlier. The woman was very nice and served me bits and pieces of several kinds of things. I had chicken in a dark, spicy sauce; chicken in a creamy sauce; rice; green beans, etc. It was a good meal and cheap.
On my way back to my room I stopped at the monument to the Bali bombings in 2002. Many people from 22 different countries were killed in the blast at a night club. The site is now a monument listing the names of the dead by country.
Thursday, June 21, 2007--Legian to Ubud
I met Fahmy at the bus station this morning. We were both going to Ubud and began visiting. He's a muslim of Indian descent who was born in Singapore and is the chief of a fire station on Bintang Island, a privately developed resort island near Singapore but in Indonesia. He had come here alone also. By the time we got to Ubud we were friends and decided to find a place to stay together and to spend our time together.
We are staying at a nice place out in the rice paddies. It's a picture-postcard kind of place with native decor and big picture windows looking out over the rice terraces. It's bright, clean, and has hot water. Furthermore, it includes breakfast. The owner is so friendly, and she is preparing us special native food for breakfast each morning at our request.
Tonight, we went to a dance performance at a temple. Our landlord was performing as one of the male singers. He took us in his car. We saw Kecak, a performance with many male singers and several costumed persons. Then we saw a dance of two virgin girls in a trance. And finally, we saw the Fire Dance where a man in a trance dances over glowing hot coals. It was a good performance and interesting to see. Afterwards, we went to a restaurant and ate some more native food. I wasn't too hungry, so I had four different small desserts made with ground coconut with various fillings and wrapped in banana leaves. I drank tea to go with them. Fahmy must have a furnace inside his body, because he ate a lot of food even though we had eaten a big lunch earlier!
Spending Update: I spent $1060.63 over 12 days in Alaska for an average of $88.36 per day. I spent $503.08 over 21 days in Taiwan for an average of $23.96 per day. Since leaving Texas, I have spent $1563.71 over 34 days (1 day was in flight and not in either Alaska or Taiwan) for an average of $45.99 per day.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007--Legian, Bali
Last night I had a whole snapper at the same restaurant where I ate lunch. It was cooked over charcoal and served with salad and French fries. It was delicious. The meal was a bit spoiled, however, by the guys at the next table. They were drunk and making crude remarks to passing girls and couples while thinking they were being so cute. For instance, they said, "Come here and be with us. He's too ugly for you."
Today there were light showers off and on. I spent most of the morning in my room reading, doing laundry, having hot tea, etc. They bring a thermos of hot water early every morning along with a jar of sugar and a jar with tea bags and place it on the table outside. It's nice to sit there and read and drink tea.
I bought my bus ticket to go to Ubud tomorrow. Then I went to the beach for 1 1/2 hours. I eventually was at the far end of the beach where there are many local people. I was watching a group of young people when one of them approached me and started talking. After half an hour, I had a huge group of them talking to me and taking photos. They were high school students from Bandung in Java who had come here for a week of school holiday vacation--5 bus loads of them. They were nice kids and it was fun to visit with them.
In the evening, I ate muslim food at a local restaurant far from the tourist areas. I had seen it earlier. The woman was very nice and served me bits and pieces of several kinds of things. I had chicken in a dark, spicy sauce; chicken in a creamy sauce; rice; green beans, etc. It was a good meal and cheap.
On my way back to my room I stopped at the monument to the Bali bombings in 2002. Many people from 22 different countries were killed in the blast at a night club. The site is now a monument listing the names of the dead by country.
Thursday, June 21, 2007--Legian to Ubud
I met Fahmy at the bus station this morning. We were both going to Ubud and began visiting. He's a muslim of Indian descent who was born in Singapore and is the chief of a fire station on Bintang Island, a privately developed resort island near Singapore but in Indonesia. He had come here alone also. By the time we got to Ubud we were friends and decided to find a place to stay together and to spend our time together.
We are staying at a nice place out in the rice paddies. It's a picture-postcard kind of place with native decor and big picture windows looking out over the rice terraces. It's bright, clean, and has hot water. Furthermore, it includes breakfast. The owner is so friendly, and she is preparing us special native food for breakfast each morning at our request.
Tonight, we went to a dance performance at a temple. Our landlord was performing as one of the male singers. He took us in his car. We saw Kecak, a performance with many male singers and several costumed persons. Then we saw a dance of two virgin girls in a trance. And finally, we saw the Fire Dance where a man in a trance dances over glowing hot coals. It was a good performance and interesting to see. Afterwards, we went to a restaurant and ate some more native food. I wasn't too hungry, so I had four different small desserts made with ground coconut with various fillings and wrapped in banana leaves. I drank tea to go with them. Fahmy must have a furnace inside his body, because he ate a lot of food even though we had eaten a big lunch earlier!
Spending Update: I spent $1060.63 over 12 days in Alaska for an average of $88.36 per day. I spent $503.08 over 21 days in Taiwan for an average of $23.96 per day. Since leaving Texas, I have spent $1563.71 over 34 days (1 day was in flight and not in either Alaska or Taiwan) for an average of $45.99 per day.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Bali
Monday, June 18, 2007--Taipei to Singapore to Denpasar
I had a horrible night Sunday night. I had slept until 10:00 that morning, so I wasn't sleepy until almost 11:00. I spent much of the evening finishing reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hossein. It's a great book about Afghanistan. I give it 3 1/2 stars out of 4. But even after getting sleepy there were problems. The new apartment mates who arrived Saturday night from New York were so tired that they slept all day Sunday. Since they didn't come out of the bedroom until 17:00, they weren't sleepy that night. So as I tried to go to sleep, even though they were trying to be quiet, I could hear them moving zippers, talking quietly, bumping things, etc. I didn't get any sound sleep until after 2:20, because I was tossing and turning and checked my watch at that moment. Then the next thing I remember is the alarm going off--AT 3:45!!! Yuck.
I was quickly in and out of the shower and left the apartment at 3:05. The streets were mostly empty, so there was no problem walking to the bus stop. It was interesting to note that there were hundreds of kids milling around outside the movie theater as I passed. Since it was a holiday, there must have been a special event planned early in the morning. There were taxis arriving from all directions to bring more. I was at my bus stop at 3:25. The bus came at 3:35, and we pulled away at 3:40. We made three more stops and then arrived at the airport at 5:40. That gave me plenty of time to check in for my 7:10 flight. I was checked in and through security by 6:00. The airport had free Internet terminals, so I checked my e-mail. Then I tried to figure out how to spend my last 300 Taiwanese dollars ($9 U.S.). I tried to buy a novel, but every one I picked out whether thick or thin was just over 300. I finally bought the latest edition of Newsweek for 150 and a guava juice for 25.
I sat beside the cutest little boy on the plane to Singapore. He was traveling with his mother and they were speaking English to each other even though they were ethnically Chinese. He was so outgoing compared to the children I had seen in Taiwan. He and I teased each other a little before talking. We waved at each other. I poked him once as if I were going to tickle him, and he did the same in return. Finally, he, is mother, and I started visiting. Although I had thought he was only about 5 years old, he was in fact 7. They had been to California for a vacation and were returning home to Singapore. It was so nice to visit with him. He was definitely special. Unfortunately for his mother, what made him special was that he was hyper-active.
I have a friend in Singapore who writes often via e-mail. Because I had a 4 1/2 hour layover there, he wanted to come to the airport and have lunch together. He arrived about 13:00. We ate Italian food and then had a cool coffee freeze and visited. I gave him my Taiwan guidebook, since he goes there occasionally and knows others who go there. I didn't want the weight any longer, and I knew I wouldn't be wanting to return anytime soon. It was really nice to see him in person and have the visit, although he had to worry about carrying on business matters via the mobile phone during our time together.
On the flight to Denpasar, I watched a movie, La Vie en Rose, the French film about the life of Edith Piaf. It took the entire time of the trip. I really didn't know much about her life, so I enjoyed the film. And I enjoyed reading the English translations of her popular songs. But the editing of the film was something else. It jumped backwards and forwards in time over and over and over and over....
It's necessary to bargain on everything in Bali, and I didn't want to do that for a taxi when I arrived. So I just decided to walk to the area where I had decided I would get a room. It was only 19:30. I asked to make sure I was going the right direction to leave the airport, and then I asked again to make sure I turned the right direction after I left. It actually was a rather nice evening for walking. Occasionally, I would ask to make sure I was going the right direction. Although I had a map in my guidebook, I was having trouble finding someplace on the map to coordinate with what I was passing. And street signs are not a high priority in Bali. Eventually, after about 45 minutes, I finally KNEW where I was. It was no problem from then on. Within another 20 minutes, I easily found the place I had selected to stay. I was so lucky to find out that they had a room for me, since it was the last one available. It wasn't an ideal room, but they said I could change the next day if another became available. I was tired and went to sleep at 10:00.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007--Legian, Bali
I changed hotels this morning. The other place didn't have another room, and I didn't want to continue in that one. For one thing, it had a problem with ants. And they are vicious, small ants. They made me recall a movie I saw in the 1950s that took place in Africa and showed an ant invasion where they ate everything in sight over a few hours. I had seen a cockroach inthe room in the morning and killed it with my shoe. I just left it there on the floor and went outside on the porch to read. When I returned 30 minutes later, I saw a string of ants across the floor and a big group of them at one spot. I looked to try to see why they were there, but I couldn't see anything. I looked closer. Nothing. Then I remembered: that was where the dead cockroach had been left!
I moved to a similar place just across the lane. But the new room is cleaner and nicer. It, too, has a porch with nice chairs and a table. It overlooks a nice garden with flowering plants of many kinds. There is a pet monkey in the garden area. Anyway, it's a pleasant place to stay.
It's interesting to explore this area. There are many vacationers from Australia and Europe. But there are many hangers-on of various types--older hippies who have probably been here since the 1960s, surfers who never wanted to leave. In a way, it's a bit sad, though, to see a guy who is obviously in his early to mid-thirties walking around as a sagger--surfer who wears his pants low on his hips with his underwear showing. That works for teenagers. It starts to look awkward on college students in their junior and senior years. And it just looks sad on someone the age of some of these guys.
I picked out a place for lunch based on people being there already. I had a nice plate of stir-fried noodles with shrimp, pork, and chicken and topped with a fried egg. I ordered a melon drink to go with it. A man from Australia (who had immigrated there from Norway) shared the table with me. We visited about two hours. He's a dentist. It was an interesting conversation, but he couldn't help but take advantage of my being American to criticize the American government and Americans in general. Usually, people can do this in a way that shows they dislike the government without trying to lay the blame on individual citizens. He couldn't. It was like sticking the knife inand turning it while he had a captive enemy at the table. And I was the one who offered to let him share it; he was essentially my guest.
After walking along the beach and watching people suntanning, surfing, getting massages, etc. I headed back to the room. I was so tired that I fell asleep for about 1 1/2 hours. I probably won't be too sleepy tonight. I even missed the famed Bali sunset, although I think it may have been too cloudy tonight to have been good one.
This evening, I have walked away from the tourist areas. I found a group practicing for a dance performance. This month there are competitions between such groups. This group had male and female dancers (who performed separately) and a wonderful Indonesian orchestra of about 30 men. It was the music of the orchestra that was so wonderful to me. It was almost mesmerizing. I could have listened to it for hours, I think. It was nice to watch them in an informal rehearsal rather than being at a performance. I'll go to a performance later.
Monday, June 18, 2007--Taipei to Singapore to Denpasar
I had a horrible night Sunday night. I had slept until 10:00 that morning, so I wasn't sleepy until almost 11:00. I spent much of the evening finishing reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hossein. It's a great book about Afghanistan. I give it 3 1/2 stars out of 4. But even after getting sleepy there were problems. The new apartment mates who arrived Saturday night from New York were so tired that they slept all day Sunday. Since they didn't come out of the bedroom until 17:00, they weren't sleepy that night. So as I tried to go to sleep, even though they were trying to be quiet, I could hear them moving zippers, talking quietly, bumping things, etc. I didn't get any sound sleep until after 2:20, because I was tossing and turning and checked my watch at that moment. Then the next thing I remember is the alarm going off--AT 3:45!!! Yuck.
