Good bye again

De sista dagarna i Taiwan var lite lugnare. Efter skridskoåkningen gjorde vi egentligen inget särskilt specielt. Yini kompis Sylvia med pojkvän var och hälsade på och vi hade en trevlig eftermiddag och kväll tillsammans med dem och därefter var dt bara en kort tur till Taizhong och naturvetenskapsmuseet där som gällde. Museet vaqr mycket bättre än det gammla, trasiga i Kaohsiung men inte mycket att skriva om, alla har varit på sådana museer förut. Efter museet var vi på en marknad och åt och jag lyckades få tag i en gummihöna att ersätta den jag gav bort till spexet.

Det var egentligen allt. Vi hade en lugn sista kväll i Hsinchu och imorse åkte vi till flygplatsen så att Kai och Yini kunde vinka av mig. Nu sitter jag i Peking och väntar på mitt plan och har inte särskilt mycket att göra. Det är i sådan här tillfällen, när jag nyligen har varit nära Yini och samtidigt saknar nått som distraherar mig som jag saknar henne mest.

Hej då Taiwan, för andra gången.

Skridskor? I Taiwan?

Jag har varit för upptagen på sistone för att uppdatera i tid men tar jag igen det. Efter vår lilla resa pausade vi en dag för att ge oss ut igen igår, dock bara på en dagstur. Vi sov länge och efter lunch tog vi bussen till Taipei. Vi letade oss till Taipeis arena för att åka skridskor. Kai hade åkt en gång förut men Yini hade aldrig stått på ett par skridskor och jag kände mig ganska ringrostig. När vi väl fått på oss alla skydd och så staplade vi ut på isen. Visst var jag ringrostig men inte var det omöjligt inte. Jag kom igång snabbt och försökte sen lära mina kompisar.

Kai hade tyvärr glömt allt men Yini kom snabbt på att det var som att åka rullskridskor som hon gjort när hon var yngre. Det var riktigt kul att vara ute på isen men jag önskar de andra hade varit bättre, då hade vi kunnat ha ännu roligare.

När vi kom ut från arenan lite senare hade det börjat regna och i brist på bättre gick vi till IKEA som ligger precis intill. Vi åt middag och vandrade runt och tittade ett tag och sen var det dags att åka hem.

Last day of the trip

The last day of our little trip was spent at sun moon lake. We took a boat across the lake to a temple on a small peninsula. Again there was a guide on the boat who couldnt shut up and the amount of tourists was overwhelming. When we left the dock area however, the tourgroups thined out and we could walk along the hiking trail up the mountain by our selves. It was a rather hard walk on the hot day but satisfying to get up, first to the temple and then, after one more leg on the trail, the pagoda (a kind of tower) on the top of the mountain.

The pagoda was surrounded by white gravel and made a quit stunning view. Too bad that a earthquake had made it unsafe to climb the stairs of the tower since this is said to be the best view of the whole lake. Instead me and Kai played around a bit and burried me in the gravel. Going down was less fun than going up since i never like to go back the same way and i dont like to go down, but at least it was less work than going up.

The place the boat took us to was more of a village with houses and a small market. We decided to eat street food for lunch then went to a small stage nearby to look at an aboriginee song and dance show. Very much of it was karaoke style with pre recorded music but not bad. Then the decided to teach some peoplke from the audiance a dance and of course the only foreigner was selected to take part. I realy dont like this kind of thing especially when i cant understand the language so well so i escaped when i had a chance.

After the show we walk along the water for a while but decided against taking the cable car to the top of this hill. Instead we walked out on a floating jetty to look at the fish swimming around in small enclosures. We got some fishfood and fed the fish, it was amazing what a chaos some small food pelets can create.

When we ran out of fishfood we took the boat back to the hotel side planning to rent a small row boat there. I turned out that row boat season was over and we couldnt find one so we collected our bags from the hotel then went to the bus station. Luckily a guy offered us taxi to Taichung for just 25 NT (very little) more than the bus per person. This was great since the bus takes around 2 hours but the taxi only one hour. From Taichung we then took the bus back to Hsinchu.