I was quickly in and out of the shower and left the apartment at 3:05. The streets were mostly empty, so there was no problem walking to the bus stop. It was interesting to note that there were hundreds of kids milling around outside the movie theater as I passed. Since it was a holiday, there must have been a special event planned early in the morning. There were taxis arriving from all directions to bring more. I was at my bus stop at 3:25. The bus came at 3:35, and we pulled away at 3:40. We made three more stops and then arrived at the airport at 5:40. That gave me plenty of time to check in for my 7:10 flight. I was checked in and through security by 6:00. The airport had free Internet terminals, so I checked my e-mail. Then I tried to figure out how to spend my last 300 Taiwanese dollars ($9 U.S.). I tried to buy a novel, but every one I picked out whether thick or thin was just over 300. I finally bought the latest edition of Newsweek for 150 and a guava juice for 25.
I sat beside the cutest little boy on the plane to Singapore. He was traveling with his mother and they were speaking English to each other even though they were ethnically Chinese. He was so outgoing compared to the children I had seen in Taiwan. He and I teased each other a little before talking. We waved at each other. I poked him once as if I were going to tickle him, and he did the same in return. Finally, he, is mother, and I started visiting. Although I had thought he was only about 5 years old, he was in fact 7. They had been to California for a vacation and were returning home to Singapore. It was so nice to visit with him. He was definitely special. Unfortunately for his mother, what made him special was that he was hyper-active.
I have a friend in Singapore who writes often via e-mail. Because I had a 4 1/2 hour layover there, he wanted to come to the airport and have lunch together. He arrived about 13:00. We ate Italian food and then had a cool coffee freeze and visited. I gave him my Taiwan guidebook, since he goes there occasionally and knows others who go there. I didn't want the weight any longer, and I knew I wouldn't be wanting to return anytime soon. It was really nice to see him in person and have the visit, although he had to worry about carrying on business matters via the mobile phone during our time together.
On the flight to Denpasar, I watched a movie, La Vie en Rose, the French film about the life of Edith Piaf. It took the entire time of the trip. I really didn't know much about her life, so I enjoyed the film. And I enjoyed reading the English translations of her popular songs. But the editing of the film was something else. It jumped backwards and forwards in time over and over and over and over....
It's necessary to bargain on everything in Bali, and I didn't want to do that for a taxi when I arrived. So I just decided to walk to the area where I had decided I would get a room. It was only 19:30. I asked to make sure I was going the right direction to leave the airport, and then I asked again to make sure I turned the right direction after I left. It actually was a rather nice evening for walking. Occasionally, I would ask to make sure I was going the right direction. Although I had a map in my guidebook, I was having trouble finding someplace on the map to coordinate with what I was passing. And street signs are not a high priority in Bali. Eventually, after about 45 minutes, I finally KNEW where I was. It was no problem from then on. Within another 20 minutes, I easily found the place I had selected to stay. I was so lucky to find out that they had a room for me, since it was the last one available. It wasn't an ideal room, but they said I could change the next day if another became available. I was tired and went to sleep at 10:00.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007--Legian, Bali
I changed hotels this morning. The other place didn't have another room, and I didn't want to continue in that one. For one thing, it had a problem with ants. And they are vicious, small ants. They made me recall a movie I saw in the 1950s that took place in Africa and showed an ant invasion where they ate everything in sight over a few hours. I had seen a cockroach inthe room in the morning and killed it with my shoe. I just left it there on the floor and went outside on the porch to read. When I returned 30 minutes later, I saw a string of ants across the floor and a big group of them at one spot. I looked to try to see why they were there, but I couldn't see anything. I looked closer. Nothing. Then I remembered: that was where the dead cockroach had been left!
I moved to a similar place just across the lane. But the new room is cleaner and nicer. It, too, has a porch with nice chairs and a table. It overlooks a nice garden with flowering plants of many kinds. There is a pet monkey in the garden area. Anyway, it's a pleasant place to stay.
It's interesting to explore this area. There are many vacationers from Australia and Europe. But there are many hangers-on of various types--older hippies who have probably been here since the 1960s, surfers who never wanted to leave. In a way, it's a bit sad, though, to see a guy who is obviously in his early to mid-thirties walking around as a sagger--surfer who wears his pants low on his hips with his underwear showing. That works for teenagers. It starts to look awkward on college students in their junior and senior years. And it just looks sad on someone the age of some of these guys.
I picked out a place for lunch based on people being there already. I had a nice plate of stir-fried noodles with shrimp, pork, and chicken and topped with a fried egg. I ordered a melon drink to go with it. A man from Australia (who had immigrated there from Norway) shared the table with me. We visited about two hours. He's a dentist. It was an interesting conversation, but he couldn't help but take advantage of my being American to criticize the American government and Americans in general. Usually, people can do this in a way that shows they dislike the government without trying to lay the blame on individual citizens. He couldn't. It was like sticking the knife inand turning it while he had a captive enemy at the table. And I was the one who offered to let him share it; he was essentially my guest.
After walking along the beach and watching people suntanning, surfing, getting massages, etc. I headed back to the room. I was so tired that I fell asleep for about 1 1/2 hours. I probably won't be too sleepy tonight. I even missed the famed Bali sunset, although I think it may have been too cloudy tonight to have been good one.
This evening, I have walked away from the tourist areas. I found a group practicing for a dance performance. This month there are competitions between such groups. This group had male and female dancers (who performed separately) and a wonderful Indonesian orchestra of about 30 men. It was the music of the orchestra that was so wonderful to me. It was almost mesmerizing. I could have listened to it for hours, I think. It was nice to watch them in an informal rehearsal rather than being at a performance. I'll go to a performance later.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Leaving Taiwan Tomorrow
Saturday, June 16, 2007 (Continued)
Had a nice evening at the apartment with Karel, the manager, and Paula, his girl friend. They came over to get a room ready for new guests who were arriving, and we visited while waiting. Karel told about how he grew up in Czechoslovakia in communist days. His father booked a ticket to Cuba on a flight that had to stop in Canada to refuel and asked immigration for asylum while they were deplaned for the refueling. Two years later, he sponsored his wife and Karel and brought them to Canada, too. Eventually, Karel, a psychology major, ended up in Taiwan because of a project as a part of graduate work--helping create a Chinese dictionary for English speakers/readers that would function logically. At the present time, he is teaching English at a school and managing the Mandarin Hostel. But he and Paula are working on ideas to try to help students in Canada, and eventually internationally, too, be more motivated and get better educations. One idea is a reality TV show that would be a competition for scholarships. Another is a program that would promote involvement in motivational activities related to the subject areas such as math and science that many students try to avoid.
The new apartment mates arrived around 10:00 after having flown all the way from New York. They are educators, too, and are here on a two-month project.
Sunday, June 17, 2007--Taipei
Well, my last day here has arrived. It was cloudy with thunder in the morning, so I stayed inside until after 15:00. Finally, I took the metro to see a few sights I still had missed. I went first to Longshon Temple. It's probably the most important temple in all of Taiwan. Many people were there, and they were singing songs. It was interesting to watch and listen. From there, I walked by the Chaing Kai-shek Memorial Hall, the National Theater, and the National Concert Hall. Finally, I walked through Peace Park before catching the metro back to the neighborhood.
I picked up food at a local stall and brought it home to eat. I had rice with a sauce that had small chunks of pork in it and three side dishes--scrambled egg with tomatoes, stewed cabbage, and stir-fried green peppers and onions. It was very tasty.
I'm packed and ready to go tomorrow morning. I will take a quick shower and be out of here within 20-25 minutes of the alarm going off around 3:45. It's going to be a long, hard day. And when I arrive in Bali in the evening, I'll have to find a hotel there. Yuck!
Saturday, June 16, 2007 (Continued)
Had a nice evening at the apartment with Karel, the manager, and Paula, his girl friend. They came over to get a room ready for new guests who were arriving, and we visited while waiting. Karel told about how he grew up in Czechoslovakia in communist days. His father booked a ticket to Cuba on a flight that had to stop in Canada to refuel and asked immigration for asylum while they were deplaned for the refueling. Two years later, he sponsored his wife and Karel and brought them to Canada, too. Eventually, Karel, a psychology major, ended up in Taiwan because of a project as a part of graduate work--helping create a Chinese dictionary for English speakers/readers that would function logically. At the present time, he is teaching English at a school and managing the Mandarin Hostel. But he and Paula are working on ideas to try to help students in Canada, and eventually internationally, too, be more motivated and get better educations. One idea is a reality TV show that would be a competition for scholarships. Another is a program that would promote involvement in motivational activities related to the subject areas such as math and science that many students try to avoid.
The new apartment mates arrived around 10:00 after having flown all the way from New York. They are educators, too, and are here on a two-month project.
Sunday, June 17, 2007--Taipei
Well, my last day here has arrived. It was cloudy with thunder in the morning, so I stayed inside until after 15:00. Finally, I took the metro to see a few sights I still had missed. I went first to Longshon Temple. It's probably the most important temple in all of Taiwan. Many people were there, and they were singing songs. It was interesting to watch and listen. From there, I walked by the Chaing Kai-shek Memorial Hall, the National Theater, and the National Concert Hall. Finally, I walked through Peace Park before catching the metro back to the neighborhood.
I picked up food at a local stall and brought it home to eat. I had rice with a sauce that had small chunks of pork in it and three side dishes--scrambled egg with tomatoes, stewed cabbage, and stir-fried green peppers and onions. It was very tasty.
I'm packed and ready to go tomorrow morning. I will take a quick shower and be out of here within 20-25 minutes of the alarm going off around 3:45. It's going to be a long, hard day. And when I arrive in Bali in the evening, I'll have to find a hotel there. Yuck!
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Last Days in Taiwan
Friday, June 15, 2007--Tainan
It started out as a 3rd sunny day. Then showers arrived around noon. But actually, most of the afternoon and evening were just cloudy weather. So it was an easy day to be out and about.
I started early with a trip to the local campus of the National University. It is a nicely manicured campus with attractive buildings. Students were in classes, so it was easy for me to wander and explore. When the sun made it too hot to continue, I walked back across the railway tracks to the park and sat in the shade and read until noon.
I wanted another spring roll like the one I had yesterday, so I walked back to where they were sold. I was greedy and ordered two today. It was too much. I was stuffed by the time I finished them.
I rested most of the afternoon. I watched a film. I read in my novel. And then I went out for dinner at my local place. Today I had rice, about 3 kinds of vegetables, strips of tofu, and 1/4 of a chicken that had been deep fried. It was delicious and, again, too much food.
Saturday, June, 16, 2007--Tainan to Taipei
Today was my travel day to return to Taipei. My visit here is coming to an end. Early Monday morning, I will fly out of the airport here for Bali. I showered and watched CNN. Then I headed to the train station. I had a reserved seat for the 4 1/2 hour trip. During the trip I read and napped as the people in the seat beside me changed occasionally.
My first stop when back in Taipei was the tourist office. I had a map that indicated an airport bus has stops somewhere in my part of town. I asked them about it. Sure enough, a bus leaves from the nearby Hyatt Regency Hotel (next door to Taipei 101). It was a nice afternoon and I had been sitting on the train, so I walked home going by the Hyatt to find the location of the bus stop and timing the walk from there to the apartment--20 minutes. I have to take the first bus of the morning on Monday. It leaves the Hyatt at 4:40, so I will have to leave the apartment around 4:10. That's going to be a bad day, but I at least already know how long it will take me to get to the bus stop and where it is located once I get to the hotel.
I'm staying inside the apartment for the rest of the day. I have it to myself until this evening when two new residents will arrive. The manager will bring them over and will bring me fresh sheets at that time. Ignatius, the medical student I have met for dinner twice, will come here for dinner tonight. We'll buy something locally and eat it here in the kitchen.
Friday, June 15, 2007--Tainan
It started out as a 3rd sunny day. Then showers arrived around noon. But actually, most of the afternoon and evening were just cloudy weather. So it was an easy day to be out and about.
I started early with a trip to the local campus of the National University. It is a nicely manicured campus with attractive buildings. Students were in classes, so it was easy for me to wander and explore. When the sun made it too hot to continue, I walked back across the railway tracks to the park and sat in the shade and read until noon.
I wanted another spring roll like the one I had yesterday, so I walked back to where they were sold. I was greedy and ordered two today. It was too much. I was stuffed by the time I finished them.
I rested most of the afternoon. I watched a film. I read in my novel. And then I went out for dinner at my local place. Today I had rice, about 3 kinds of vegetables, strips of tofu, and 1/4 of a chicken that had been deep fried. It was delicious and, again, too much food.
Saturday, June, 16, 2007--Tainan to Taipei
Today was my travel day to return to Taipei. My visit here is coming to an end. Early Monday morning, I will fly out of the airport here for Bali. I showered and watched CNN. Then I headed to the train station. I had a reserved seat for the 4 1/2 hour trip. During the trip I read and napped as the people in the seat beside me changed occasionally.
My first stop when back in Taipei was the tourist office. I had a map that indicated an airport bus has stops somewhere in my part of town. I asked them about it. Sure enough, a bus leaves from the nearby Hyatt Regency Hotel (next door to Taipei 101). It was a nice afternoon and I had been sitting on the train, so I walked home going by the Hyatt to find the location of the bus stop and timing the walk from there to the apartment--20 minutes. I have to take the first bus of the morning on Monday. It leaves the Hyatt at 4:40, so I will have to leave the apartment around 4:10. That's going to be a bad day, but I at least already know how long it will take me to get to the bus stop and where it is located once I get to the hotel.
I'm staying inside the apartment for the rest of the day. I have it to myself until this evening when two new residents will arrive. The manager will bring them over and will bring me fresh sheets at that time. Ignatius, the medical student I have met for dinner twice, will come here for dinner tonight. We'll buy something locally and eat it here in the kitchen.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Two Sunny Days in a Row!
Tuesday, June, 12, 2007--Tainan (Continued)
There was heavy rain with thunder and lightning all day today. I stayed inside almost all day. I watched a couple of crummy movies on TV. I read in my guidebooks for Indonesia. I finally went out to the Internet cafe down the street for a couple of hours. I had lunch while out for that. Later, I returned to my usual night place and had dinner--a bowl of noodle soup with whole shrimps and pieces of chicken.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007--Tainan
Sunshine!!! I went out about 9:30 and spent 5 hours on a walking tour of the major sites in town following a map in my guidebook. It included mostly temples and an old fortress. It also included a couple of old narrow streets with interesting shops. Clouds built up in the mid-afternoon and it showered lightly about 20 minutes. Then it turned nice again for the rest of the day.
I had only eaten a granola bar for lunch, so I was hungry and went to dinner at 17:30 at my usual place. I splurged and had TWO dishes--a plate of 10 dumplings and a bowl of Taiwan noodles (wide noodles in a broth with tiny pieces of ground beef and vegetables. It was too much and cost a total of about $1.90 U.S.! Then I walked to the park and wandered. I talked to some men who spoke a little English. I watched a man fishing for a while. It was just pleasant to have good weather and to be outside.
Thursday, June 14, 2007--Tainan to Anping and Back
I went to the train station to buy my ticket for Saturday to get me back to Taipei. This will be a holiday weekend here in Taiwan, so I wanted to be sure and have a seat to get back to the big city. The holiday is actually on Monday. It's too bad I am leaving that day. If I had known, I would have left the next day. Anyway, it is the day they have the long boat races all over Taiwan. Of course, I've seen such races in several countries, so it isn't a big loss for me. But they are always fun to watch, and it is always fun to be among the crowd at such an event.
There was sunshine again today, so I headed to Anping, the port area of Tainan. It used to be on a small piece of land out in the ocean, but today the low water areas have been filled and developed, so it is just a far suburb with no break between town and there. It has an old Dutch fort and some old temples. It's about a 4.5 km walk from my hotel there. There is supposedly a #2 bus that goes there, but I never saw it. Besides, I like getting a little exercise after being shut up so much lately. I walked to there and was so HOT by the time I reached it. When it is sunny here, it is almost as bad as if it is rainy!!
After seeing the sights and resting in the shade and reading a while, I headed back to town by foot looking for a place for a late lunch. I finally found a place selling huge, fat spring rolls. I bought one hoping it would be good. Well, it was the best spring roll I have ever eaten in my life. The wrapper was a think semi-crispy one somewhat like a crepe. I worried because it didn't come with a sauce, but one wasn't needed. Inside, it had been sprinkled with just a little sugar and had a layer of peanut chunks all the way through it that gave it the taste of having been dipped in a peanut sauce. The roll was filled with nice chunks of chicken, several small shrimp, and tasty vegetables. Ummm, I could eat another one right now!! Too bad it is about 2 km away from my hotel.
I'll probably go back to the park after leaving the cyber cafe. Tomorrow is my last day here. Saturday, I will return to Taipei getting there around 13:00. Ignatius will meet me again Saturday evening at the apartment to share a dinner and visit. Sunday, I'll go out among the people for one last time. Then Monday morning early I will leave on my flights to take me to Bali. Will update again in Taipei Saturday and/or Sunday.
Tuesday, June, 12, 2007--Tainan (Continued)
There was heavy rain with thunder and lightning all day today. I stayed inside almost all day. I watched a couple of crummy movies on TV. I read in my guidebooks for Indonesia. I finally went out to the Internet cafe down the street for a couple of hours. I had lunch while out for that. Later, I returned to my usual night place and had dinner--a bowl of noodle soup with whole shrimps and pieces of chicken.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007--Tainan
Sunshine!!! I went out about 9:30 and spent 5 hours on a walking tour of the major sites in town following a map in my guidebook. It included mostly temples and an old fortress. It also included a couple of old narrow streets with interesting shops. Clouds built up in the mid-afternoon and it showered lightly about 20 minutes. Then it turned nice again for the rest of the day.
I had only eaten a granola bar for lunch, so I was hungry and went to dinner at 17:30 at my usual place. I splurged and had TWO dishes--a plate of 10 dumplings and a bowl of Taiwan noodles (wide noodles in a broth with tiny pieces of ground beef and vegetables. It was too much and cost a total of about $1.90 U.S.! Then I walked to the park and wandered. I talked to some men who spoke a little English. I watched a man fishing for a while. It was just pleasant to have good weather and to be outside.
Thursday, June 14, 2007--Tainan to Anping and Back
I went to the train station to buy my ticket for Saturday to get me back to Taipei. This will be a holiday weekend here in Taiwan, so I wanted to be sure and have a seat to get back to the big city. The holiday is actually on Monday. It's too bad I am leaving that day. If I had known, I would have left the next day. Anyway, it is the day they have the long boat races all over Taiwan. Of course, I've seen such races in several countries, so it isn't a big loss for me. But they are always fun to watch, and it is always fun to be among the crowd at such an event.
There was sunshine again today, so I headed to Anping, the port area of Tainan. It used to be on a small piece of land out in the ocean, but today the low water areas have been filled and developed, so it is just a far suburb with no break between town and there. It has an old Dutch fort and some old temples. It's about a 4.5 km walk from my hotel there. There is supposedly a #2 bus that goes there, but I never saw it. Besides, I like getting a little exercise after being shut up so much lately. I walked to there and was so HOT by the time I reached it. When it is sunny here, it is almost as bad as if it is rainy!!
After seeing the sights and resting in the shade and reading a while, I headed back to town by foot looking for a place for a late lunch. I finally found a place selling huge, fat spring rolls. I bought one hoping it would be good. Well, it was the best spring roll I have ever eaten in my life. The wrapper was a think semi-crispy one somewhat like a crepe. I worried because it didn't come with a sauce, but one wasn't needed. Inside, it had been sprinkled with just a little sugar and had a layer of peanut chunks all the way through it that gave it the taste of having been dipped in a peanut sauce. The roll was filled with nice chunks of chicken, several small shrimp, and tasty vegetables. Ummm, I could eat another one right now!! Too bad it is about 2 km away from my hotel.
I'll probably go back to the park after leaving the cyber cafe. Tomorrow is my last day here. Saturday, I will return to Taipei getting there around 13:00. Ignatius will meet me again Saturday evening at the apartment to share a dinner and visit. Sunday, I'll go out among the people for one last time. Then Monday morning early I will leave on my flights to take me to Bali. Will update again in Taipei Saturday and/or Sunday.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Southern Taiwan
Monday, June 11, 2007--Lugang to Tainan
I was out of the hotel room at 9:30 and was able to immediately catch a bus that stopped across the street. Then when I got to the next town, I was able to get a train ticket for a train leaving only 5 minutes later!! What luck. I was also lucky that it was another decent day weatherwise. I relaxed and enjoyed the scenery.
At 11:38 we pulled into Tainan station with a dark cloud just beginning to drop rain. But I was lucky again. The hotel I had chosen was just half a block from the train station and I could get there under a covered walkway. The hotel was even nicer than I had expected (and nicer than the one from the previous two nights) with a modern entry, central air conditioning, cable tv, hot water, etc.
By the time I got settled and left the room the rain had ended. I found a sidewalk eatery and was disappointed with what I ate--rice with a gravy containing carrots and potatoes over it, some type of green vegetable, tofu, and a thin pork cutlet fried in a batter and spread with a little chile sauce. It just didn't have much taste. I wandered with no aim for a while. Then I searched for the tourist office and got some questions answered. One was where I could find a cyber cafe.
I returned to the room and then went out again around 5:30 to a nearby park. It was wonderful with old trees throughout, a lake with a white pavillion with an orange tile roof in the middle, nice trails, etc. I wandered a while. Then I stopped and read. Then I wandered more.
Before returning to the hotel, I stopped and had fishball soup, a specialty of this city. It was tasty, but oh, so hot with heat! I almost burned my tongue. But the lady serving it spoke English. And I watched what others were eating. I told her I would return to try the dumplings.
I finished reading Life and Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee. It's a small book with an interesting story about a main with a hairlip who lives in South Africa during its civil war. I gave the book 3 stars out of 4.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007--Tainan
Well, the rain has returned. I imagine that many of you reading this have seen the TV news reports of the flooding in southern China. Well the same clouds that have been causing those problems come over us after they leave the coast of mainland China. Everyone here agrees that it is so unusual to have so much rain at this time of the year. The low pressure systems just seem to be lined up one after another along the same path. Today, there has been lightning and heavy thunder with the rain.
I stayed inside the hotel room all morning. I watched a low-quality film on TV. Then I went to the same place where I had soup last night and ate a bowl of 10 dumplings. Ummm! The quality of the food is good at this place. And since one of the women speaks English and can recommend other items from the menu, I will probably keep going back there regularly.
I've lost quite a bit of weight since leaving Alaska. I doubt that I lost any in Alaska, since Wes was always wanting to eat meals and snacks between meals. But my shorts which fit perfectly back then now are very loose. And I can feel and see that I look better. That's one of the best aspects of my travel--the fact that I always lose weight. I hope to be down to 72 kg (about 160 lbs) soon. I was less than that when I returned to the U.S. last year. My guess is that I am around 78 kg (about 172 lbs) right now.
The forecast is for more rain in the next couple of days. Will see how that goes. I have planned outings if it will just dry up some. I hate always having wet, slushy sandals. Besides that, my sandals have a bad smell when they are damp. It must be the leather or some other product they used to manufacture them, but it is a smell somewhat like animal dung. Yuck!
Monday, June 11, 2007--Lugang to Tainan
I was out of the hotel room at 9:30 and was able to immediately catch a bus that stopped across the street. Then when I got to the next town, I was able to get a train ticket for a train leaving only 5 minutes later!! What luck. I was also lucky that it was another decent day weatherwise. I relaxed and enjoyed the scenery.
At 11:38 we pulled into Tainan station with a dark cloud just beginning to drop rain. But I was lucky again. The hotel I had chosen was just half a block from the train station and I could get there under a covered walkway. The hotel was even nicer than I had expected (and nicer than the one from the previous two nights) with a modern entry, central air conditioning, cable tv, hot water, etc.
By the time I got settled and left the room the rain had ended. I found a sidewalk eatery and was disappointed with what I ate--rice with a gravy containing carrots and potatoes over it, some type of green vegetable, tofu, and a thin pork cutlet fried in a batter and spread with a little chile sauce. It just didn't have much taste. I wandered with no aim for a while. Then I searched for the tourist office and got some questions answered. One was where I could find a cyber cafe.
I returned to the room and then went out again around 5:30 to a nearby park. It was wonderful with old trees throughout, a lake with a white pavillion with an orange tile roof in the middle, nice trails, etc. I wandered a while. Then I stopped and read. Then I wandered more.
Before returning to the hotel, I stopped and had fishball soup, a specialty of this city. It was tasty, but oh, so hot with heat! I almost burned my tongue. But the lady serving it spoke English. And I watched what others were eating. I told her I would return to try the dumplings.
I finished reading Life and Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee. It's a small book with an interesting story about a main with a hairlip who lives in South Africa during its civil war. I gave the book 3 stars out of 4.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007--Tainan
Well, the rain has returned. I imagine that many of you reading this have seen the TV news reports of the flooding in southern China. Well the same clouds that have been causing those problems come over us after they leave the coast of mainland China. Everyone here agrees that it is so unusual to have so much rain at this time of the year. The low pressure systems just seem to be lined up one after another along the same path. Today, there has been lightning and heavy thunder with the rain.
I stayed inside the hotel room all morning. I watched a low-quality film on TV. Then I went to the same place where I had soup last night and ate a bowl of 10 dumplings. Ummm! The quality of the food is good at this place. And since one of the women speaks English and can recommend other items from the menu, I will probably keep going back there regularly.
I've lost quite a bit of weight since leaving Alaska. I doubt that I lost any in Alaska, since Wes was always wanting to eat meals and snacks between meals. But my shorts which fit perfectly back then now are very loose. And I can feel and see that I look better. That's one of the best aspects of my travel--the fact that I always lose weight. I hope to be down to 72 kg (about 160 lbs) soon. I was less than that when I returned to the U.S. last year. My guess is that I am around 78 kg (about 172 lbs) right now.
The forecast is for more rain in the next couple of days. Will see how that goes. I have planned outings if it will just dry up some. I hate always having wet, slushy sandals. Besides that, my sandals have a bad smell when they are damp. It must be the leather or some other product they used to manufacture them, but it is a smell somewhat like animal dung. Yuck!
Monday, June 11, 2007
Outside the City
Saturday, June 9, 2007--Taipei to Lugang (Continued)
I lucked out. The heavy rain never came until the evening. Instead, there was only light rain and sprinkling off and on. I caught a train at 11:00 for Lugang and arrived there about 2:30. The hotel I had picked out was easy to find and was fine for the price (but has the smell of cigarette smoke).
Lugang has many old shops and nice temples. I just wandered the streets. I had already eaten a granola bar on the train, so that was my lunch. It was fun just wandering with no set purpose. I knew I would have all day Sunday there, too, so there was no reason to try to organize what I was doing. I took many photos looking inside the old shops such as tea shops, hardware shops, herbal medicine shops, etc.
After a rest at the hotel, I went back out around 19:00 to find dinner. Since had been raining some, it was quiet out. Apparently that's a little late to find dinner in such a small town. Either the popular places were packed and I couldn't get in or the other places were closing. I finally stopped at a dumpling shop and bought 3 warm pork dumplings and ate them as I walked down the street back toward the hotel.
Before finishing even the first dumping, there were fireworks. Then drums beating. It was some type of a temple parade. I watched and took photos. It had people in huge paper mache bodies, dragons, floats, etc. It was starting to rain again, however, so I rushed back to the room.
Sunday, June 10, 2007--Lugang (The 3rd anniversary of Arne's death)
Today was one of those special days for a traveler. It started simply with me leaving the hotel around 11:00 and heading to a temple/school/martial arts complex. Then I wandered to another wonderful old temple. After that I was hungry and saw a street stall with all its tables full where people were eating soup. A table emptied and no one was waiting, so I thought I had better sit and eat. I later learned it is an especially well known place for a local specialty--noodle soup with meatballs in thick broth. I doctored my soup with chile sauce and soy sauce. And before I even started eating, four other people had joined me at the table--first a woman and then a family.
The woman started speaking to me. She said she was from America, too, although I think she had only lived there temporarily or been there only for business. She had been to Texas and California among other places. Before we finished eating, she asked me if I would go with her and let her show me the city for the day. I was a bit skeptical about her reason for offering, but I decided to go along and see how it would be. I was eventually glad I did.
First, we walked to her aunt's house in the next block and got an extra helmet for the motorcycle. Then she cycled me through the city pointing out various sites and making occasional stops. One stop was at a clothing shop operated by another aunt. Another was a sweets shop operated by family friends. Another was a portable stall where a friend was selling trinkets. At each stop, she encouraged me to use Chinese words to say, "Hello," "Thank you," and "Goodbye." And everyone giggled as I did.
From the sweets shop, she bought some offerings for the temple and we walked across the street to the most popular temple in town. It was a special day there, because a Buddha which is in China all year except for a brief visit here was returning today. The temple and its surrounding streets were filled with pilgrims. She also bought incense sticks and items to leave the temple for resale to support it. We entered and placed the offerings on one of the tables that had been set up and were filling up fast with similar offerings. We then went to the side and set the insense sticks afire. She went into the temple and, although she said she is Christian, asked Buddha for a wish. (I was hoping that wish wasn't to have me go to bed with her later!) Then she stuck 3 of the sticks upright in a container of sand and put the others in a burning caldron. I did the same with the ones she gave me. Then we went back into the temple for her to use the sticks to tell her fortune. She used her hands to pick up a big wad of sticks and drop them vertically back into the container. The stick that stuck up the highest had a numer on it. Then came a secondary step where she dropped two beanshaped pieces of wood to the floor to see if that was the right number. (There were 3 possibilities for the beans to fall, since they were flat on one side and curved on the other. Either two curved surfaces up or one curved and one flat would signify it was okay to keep that number.) She repeated the process to get another number. Then she went to a side area where there were pieces of paper with those numbers on them along with the fortune. She read the fortunes and seemed okay with them.
We left the temple and went wandering in the small nearby streets that were filled with special shops. We stopped again at a fortune teller's home. We were shown the home (including the bird that meowed like a cat) and then she had her fortune told there. I still kept wondering if she was trying to find out if something was going to happen with us. I could tell that she wasn't getting good answers if that was the case. For instance, the fortune at the temple emplied that things in her life would be black or white. And this fortune teller repeated something similar and tried to interest her in a man from mainland China.
There were wonderful old houses on this small street. They had old doorways with interesting pulls, old silk lanterns hanging above, beautiful New Year's red banners around the doorways, etc. We kept stopping and taking photos of them. Then we went inside the Old Peoples' Hall. It was an old auditorium with tables throughout. Some people were playing board games, some were doing karaoke on the stage, and others were just visiting. We sat at a table with two woman and a man and they offered us hot tea and small cherry tomatoes. We had the tea and tomatoes and watched the karaoke. Rosana, the woman I was with, scheduled a song and sang it. The two women at our table sang also. They wanted to know my age and whether my hair was colored or not, and they were amazed with the answers. I complimented them, too, for having such young, smooth skin for their ages.
From there, we went to a fan shop operated by Rosana's cousin. He was painting a fan at the time, and I watched. Then he showed us around the shop. Rosana said something, and he pulled a fan out of a box and handed it to her. She said she was going to paint a fan for me as a sourvenir. She was horrible at it. I hated to see the fan be ruined. She kept dipping the brush in the ink and then in the water well which meant that only a film of ink went onto the fan. When she finished, however, it was better than I had expected. And her cousin sat down and improved it as much as he could before handing it to me to keep.
We got back on the motorcycle and went to a hotel where she thoght there would be entertainment, but there was none because of the temple celebration that day. Then we went to another hotel where there was a convention rather than entertainment. Then the rain came. She drove back to the center of town and it got harder, so she stopped. It was time for the big temple parade bringing the Buddha back from China to start anyway. We stood on the covered sidewalk and waited. Within 10 minutes it arrived. Unfortunately, almost everything was covered in plastic because of the rain. But it was 10 times the size of the parade I had seen the night before. It had long dragons, huge floats with flashing lights, many people walking in costumes including women in beautiful silk dresses and pants suits, big drums being beaten, etc.
My hotel was actually just about a block from where we were, so when the parade was over, I excused myself and said that I would go back to the hotel since it was now raining. Rosanna accepted that with no alternative suggestion. I was glad. And I was finally sure that she had been sincere in wanting me to have a good visit to her city. (I also could tell from something she said earlier that maybe her boss had suggested that offering to show tourists around the city would be a way to improve her English.)
After a while in the room, I went out and ate another bowl of soup for dinner. This time, it had chunks of beef rather than meatballs, but it was essentially the same soup as the one I had eaten for dinner. I tried walking around some more, but the rains had sent the crowds back home. The streets were deserted. So I returned to the hotel for the eveing and watched TV.
Saturday, June 9, 2007--Taipei to Lugang (Continued)
I lucked out. The heavy rain never came until the evening. Instead, there was only light rain and sprinkling off and on. I caught a train at 11:00 for Lugang and arrived there about 2:30. The hotel I had picked out was easy to find and was fine for the price (but has the smell of cigarette smoke).
Lugang has many old shops and nice temples. I just wandered the streets. I had already eaten a granola bar on the train, so that was my lunch. It was fun just wandering with no set purpose. I knew I would have all day Sunday there, too, so there was no reason to try to organize what I was doing. I took many photos looking inside the old shops such as tea shops, hardware shops, herbal medicine shops, etc.
After a rest at the hotel, I went back out around 19:00 to find dinner. Since had been raining some, it was quiet out. Apparently that's a little late to find dinner in such a small town. Either the popular places were packed and I couldn't get in or the other places were closing. I finally stopped at a dumpling shop and bought 3 warm pork dumplings and ate them as I walked down the street back toward the hotel.
Before finishing even the first dumping, there were fireworks. Then drums beating. It was some type of a temple parade. I watched and took photos. It had people in huge paper mache bodies, dragons, floats, etc. It was starting to rain again, however, so I rushed back to the room.
Sunday, June 10, 2007--Lugang (The 3rd anniversary of Arne's death)
Today was one of those special days for a traveler. It started simply with me leaving the hotel around 11:00 and heading to a temple/school/martial arts complex. Then I wandered to another wonderful old temple. After that I was hungry and saw a street stall with all its tables full where people were eating soup. A table emptied and no one was waiting, so I thought I had better sit and eat. I later learned it is an especially well known place for a local specialty--noodle soup with meatballs in thick broth. I doctored my soup with chile sauce and soy sauce. And before I even started eating, four other people had joined me at the table--first a woman and then a family.
The woman started speaking to me. She said she was from America, too, although I think she had only lived there temporarily or been there only for business. She had been to Texas and California among other places. Before we finished eating, she asked me if I would go with her and let her show me the city for the day. I was a bit skeptical about her reason for offering, but I decided to go along and see how it would be. I was eventually glad I did.
First, we walked to her aunt's house in the next block and got an extra helmet for the motorcycle. Then she cycled me through the city pointing out various sites and making occasional stops. One stop was at a clothing shop operated by another aunt. Another was a sweets shop operated by family friends. Another was a portable stall where a friend was selling trinkets. At each stop, she encouraged me to use Chinese words to say, "Hello," "Thank you," and "Goodbye." And everyone giggled as I did.
From the sweets shop, she bought some offerings for the temple and we walked across the street to the most popular temple in town. It was a special day there, because a Buddha which is in China all year except for a brief visit here was returning today. The temple and its surrounding streets were filled with pilgrims. She also bought incense sticks and items to leave the temple for resale to support it. We entered and placed the offerings on one of the tables that had been set up and were filling up fast with similar offerings. We then went to the side and set the insense sticks afire. She went into the temple and, although she said she is Christian, asked Buddha for a wish. (I was hoping that wish wasn't to have me go to bed with her later!) Then she stuck 3 of the sticks upright in a container of sand and put the others in a burning caldron. I did the same with the ones she gave me. Then we went back into the temple for her to use the sticks to tell her fortune. She used her hands to pick up a big wad of sticks and drop them vertically back into the container. The stick that stuck up the highest had a numer on it. Then came a secondary step where she dropped two beanshaped pieces of wood to the floor to see if that was the right number. (There were 3 possibilities for the beans to fall, since they were flat on one side and curved on the other. Either two curved surfaces up or one curved and one flat would signify it was okay to keep that number.) She repeated the process to get another number. Then she went to a side area where there were pieces of paper with those numbers on them along with the fortune. She read the fortunes and seemed okay with them.
We left the temple and went wandering in the small nearby streets that were filled with special shops. We stopped again at a fortune teller's home. We were shown the home (including the bird that meowed like a cat) and then she had her fortune told there. I still kept wondering if she was trying to find out if something was going to happen with us. I could tell that she wasn't getting good answers if that was the case. For instance, the fortune at the temple emplied that things in her life would be black or white. And this fortune teller repeated something similar and tried to interest her in a man from mainland China.
There were wonderful old houses on this small street. They had old doorways with interesting pulls, old silk lanterns hanging above, beautiful New Year's red banners around the doorways, etc. We kept stopping and taking photos of them. Then we went inside the Old Peoples' Hall. It was an old auditorium with tables throughout. Some people were playing board games, some were doing karaoke on the stage, and others were just visiting. We sat at a table with two woman and a man and they offered us hot tea and small cherry tomatoes. We had the tea and tomatoes and watched the karaoke. Rosana, the woman I was with, scheduled a song and sang it. The two women at our table sang also. They wanted to know my age and whether my hair was colored or not, and they were amazed with the answers. I complimented them, too, for having such young, smooth skin for their ages.
From there, we went to a fan shop operated by Rosana's cousin. He was painting a fan at the time, and I watched. Then he showed us around the shop. Rosana said something, and he pulled a fan out of a box and handed it to her. She said she was going to paint a fan for me as a sourvenir. She was horrible at it. I hated to see the fan be ruined. She kept dipping the brush in the ink and then in the water well which meant that only a film of ink went onto the fan. When she finished, however, it was better than I had expected. And her cousin sat down and improved it as much as he could before handing it to me to keep.
We got back on the motorcycle and went to a hotel where she thoght there would be entertainment, but there was none because of the temple celebration that day. Then we went to another hotel where there was a convention rather than entertainment. Then the rain came. She drove back to the center of town and it got harder, so she stopped. It was time for the big temple parade bringing the Buddha back from China to start anyway. We stood on the covered sidewalk and waited. Within 10 minutes it arrived. Unfortunately, almost everything was covered in plastic because of the rain. But it was 10 times the size of the parade I had seen the night before. It had long dragons, huge floats with flashing lights, many people walking in costumes including women in beautiful silk dresses and pants suits, big drums being beaten, etc.
My hotel was actually just about a block from where we were, so when the parade was over, I excused myself and said that I would go back to the hotel since it was now raining. Rosanna accepted that with no alternative suggestion. I was glad. And I was finally sure that she had been sincere in wanting me to have a good visit to her city. (I also could tell from something she said earlier that maybe her boss had suggested that offering to show tourists around the city would be a way to improve her English.)
After a while in the room, I went out and ate another bowl of soup for dinner. This time, it had chunks of beef rather than meatballs, but it was essentially the same soup as the one I had eaten for dinner. I tried walking around some more, but the rains had sent the crowds back home. The streets were deserted. So I returned to the hotel for the eveing and watched TV.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Off to See Taiwan
Saturday, June 9, 2007
It may not be a wise thing to do, but I am leaving to see more of Taiwan. There is a stalled front with 3 low pressure systems lined up along it that has been causing the rain here. This morning there is a lull. But there is another dark patch coming near. And in China there is a HUGE storm that seems to be moving this way. Maybe it will come, maybe the front will move southward some. I just don't want to sit here longer. The manager has agreed to keep my suitcase for me, so I have packed minimal supplies for a week in my backpack and am heading off. Don't know if there will be easy access to computers or not. Will be back here next Saturday. Will post when I can between now and then.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
It may not be a wise thing to do, but I am leaving to see more of Taiwan. There is a stalled front with 3 low pressure systems lined up along it that has been causing the rain here. This morning there is a lull. But there is another dark patch coming near. And in China there is a HUGE storm that seems to be moving this way. Maybe it will come, maybe the front will move southward some. I just don't want to sit here longer. The manager has agreed to keep my suitcase for me, so I have packed minimal supplies for a week in my backpack and am heading off. Don't know if there will be easy access to computers or not. Will be back here next Saturday. Will post when I can between now and then.
Rain, Rain, and More Rain!
Friday, June 8, 2007--Taipei
The rain is back. Terrible, hard, all-day-long rain coming down with a vengeance. It just won't stop. And the forecast for the next 10 days is rain, rain, and more rain! The satellite photos show big dark blobs of rain all around and over us. I can't believe that the drainage system can handle all of this. It's horrible
I didn't go out all day today. Even though there was no REAL food in the apartment. I opened a bag of nuts I had in my suitcase and ate a few of them for lunch. I passed the day on the computer, reading, and watching a DVD. The film was V for Vendetta which I remembered got mostly good reviews. What was interesting about it is that I was watching an Asian pirated copy. I kept hearing coughing and tried to figure out a pattern, thinking it must be related to a particular character in the film. Then I saw images of little people moving across the bottom of the screen and tried to figure out what that meant. Then it dawned on me. This was one of those pirated copies where someone sat in the movie theater with a camcorder recording it off the screen. The coughing was coming from someone seated nearby. The little people I saw on the bottom of the screen were people moving down the aisle to take their seats. That also explained why I really had to listen carefully to hear the dialog clearly. The concept of the film was interesting in that it actually promoted thinking.
I had a surprise in the evening. Ignatius, the medical student I know here, had written earlier in the week that he might come by the apartment tonight. I wrote to tell him the buzzer wouldn't work and that he would have to call me from downstairs on his cell phone for me to know to let him in. Well, I never heard back from him and figured he wasn't available. But the phone rang about 19:30 and he was downstairs. I hadn't cleaned up all day, so while I cleaned up, he went to a nearby restaurant and bought us two kinds dumplings and a dessert that was a sweet syrup with fruit and pudding in it. We ate at the kitchen table. Then we visited for a while about my travel plans, about the budget that he lives on while a student, etc. (He is living away from home and has to be very careful with his money. He eats plain white bread two times a day and a meal once a day with his $3 U.S. per day food budget. Can you imagine anyone in America living like that for 6 years of university studies?) I took some photos. Then he had to leave around 21:30. It was such a nice break on such a horrible day.
I am supposed to travel outside of Taipei tomorrow. Again, I am having reservations because of the rain. It can't be fun traveling with rain like this. If it is raining tomorrow, I will postpone my travels until Sunday. If it is raining Sunday, I guess I will just pay for another week here at the apartment and stay in Taipei. At least I have my books and nearby places for food so that I can survive until I can escape this mess.
Friday, June 8, 2007--Taipei
The rain is back. Terrible, hard, all-day-long rain coming down with a vengeance. It just won't stop. And the forecast for the next 10 days is rain, rain, and more rain! The satellite photos show big dark blobs of rain all around and over us. I can't believe that the drainage system can handle all of this. It's horrible
I didn't go out all day today. Even though there was no REAL food in the apartment. I opened a bag of nuts I had in my suitcase and ate a few of them for lunch. I passed the day on the computer, reading, and watching a DVD. The film was V for Vendetta which I remembered got mostly good reviews. What was interesting about it is that I was watching an Asian pirated copy. I kept hearing coughing and tried to figure out a pattern, thinking it must be related to a particular character in the film. Then I saw images of little people moving across the bottom of the screen and tried to figure out what that meant. Then it dawned on me. This was one of those pirated copies where someone sat in the movie theater with a camcorder recording it off the screen. The coughing was coming from someone seated nearby. The little people I saw on the bottom of the screen were people moving down the aisle to take their seats. That also explained why I really had to listen carefully to hear the dialog clearly. The concept of the film was interesting in that it actually promoted thinking.
I had a surprise in the evening. Ignatius, the medical student I know here, had written earlier in the week that he might come by the apartment tonight. I wrote to tell him the buzzer wouldn't work and that he would have to call me from downstairs on his cell phone for me to know to let him in. Well, I never heard back from him and figured he wasn't available. But the phone rang about 19:30 and he was downstairs. I hadn't cleaned up all day, so while I cleaned up, he went to a nearby restaurant and bought us two kinds dumplings and a dessert that was a sweet syrup with fruit and pudding in it. We ate at the kitchen table. Then we visited for a while about my travel plans, about the budget that he lives on while a student, etc. (He is living away from home and has to be very careful with his money. He eats plain white bread two times a day and a meal once a day with his $3 U.S. per day food budget. Can you imagine anyone in America living like that for 6 years of university studies?) I took some photos. Then he had to leave around 21:30. It was such a nice break on such a horrible day.
I am supposed to travel outside of Taipei tomorrow. Again, I am having reservations because of the rain. It can't be fun traveling with rain like this. If it is raining tomorrow, I will postpone my travels until Sunday. If it is raining Sunday, I guess I will just pay for another week here at the apartment and stay in Taipei. At least I have my books and nearby places for food so that I can survive until I can escape this mess.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Rainy Nights and Sometimes Days
Wednesday, June 6, 2007--Taipei
It was a day of heavy rains almost all day. I never left the apartment. It was nice though. I had plenty to keep me occupied here. I finished reading the novel The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. It is set in India and won the Man Booker Prize last year. Like so many novels about India, it was a bit depressing as the main characters' lives became more and more desperate. I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 4. I spent time on the computer off and on during the day. And in the evening I watched a DVD of a BBC romantic comedy named About Adam. I gave it 1 1/2 stars out of 4. The main character was despicable. The critics seemed to like it better than I did, however. I just ate what I had. I snacked on a granola bar and some nuts for lunch. Then I had a bowl of instant noodles for dinner.
Thursday, June 7, 2007--Danshui and Beitou
The rain had stopped, so I decided to head out of town again to a couple of places I had identified as interesting to explore. First I headed to Danshui. It's about an hour north of where I live and is a small city on a river front. I visited a temple, walked the streets to see the shops, climbed up a hillside to see Oxford College at Alethia University, walked by the old Fort San Domingo, and rested by the waterfront watching people and the view. While near the university, I ate lunch at one of the student hangouts. I had a local specialty that was unique and quite good called A-Gei--a huge tofu dumpling stuffed with a big ball of rice noodles, sealed with fish paste, fried, and then served in a bowl with broth. The lady added some soy sauce and a nice spicy hot sauce on top before serving it to me. I sat at a long table with a family. When I took a photo, one of the boys whispered to his mother. I told her I was taking it for my family. She replied that her son had whispered because she had taken a photo of hers, too. They turned out to be tourists also visiting from Florida.
From Danshui, I went to Beitou (also spelled Peitou), a mountain resort known for its hot springs. An elderly man who got of the train with me started talking to me. His English was quite good. He was headed to the public baths for a swim. He directed me to the Beitou Hot Springs Museum which I told him I would see first, then continued on his way. The museum was a wonderful old public bathhouse that has been restored to tell the history of the springs and all the bath houses in the area. It had stained glass windows in the area of the large pool, wonderful wooden floors and staircases throughout, and fantastic breezes through the big windows all around it.
I wanted to go to one of the bath houses myself. I hadn't taken a swimsuit, so I couldn't go to the mixed public pools where the elderly man went. But I wasn't sure where to go. They vary greatly in price. I asked the ladies at the museum to recommend one that was segregated by sex since I didn't bring swim wear. She told me to go to Longnaitang, the oldest bathhouse in the area, and located it on my map. It was very atmospheric, but it was a bit of a disappointment after the baths I enjoyed in South Korea last year. There were no towels provided. One was only expected to rinse off before getting into the pool instead of thoroughly bathing with soap. And there was only one pool which was super hot! Someone told me to stay no more than 3 minutes in the pool at a time, and I believed him. When I partially submerged myself a couple of minutes and came up, there was an obvious line where I had stopped immersing myself with all the skin below it bright red. At least there were cold showers for cooling down after that experience. Although the amenities weren't what I had hoped, it had authentic old atmosphere. It was an old stone/stucco building with a wooden roof. The men there were nice, too. They ranged in age from maybe early 30s to late 70s. I stayed about 1 1/2 hours. During that time, there was a turnover with the people there when I left being different from the ones who had been there when I arrived.
The rains came again while I was at the hot springs bathhouse. By the time I was home, my sandals were sopping wet again. At least I had my umbrella. And it was nice to see that the metro provides long plastic bags for the umbrellas so that they don't drip on the floors of the stations and the trains. When I arrived at my station around 19:00, I grabbed a bottle of water and a bucket of instant noodles and headed to the apartment for the evening. I'm still here alone and loving it.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007--Taipei
It was a day of heavy rains almost all day. I never left the apartment. It was nice though. I had plenty to keep me occupied here. I finished reading the novel The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. It is set in India and won the Man Booker Prize last year. Like so many novels about India, it was a bit depressing as the main characters' lives became more and more desperate. I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 4. I spent time on the computer off and on during the day. And in the evening I watched a DVD of a BBC romantic comedy named About Adam. I gave it 1 1/2 stars out of 4. The main character was despicable. The critics seemed to like it better than I did, however. I just ate what I had. I snacked on a granola bar and some nuts for lunch. Then I had a bowl of instant noodles for dinner.
Thursday, June 7, 2007--Danshui and Beitou
The rain had stopped, so I decided to head out of town again to a couple of places I had identified as interesting to explore. First I headed to Danshui. It's about an hour north of where I live and is a small city on a river front. I visited a temple, walked the streets to see the shops, climbed up a hillside to see Oxford College at Alethia University, walked by the old Fort San Domingo, and rested by the waterfront watching people and the view. While near the university, I ate lunch at one of the student hangouts. I had a local specialty that was unique and quite good called A-Gei--a huge tofu dumpling stuffed with a big ball of rice noodles, sealed with fish paste, fried, and then served in a bowl with broth. The lady added some soy sauce and a nice spicy hot sauce on top before serving it to me. I sat at a long table with a family. When I took a photo, one of the boys whispered to his mother. I told her I was taking it for my family. She replied that her son had whispered because she had taken a photo of hers, too. They turned out to be tourists also visiting from Florida.
From Danshui, I went to Beitou (also spelled Peitou), a mountain resort known for its hot springs. An elderly man who got of the train with me started talking to me. His English was quite good. He was headed to the public baths for a swim. He directed me to the Beitou Hot Springs Museum which I told him I would see first, then continued on his way. The museum was a wonderful old public bathhouse that has been restored to tell the history of the springs and all the bath houses in the area. It had stained glass windows in the area of the large pool, wonderful wooden floors and staircases throughout, and fantastic breezes through the big windows all around it.
I wanted to go to one of the bath houses myself. I hadn't taken a swimsuit, so I couldn't go to the mixed public pools where the elderly man went. But I wasn't sure where to go. They vary greatly in price. I asked the ladies at the museum to recommend one that was segregated by sex since I didn't bring swim wear. She told me to go to Longnaitang, the oldest bathhouse in the area, and located it on my map. It was very atmospheric, but it was a bit of a disappointment after the baths I enjoyed in South Korea last year. There were no towels provided. One was only expected to rinse off before getting into the pool instead of thoroughly bathing with soap. And there was only one pool which was super hot! Someone told me to stay no more than 3 minutes in the pool at a time, and I believed him. When I partially submerged myself a couple of minutes and came up, there was an obvious line where I had stopped immersing myself with all the skin below it bright red. At least there were cold showers for cooling down after that experience. Although the amenities weren't what I had hoped, it had authentic old atmosphere. It was an old stone/stucco building with a wooden roof. The men there were nice, too. They ranged in age from maybe early 30s to late 70s. I stayed about 1 1/2 hours. During that time, there was a turnover with the people there when I left being different from the ones who had been there when I arrived.
The rains came again while I was at the hot springs bathhouse. By the time I was home, my sandals were sopping wet again. At least I had my umbrella. And it was nice to see that the metro provides long plastic bags for the umbrellas so that they don't drip on the floors of the stations and the trains. When I arrived at my station around 19:00, I grabbed a bottle of water and a bucket of instant noodles and headed to the apartment for the evening. I'm still here alone and loving it.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Two Attempts for the Same Trip
Monday, June 4, 2007--Taipei
Today was filled with troubles. First, I didn't get away as early as I had planned, but I left the apartment at 10:00 which wasn't bad. I wanted to head out to a small town called Jiufen. The owner of the apartment had told me I could catch a bus directly there from in front of the Living Mall which isn't too far from here. I headed out walking there. Then came Problem #2. The maps published by Lonely Planet are more vague along the outer areas. They aren't as accurate, don't show all the streets, and tend to go off scale. By trying to follow what was on the map, I got myself way off track--not so that I didn't find my way there, but so that I had gotten there via two legs of the triangle rather than the one that would have gone straight there. It was 11:15 by the time I reached the mall, and I saw a bus to Jiufen driving by! But where did it stop? Problem #3 became finding the bus stop for that bus. No one in the area seemed to know. Finally, I was guided to a bus stop and told that was it. By then, it was 11:30. I thought I should go ahead and eat quickly and then wait for the next bus, since I was told they would come every 20 minutes. I went into a nearby place and ate what was put before me. It was the usual rice bowl with 3 vegetables chosen from a group that was available and a type of meat chosen from a smaller group. That seems to be the regular meal here in Taiwan. I ate quickly and returned to the bus stop where I waited 40 minutes with no bus coming. (I saw two on the other side of the street that were returning from there.) It was getting close to 13:00 and was really too late to be leaving to go so far, so I just gave up.
I went into the Living Mall to explore it. It truly is a unique architectural design. There is a huge sphere which contains a department store. It is partly outside the rest of the building and partly inside the atrium of the 12-story (with 7 basement levels) shopping mall. There are regular escalators which go from floor to floor, and then there are express escalators which jump about 4 floors from floors on the sphere across the atrium to floors on the mall. I checked what was showing at the Cinemark Theater (only typical American hits) and what was for sale on the floors for home furnishings (nothing modern). Then I left.
I took the more direct way back home by keeping Taipei 101 in sight. It is so tall that it can be seen from almost anywhere in town. But then Problem #4 developed. I realized that my stomach was upset and I needed a toilet FAST. It had been 2 1/2 hours since I had eaten, so it had to be due to something I had for lunch. I started rushing home. By the time I realized my need, I was in the "void" I call it where there are hardly any services--only offices. I began to realize I would not make it home, so I headed toward a department store I knew was nearby while hoping the Marriott Hotel I had seen while walking the area would actually come before it. A block from the store, I began to wonder if I would make it and started noticing where there were hedges. I don't know how, I but I reached the department store and there was an information desk just inside the door. The lady directed me to the second floor near the elevators. I was loosening my belt as I walked past the elevators and was opening my pants as I walked through the men's room to the stall. I made it, but barely. It's rare I have stomach problems when traveling, and that seems to have been an isolated incidence; my stomach has been fine since.
After all that, I just returned home to relax, read, and be on the computer. I kept thinking how lucky I was that the bus never came. What if I had been on that bus and the need for the toilet had arisen?
Tuesday, June 5, 2007--Taipei, Jiufen, and the Pingsi Branch Line Railroad
Another day, another try. This time I followed the directions in the guidebook and I started early. I left the apartment at 7:45 and took the metro to the Taipei Main Station. There I caught the next train leaving for Reuifang. The only bad thing was that it was raining. But I was determined to make the trip today no matter what!
On the train, I sat with a very nice gentleman named Mr. Huang who spoke English well. He was headed for a meeting at the Nuclear Power Station #4 which was beyond my stop. We talked all the way and he took photos of us with his cell phone.
In Reuifang, I immediately went to the window to buy a Day Ticket for the Pingsi Branch Line Railroad, a railroad that goes through a canyon lined with small towns and nice scenery. Unfortunately, the next train would not be for 1 1/2 hours and there really was nothing to do in Reuifang. I had intended to take the railroad trip in the morning and early afternoon and then go to Jiufen afterwards. I quickly reversed my plans. I went to the tourist office to get the various times for the train and then caught a bus to Jiufen.
Jiufen is a wonderful place. And it was made even more wonderful by the fact that the rain stopped just about the time I got there! It is up in the mountains and has two tourist streets--one is narrow and covered and lined with small shops selling many kinds of homemade candies and treats as well as other items for tourists. The other is a stair step street that is lined with old houses which serve tea. I wandered the covered street 3 times enjoying looking at the shops, visiting with the shop owners (and tasting their samples occasionally), and taking photos. There were two small trucks on the street. One was the fish market delivering fresh fish to the residents and the restaurants, and the other was the meat market doing the same with fresh meat. I got photos of both of those, too. I went inside one of the tea houses and took a photo, but I really didn't want to have a tea ceremony all by myself. I took the step street down and the bus stop was right there to return to Reuifang.
Two Korean women were also waiting for the bus. One of them spoke some English, and the other spoke some Chinese. Together they were making it. I told them 1/2 plus 1/2 = 1! They had a great attitude toward it all. We all caught the same bus, but they continued when I got off.
It was time for lunch and about an hour before the next Pingsi train, so I searched for a place to eat and chose a small place beside the station. It was the same procedure as every time before. The only variation this time was that the vegetable dishes were a little different and fish was a choice instead of meat. I chose a tomato-scrambled egg mixture, a green vegetable of some kind, rice, and fish. The fish was tasty. It was some kind of a flat fish. The vegetables were cold and needed some salt. But they were fine. While eating there, a parade of some kind came by. I could hear the music and see the tops of the floats. I was sorry I couldn't run to the street and enjoy it as it passed. After eating, I stopped at a street stall operated by a granny of a lady selling a local sweet delicacy--fried patties of a sweet potato mixture. They were crispy on the outside and mushy inside. She put it in a piece of paper and then slipped that into a plastic bag for me to take to the station. I munched on it as I waited for the train. It really was too sweet and too greasy, though; so I only ate about 3/4 of it.
By the time I took the train the sun was out. I went to Jingtong, the last stop on the line. It is best known for its old train station built by the Japanese and still in its original style. It is a nice station. But there is more to the town, too. I also has a small, narrow shopping street. There are also the ruins of an old coal mine and an old mining town. I quickly saw everything I wanted to see and still had time on my hands, so I just walked to the next train station back down the line. Then when the train came, I took it back to Jingtong and then in reverse to go to my next stop. Since I had a Day Ticket, it didn't matter.
My last stop of the day was Shihfen. Unfortunately, the sun had passed by the time I got there. It is really the biggest stop on the train route in terms of things to see and do. I immediately headed out of town following the route that would take me to the scenic area including the largest waterfall in Taiwan. I was 2/3 down that route when the rain broke loose. Not just rain, but RAIN! I pulled out my umbrella and headed on across the extension bridge. I came to the smaller waterfall and got a couple of photos trying to hold my camera while also holding the umbrella and keeping my bag up close enough under the umbrella that it wouldn't get wet. I headed across the second extension bridge and took a photo of the small train as it passed beside me. I could see the spray from the bigger falls in the distance, but the rain was just becoming too much. To get to the other falls, I would have had to go down lots of steps, pay an entrance fee, see the falls and then walk back. I began to wonder if that would take too much time in terms of the return of the train that had just passed me. I didn't want to stay out in that weather any longer than necessary. So I figured, I've seen Iguasu Falls 3 times; how could this falls compare? I turned around and rushed back to the station.
I had the most pleasant experience there. Two boys entered the station. One said hello to me and told me his name. Then the two of them pulled out ceramic potato flutes and started playing songs. They were good. Then they sang a song in English as a girl played the flute. They were the cutest kids. I got photos of them and spoke briefly. Their English was limited, tough. The one boy was especially charming. And he's obviously intelligent. He's going to grow up to be successful, I'm sure.
I made it back home at 19:00--almost 12 hours after leaving. It was a long and full day, but it was a good one even if there was the spoiler of the heavy rain during part of it.
Note: Tomorrow, June 6, will be the third anniversary of the date that Arne had his stroke.
Monday, June 4, 2007--Taipei
Today was filled with troubles. First, I didn't get away as early as I had planned, but I left the apartment at 10:00 which wasn't bad. I wanted to head out to a small town called Jiufen. The owner of the apartment had told me I could catch a bus directly there from in front of the Living Mall which isn't too far from here. I headed out walking there. Then came Problem #2. The maps published by Lonely Planet are more vague along the outer areas. They aren't as accurate, don't show all the streets, and tend to go off scale. By trying to follow what was on the map, I got myself way off track--not so that I didn't find my way there, but so that I had gotten there via two legs of the triangle rather than the one that would have gone straight there. It was 11:15 by the time I reached the mall, and I saw a bus to Jiufen driving by! But where did it stop? Problem #3 became finding the bus stop for that bus. No one in the area seemed to know. Finally, I was guided to a bus stop and told that was it. By then, it was 11:30. I thought I should go ahead and eat quickly and then wait for the next bus, since I was told they would come every 20 minutes. I went into a nearby place and ate what was put before me. It was the usual rice bowl with 3 vegetables chosen from a group that was available and a type of meat chosen from a smaller group. That seems to be the regular meal here in Taiwan. I ate quickly and returned to the bus stop where I waited 40 minutes with no bus coming. (I saw two on the other side of the street that were returning from there.) It was getting close to 13:00 and was really too late to be leaving to go so far, so I just gave up.
I went into the Living Mall to explore it. It truly is a unique architectural design. There is a huge sphere which contains a department store. It is partly outside the rest of the building and partly inside the atrium of the 12-story (with 7 basement levels) shopping mall. There are regular escalators which go from floor to floor, and then there are express escalators which jump about 4 floors from floors on the sphere across the atrium to floors on the mall. I checked what was showing at the Cinemark Theater (only typical American hits) and what was for sale on the floors for home furnishings (nothing modern). Then I left.
I took the more direct way back home by keeping Taipei 101 in sight. It is so tall that it can be seen from almost anywhere in town. But then Problem #4 developed. I realized that my stomach was upset and I needed a toilet FAST. It had been 2 1/2 hours since I had eaten, so it had to be due to something I had for lunch. I started rushing home. By the time I realized my need, I was in the "void" I call it where there are hardly any services--only offices. I began to realize I would not make it home, so I headed toward a department store I knew was nearby while hoping the Marriott Hotel I had seen while walking the area would actually come before it. A block from the store, I began to wonder if I would make it and started noticing where there were hedges. I don't know how, I but I reached the department store and there was an information desk just inside the door. The lady directed me to the second floor near the elevators. I was loosening my belt as I walked past the elevators and was opening my pants as I walked through the men's room to the stall. I made it, but barely. It's rare I have stomach problems when traveling, and that seems to have been an isolated incidence; my stomach has been fine since.
After all that, I just returned home to relax, read, and be on the computer. I kept thinking how lucky I was that the bus never came. What if I had been on that bus and the need for the toilet had arisen?
Tuesday, June 5, 2007--Taipei, Jiufen, and the Pingsi Branch Line Railroad
Another day, another try. This time I followed the directions in the guidebook and I started early. I left the apartment at 7:45 and took the metro to the Taipei Main Station. There I caught the next train leaving for Reuifang. The only bad thing was that it was raining. But I was determined to make the trip today no matter what!
On the train, I sat with a very nice gentleman named Mr. Huang who spoke English well. He was headed for a meeting at the Nuclear Power Station #4 which was beyond my stop. We talked all the way and he took photos of us with his cell phone.
In Reuifang, I immediately went to the window to buy a Day Ticket for the Pingsi Branch Line Railroad, a railroad that goes through a canyon lined with small towns and nice scenery. Unfortunately, the next train would not be for 1 1/2 hours and there really was nothing to do in Reuifang. I had intended to take the railroad trip in the morning and early afternoon and then go to Jiufen afterwards. I quickly reversed my plans. I went to the tourist office to get the various times for the train and then caught a bus to Jiufen.
Jiufen is a wonderful place. And it was made even more wonderful by the fact that the rain stopped just about the time I got there! It is up in the mountains and has two tourist streets--one is narrow and covered and lined with small shops selling many kinds of homemade candies and treats as well as other items for tourists. The other is a stair step street that is lined with old houses which serve tea. I wandered the covered street 3 times enjoying looking at the shops, visiting with the shop owners (and tasting their samples occasionally), and taking photos. There were two small trucks on the street. One was the fish market delivering fresh fish to the residents and the restaurants, and the other was the meat market doing the same with fresh meat. I got photos of both of those, too. I went inside one of the tea houses and took a photo, but I really didn't want to have a tea ceremony all by myself. I took the step street down and the bus stop was right there to return to Reuifang.
Two Korean women were also waiting for the bus. One of them spoke some English, and the other spoke some Chinese. Together they were making it. I told them 1/2 plus 1/2 = 1! They had a great attitude toward it all. We all caught the same bus, but they continued when I got off.
It was time for lunch and about an hour before the next Pingsi train, so I searched for a place to eat and chose a small place beside the station. It was the same procedure as every time before. The only variation this time was that the vegetable dishes were a little different and fish was a choice instead of meat. I chose a tomato-scrambled egg mixture, a green vegetable of some kind, rice, and fish. The fish was tasty. It was some kind of a flat fish. The vegetables were cold and needed some salt. But they were fine. While eating there, a parade of some kind came by. I could hear the music and see the tops of the floats. I was sorry I couldn't run to the street and enjoy it as it passed. After eating, I stopped at a street stall operated by a granny of a lady selling a local sweet delicacy--fried patties of a sweet potato mixture. They were crispy on the outside and mushy inside. She put it in a piece of paper and then slipped that into a plastic bag for me to take to the station. I munched on it as I waited for the train. It really was too sweet and too greasy, though; so I only ate about 3/4 of it.
By the time I took the train the sun was out. I went to Jingtong, the last stop on the line. It is best known for its old train station built by the Japanese and still in its original style. It is a nice station. But there is more to the town, too. I also has a small, narrow shopping street. There are also the ruins of an old coal mine and an old mining town. I quickly saw everything I wanted to see and still had time on my hands, so I just walked to the next train station back down the line. Then when the train came, I took it back to Jingtong and then in reverse to go to my next stop. Since I had a Day Ticket, it didn't matter.
My last stop of the day was Shihfen. Unfortunately, the sun had passed by the time I got there. It is really the biggest stop on the train route in terms of things to see and do. I immediately headed out of town following the route that would take me to the scenic area including the largest waterfall in Taiwan. I was 2/3 down that route when the rain broke loose. Not just rain, but RAIN! I pulled out my umbrella and headed on across the extension bridge. I came to the smaller waterfall and got a couple of photos trying to hold my camera while also holding the umbrella and keeping my bag up close enough under the umbrella that it wouldn't get wet. I headed across the second extension bridge and took a photo of the small train as it passed beside me. I could see the spray from the bigger falls in the distance, but the rain was just becoming too much. To get to the other falls, I would have had to go down lots of steps, pay an entrance fee, see the falls and then walk back. I began to wonder if that would take too much time in terms of the return of the train that had just passed me. I didn't want to stay out in that weather any longer than necessary. So I figured, I've seen Iguasu Falls 3 times; how could this falls compare? I turned around and rushed back to the station.
I had the most pleasant experience there. Two boys entered the station. One said hello to me and told me his name. Then the two of them pulled out ceramic potato flutes and started playing songs. They were good. Then they sang a song in English as a girl played the flute. They were the cutest kids. I got photos of them and spoke briefly. Their English was limited, tough. The one boy was especially charming. And he's obviously intelligent. He's going to grow up to be successful, I'm sure.
I made it back home at 19:00--almost 12 hours after leaving. It was a long and full day, but it was a good one even if there was the spoiler of the heavy rain during part of it.
Note: Tomorrow, June 6, will be the third anniversary of the date that Arne had his stroke.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
A Day at the Zoo
Sunday, June 3, 2007--Taipei
I had decided to go to the Taipei Zoo today, since Sundays are a good day to be among lots of people and watch them. It was cloudy when I got up, so that made it an even better choice. I could go without having to worry about getting a heat stroke! Some of the clouds were dark, though, so I packed my umbrella.
The zoo here is out in the suburbs and in the mountains. It is in a narrow valley that goes upwards. It's a beautiful place with lush vegetation. There were gorgeous orchids blooming on the sides of trees. Most of the animal enclosures had a natural jungle to provide a home for the animals. And the enclosures were large enough for the animals to be comfortable, I think. I saw a number of animals I had never seen before. There were a surprising number of them that are native to the island of Formosa (which is most of Taiwan--there are a few smaller outer islands, too). But I also saw mammals and reptiles from other areas that I had never seen. It's a large, nice zoo.
There were sprinkles off and on most of the time I was at the zoo. Many people were there for the day. I enjoyed watching them as much as I did seeing the animals. The children were so cute. One little boy and his father walked up to me as I stood reading the menu at a restaurant. The father went to get in line to order, and the little boy didn't move. After a while, he said the equivalent of "Papa," and looked up at me. Suddenly he became scared and looked around screaming, "Papa!!!" Because both his father and I were wearing shorts and he was only knee high, I guess he had just assumed that my set of legs were those of his father. I eventually decided on a spicy chicken burger with fries and a Coke for my lunch. The burger was spicy, so I enjoyed that; it was a bit small, though. I had taken my novel with me thinking that I would stop and read some during the afternoon, but the drizzle kept me from doing that. The seats were wet, and I didn't want to sit inside and read. Finally, it began to be more of a light rain. By that time, however, I had been there for 4 hours and had seen most of the exhibits. I was ready to go.
On the way home, I stopped at 7-11 and bought two boxes of instant noodles. They have a much bigger selection in Asia than they do at the regular supermarkets in the U.S. (although you can find big selections at the Asian markets in the U.S.). I bought two large-sized ones (about a liter paper bowl). After a couple of hours of reading at home, I prepared one for my dinner. I couldn't remember for sure, but I thought I recalled that water should be boiled for 5 minutes in countries where it isn't normally drinkable. I put water in the kettle and boiled it for that long. So much had boiled away that I barely had enough to go over the noodles. They were just right for dinner though. It was a spicy noodle soup and had my tongue tingling. I can't wait to try the other one. The liter size cost about $1 per box.
I got a surprise phone call in the evening from Ignatius, the medical student who gave me a tour of his campus and took me to dinner on Friday. Because it was raining, he was worried that I was lonely. I assured him that I had my noodle soup, a good book, and some DVDs. It was nice of him to be concerned.
Sunday, June 3, 2007--Taipei
I had decided to go to the Taipei Zoo today, since Sundays are a good day to be among lots of people and watch them. It was cloudy when I got up, so that made it an even better choice. I could go without having to worry about getting a heat stroke! Some of the clouds were dark, though, so I packed my umbrella.
The zoo here is out in the suburbs and in the mountains. It is in a narrow valley that goes upwards. It's a beautiful place with lush vegetation. There were gorgeous orchids blooming on the sides of trees. Most of the animal enclosures had a natural jungle to provide a home for the animals. And the enclosures were large enough for the animals to be comfortable, I think. I saw a number of animals I had never seen before. There were a surprising number of them that are native to the island of Formosa (which is most of Taiwan--there are a few smaller outer islands, too). But I also saw mammals and reptiles from other areas that I had never seen. It's a large, nice zoo.
There were sprinkles off and on most of the time I was at the zoo. Many people were there for the day. I enjoyed watching them as much as I did seeing the animals. The children were so cute. One little boy and his father walked up to me as I stood reading the menu at a restaurant. The father went to get in line to order, and the little boy didn't move. After a while, he said the equivalent of "Papa," and looked up at me. Suddenly he became scared and looked around screaming, "Papa!!!" Because both his father and I were wearing shorts and he was only knee high, I guess he had just assumed that my set of legs were those of his father. I eventually decided on a spicy chicken burger with fries and a Coke for my lunch. The burger was spicy, so I enjoyed that; it was a bit small, though. I had taken my novel with me thinking that I would stop and read some during the afternoon, but the drizzle kept me from doing that. The seats were wet, and I didn't want to sit inside and read. Finally, it began to be more of a light rain. By that time, however, I had been there for 4 hours and had seen most of the exhibits. I was ready to go.
On the way home, I stopped at 7-11 and bought two boxes of instant noodles. They have a much bigger selection in Asia than they do at the regular supermarkets in the U.S. (although you can find big selections at the Asian markets in the U.S.). I bought two large-sized ones (about a liter paper bowl). After a couple of hours of reading at home, I prepared one for my dinner. I couldn't remember for sure, but I thought I recalled that water should be boiled for 5 minutes in countries where it isn't normally drinkable. I put water in the kettle and boiled it for that long. So much had boiled away that I barely had enough to go over the noodles. They were just right for dinner though. It was a spicy noodle soup and had my tongue tingling. I can't wait to try the other one. The liter size cost about $1 per box.
I got a surprise phone call in the evening from Ignatius, the medical student who gave me a tour of his campus and took me to dinner on Friday. Because it was raining, he was worried that I was lonely. I assured him that I had my noodle soup, a good book, and some DVDs. It was nice of him to be concerned.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Hot and Humid
Saturday, June 2, 2007--Taipei
Wow, the weather is hot and humid here! After just a few minutes outside, clothes start to cling to the body. Even two baths a day don't seem like enough. The only respite is to be inside with air conditioning. Still, I am here and need to explore the city.
I started the day by going to the nearby exclusive area. It's very modern with a very urban feel--a cluster of department stores, malls, and huge cinema hall. It was full of people. I wasn't interested in shopping. I just looked around at the buildings and the people and took a few photos.
From there, I headed to the weekend markets that are held under a raised expressway. By the time I was there, I had walked about 4 1/2 subway stops from my apartment and I was hot and tired. I had a bottle of water with me and had been drinking all along the way. One of the markets is a flower market that runs about 3 blocks under the expressway. There were beautiful flowering plants everywhere. There were nice examples of bonsai. But the best thing about the market was the misting machines they had set up along the whole way. They benefited both the plants and the customers! I took a few pictures there and then started looking for food before going to the next market.
I found a sidewalk stand where a couple of people were eating. None of us spoke the same language, but it was obvious they were recommending a soup. I ordered it. It was a thick broth (like in sweet and sour soup) with carrots, mushrooms, and other vegetables and with dumplings and tiny pieces of meat of some kind (pork?) in it. I was so hungry that I almost burned my tongue eating it. I haven't been eating much all week. As had the soup, I watched what others were eating. I ordered a plate of rice with a meat sauce over it. It came with half a boiled egg and also with some dried, powdery product over part of it. It's a popular dish here, because I have seen it being served elsewhere. It was good, but it wasn't as good as the soup. By the time I had finished, I was full. Then I finished my bottle of water because the food had made me thirsty.
Next, I went through the jade market. It was more crowded than the flower market. That means it was warmer there. And there were only a few misting machines inside it with men standing continuously under them. I don't really know how to judge the quality of jade, so I just looked. Besides jade, there were many other related products for sale, too. The jade market was only about half the size of the flower market.
I walked up to the main shopping street to return home. I went into Sogo, the big local department store and wandered through their food halls. Then I started trying to make my way home. I was just too tired from the heat and the humidity. I was coming through a newly developed area that had mostly offices and new apartment buildings and I was so thirsty. I thought I would never come to a convenience store for more water. But finally I did about 7-8 blocks from my apartment. By the time I reached the apartment, I had already drunk almost half of the 2.2 liter bottle of water!
After napping, reading, and cooling down, I took another shower and headed out for dinner. There is a night market near here the manager told me about. I went there. It was full of people buying food to take home. I had expected restaurants to be mixed among the stalls, but there weren't. Instead, there were prepared-food stalls selling food to go. I inspected them and was attracted to one that had nice looking sesame chicken or pork. There was no rice to go with them; that is sold elsewhere, I guess, or cooked at home. The lady motioned for me to take a toothpick and try a piece. I made a mistake by trying a small piece. It was wonderful! I bought a small plastic box of it to go and took another toothpick to eat it while walking through the mall. The first piece was mostly bone. So was the second. It was tasty, but it spoiled it having to eat it away from the bones. And it wasn't nearly as much food as it looked like it would be when I thought it was boneless. Anyway, it served as my dinner.
When I got back, Mark was here getting some final items and using the computer. His new apartment doesn't have a computer, so I think he is going through withdrawal pangs. After he left, I looked into his room, and it looks as if he has left a few more things he needs to get. Although he said goodbye as if he wouldn't see me again, my guess is that he will be back another day to get those and use the computer again! The manager is never here, so things operate here loosely. I guess he could keep coming until the room (and, therefore, the keys he uses to get inside) is rented.
Saturday, June 2, 2007--Taipei
Wow, the weather is hot and humid here! After just a few minutes outside, clothes start to cling to the body. Even two baths a day don't seem like enough. The only respite is to be inside with air conditioning. Still, I am here and need to explore the city.
I started the day by going to the nearby exclusive area. It's very modern with a very urban feel--a cluster of department stores, malls, and huge cinema hall. It was full of people. I wasn't interested in shopping. I just looked around at the buildings and the people and took a few photos.
From there, I headed to the weekend markets that are held under a raised expressway. By the time I was there, I had walked about 4 1/2 subway stops from my apartment and I was hot and tired. I had a bottle of water with me and had been drinking all along the way. One of the markets is a flower market that runs about 3 blocks under the expressway. There were beautiful flowering plants everywhere. There were nice examples of bonsai. But the best thing about the market was the misting machines they had set up along the whole way. They benefited both the plants and the customers! I took a few pictures there and then started looking for food before going to the next market.
I found a sidewalk stand where a couple of people were eating. None of us spoke the same language, but it was obvious they were recommending a soup. I ordered it. It was a thick broth (like in sweet and sour soup) with carrots, mushrooms, and other vegetables and with dumplings and tiny pieces of meat of some kind (pork?) in it. I was so hungry that I almost burned my tongue eating it. I haven't been eating much all week. As had the soup, I watched what others were eating. I ordered a plate of rice with a meat sauce over it. It came with half a boiled egg and also with some dried, powdery product over part of it. It's a popular dish here, because I have seen it being served elsewhere. It was good, but it wasn't as good as the soup. By the time I had finished, I was full. Then I finished my bottle of water because the food had made me thirsty.
Next, I went through the jade market. It was more crowded than the flower market. That means it was warmer there. And there were only a few misting machines inside it with men standing continuously under them. I don't really know how to judge the quality of jade, so I just looked. Besides jade, there were many other related products for sale, too. The jade market was only about half the size of the flower market.
I walked up to the main shopping street to return home. I went into Sogo, the big local department store and wandered through their food halls. Then I started trying to make my way home. I was just too tired from the heat and the humidity. I was coming through a newly developed area that had mostly offices and new apartment buildings and I was so thirsty. I thought I would never come to a convenience store for more water. But finally I did about 7-8 blocks from my apartment. By the time I reached the apartment, I had already drunk almost half of the 2.2 liter bottle of water!
After napping, reading, and cooling down, I took another shower and headed out for dinner. There is a night market near here the manager told me about. I went there. It was full of people buying food to take home. I had expected restaurants to be mixed among the stalls, but there weren't. Instead, there were prepared-food stalls selling food to go. I inspected them and was attracted to one that had nice looking sesame chicken or pork. There was no rice to go with them; that is sold elsewhere, I guess, or cooked at home. The lady motioned for me to take a toothpick and try a piece. I made a mistake by trying a small piece. It was wonderful! I bought a small plastic box of it to go and took another toothpick to eat it while walking through the mall. The first piece was mostly bone. So was the second. It was tasty, but it spoiled it having to eat it away from the bones. And it wasn't nearly as much food as it looked like it would be when I thought it was boneless. Anyway, it served as my dinner.
When I got back, Mark was here getting some final items and using the computer. His new apartment doesn't have a computer, so I think he is going through withdrawal pangs. After he left, I looked into his room, and it looks as if he has left a few more things he needs to get. Although he said goodbye as if he wouldn't see me again, my guess is that he will be back another day to get those and use the computer again! The manager is never here, so things operate here loosely. I guess he could keep coming until the room (and, therefore, the keys he uses to get inside) is rented.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Occasional Showers
Friday, June 1, 2007--Taipei
I wanted to explore the local neighborhood today. But just as I went outside, some rain showers began. I returned to the room and read in the novel I am currently reading. I heard the rain come off and on during the afternoon, sometimes hard, so I just continued to stay inside.
Around 16:00, I cleaned up to go out. The skies were looking better, and I had an appointment to meet a medical student who has communicated with me for dinner. We met at the metro stop near the entrance to his university--National Taiwan University, one of the most prestigious schools in the country. First, we went to a nearby restaurant for dinner. It was an inexpensive student hangout. He ordered for us. I had a plate with rice, steamed cabbage, soy bean curd, and fried chicken. He had the same plate with fried pork. For dessert, a sweet, cold pea soup was served. To drink, I had milk tea with tapioca. It is served with a giant straw so that the pearls of tapioca will come up the straw along with the drink.
After dinner, we walked through the campus. It has broad walkways that are lined with tall palm trees. It is a very attractive place. About an hour and a half after we had met, I returned to the metro station and came home.
There was a surprise awaiting me at the apartment. I entered the outside door and walked up the steps to the door to the apartment which is actually a set of two doors--an inner wooden door and an outer metal door. The inner door is never supposed to be locked. Well, it was. My guess is that a friend of my flatmate Mark's who was helping him move out yesterday and wouldn't have known the house rules locked it as they left. I had to go down to the corner to a pay phone and call Karel, the manager. I wasn't sure how to use the phones here, but a nice man who really didn't speak English but understood what I wanted to do put in the coin and dialed it for me. (There are so many different versions of pay phones throughout the world with each having its own unique procedure. The ones here ended up being like the U.S. where you put in the coin and then dial only the number--no extra buttons to push, no special tones for depositing money, etc. Anyway, I got Karel and then had to wait 40 minutes for him to get here. I just wandered the streets looking in the windows of the area restaurants since they were all busy on a Friday night. There's a fantastic looking place that serves combination plates with steaks, shrimp, and/or scallops a few doors down for prices in the $10 range.
After I got inside the apartment, I decided to watch a DVD. I watched the musical The Producers. I had seen the original Mel Brooks film, but I had never seen the Broadway show nor the movie of it. I was a bit disappointed. I'm glad I didn't pay to see it.
It wasn't a very eventful day. I enjoyed the outing and meeting the student. It was a bit exciting having the door locked. (I'm so thankful that I had my guidebook with me which had Karel's number in it.) Otherwise, it was a lazy day.
Friday, June 1, 2007--Taipei
I wanted to explore the local neighborhood today. But just as I went outside, some rain showers began. I returned to the room and read in the novel I am currently reading. I heard the rain come off and on during the afternoon, sometimes hard, so I just continued to stay inside.
Around 16:00, I cleaned up to go out. The skies were looking better, and I had an appointment to meet a medical student who has communicated with me for dinner. We met at the metro stop near the entrance to his university--National Taiwan University, one of the most prestigious schools in the country. First, we went to a nearby restaurant for dinner. It was an inexpensive student hangout. He ordered for us. I had a plate with rice, steamed cabbage, soy bean curd, and fried chicken. He had the same plate with fried pork. For dessert, a sweet, cold pea soup was served. To drink, I had milk tea with tapioca. It is served with a giant straw so that the pearls of tapioca will come up the straw along with the drink.
After dinner, we walked through the campus. It has broad walkways that are lined with tall palm trees. It is a very attractive place. About an hour and a half after we had met, I returned to the metro station and came home.
There was a surprise awaiting me at the apartment. I entered the outside door and walked up the steps to the door to the apartment which is actually a set of two doors--an inner wooden door and an outer metal door. The inner door is never supposed to be locked. Well, it was. My guess is that a friend of my flatmate Mark's who was helping him move out yesterday and wouldn't have known the house rules locked it as they left. I had to go down to the corner to a pay phone and call Karel, the manager. I wasn't sure how to use the phones here, but a nice man who really didn't speak English but understood what I wanted to do put in the coin and dialed it for me. (There are so many different versions of pay phones throughout the world with each having its own unique procedure. The ones here ended up being like the U.S. where you put in the coin and then dial only the number--no extra buttons to push, no special tones for depositing money, etc. Anyway, I got Karel and then had to wait 40 minutes for him to get here. I just wandered the streets looking in the windows of the area restaurants since they were all busy on a Friday night. There's a fantastic looking place that serves combination plates with steaks, shrimp, and/or scallops a few doors down for prices in the $10 range.
After I got inside the apartment, I decided to watch a DVD. I watched the musical The Producers. I had seen the original Mel Brooks film, but I had never seen the Broadway show nor the movie of it. I was a bit disappointed. I'm glad I didn't pay to see it.
It wasn't a very eventful day. I enjoyed the outing and meeting the student. It was a bit exciting having the door locked. (I'm so thankful that I had my guidebook with me which had Karel's number in it.) Otherwise, it was a lazy day.
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