From Kaohsiung to central Taiwan

Next day we woke up late and headed directly to the Kaohsiung museum of science and technology. We looked around at the different exhibitions for a while but found that most of them were either old, or borken or both. Especially the hands-on-learning type of excibitions were bad.

When we got tired of the museum we went to the citys new sports arena, built for the 2009 world games. On a side note I do not know what these world games are. Ive never heard of them outside Taiwan. Anyway, the arean was closed so we couldnt see much of that. Instead we went in to Kaohsiung city to have some dinner then stroled around for a while in a another nightmarket playing eating more nighmarket food, playing more nightmarket games. Then we took a train and bus to central Taiwan and Yinis Parents house for the night.

The next morning we played with Yinis nephew and generally took it easy. For lunch her dad took us to a small restuarant and then, as luck would have it he offered to drive us to our next destination, Sun moon lake. On the way there we made a short stop at the paper dome, a church whose roof is supported by gigantic paper tubes. Not particullarly beautiful but quit impressive.

When we came to the lake in the afternoon we walked around for a while looking at the changing view and beautiful scenery then went back to the hotel and relaxed befor going to bed.

Kaohsiung baby!

The catchphrase for the next two days of our trip was “KAOHSIUNG YEAH” One of the first stops on the way was a famous subway station with a rather artful ceiling. Next up was an island in the harbour. We rented a few bikes and took the ferry. We biked around the island for a while, checking out the old fort on the mountaintop, and a fishmarket. One extra fun thing was that our bikes could connect together to form a small train wich brought us alot of attention from others. This was a fun little biketrip.

When we came back to the mainland we ventured closer to water again, this time love river flowing through the city. Walking along love river was nice although very similar to walking along any other river in the evening. We had some dinner in a small shop close to the river and then we took a river cruise. The cruiseboat ofcourse had a guide who could not shut up and generally the cruise was not super nice but not too bad either. The high point being the boat roof that could be lowered to go under the low bridges. The brightly lit bridges were also a nice sight.

The evening was spent in much the same way as last one, walking around in Liuhe nightmarket, eating snacks and playing market games.

 

On a side note, i forgot to mention in my last post that me and Yinis friend Kai Joined us for this trip.

Trippin’

Knappt hann vi sova en natt efter Malaysia innan det var dags igen men lite mer lokalt denna gång. Vi satte av på söndag morgon med tåget till Tainan och Yinis kompis Jesse. Eftersom jag sett det mesta Tainan, eller i alla fall de vanligaste turistattraktionerna valde vi att rikta in oss på lite mer udda saker. Eftersom Jesse hade bil var det inga problem att åka ut till den stora salthögen en bit utanför staden. Av någon anledning har man samlat saltskörden på hög  Och nu är det en stor kulle. Regn har smält ihop det översta lagret och tusen fötter har smutsat ned det till en smutsig salttopp snarare än sockertopp med ett rullande lager av lösa saltkristaller längst ned.

Vi försöker knuffa en stor släde upp och åka ned men den är gjord för dekoration och därmed extra tung så att man inte ska kunna åka på den men likväl är det kul att försöka. För att få lite action i alla fall letar vi upp en liten bana där vi kör fyrhjulig motorcykel några varv.

När vi känner oss tillräckligt insaltade så kör vi till nästa mål, en våtmark där man ska kunna se en speciell fågel. Vi ser fåglarna på avstånd och letar oss ditåt bland leriga fält och jag ger mig ut på lite krabbjakt i leran, bara för skojs skull. När vi närmar oss fåglarna blir de rädda så vi vänder tillbaks och får reda på att bästa sättet att se fåglar är med kikare en bit bort.

Fåglar i all ära men hungern driver oss in mot staden igen. Efter maten driver vi runt ett litet tag och sen är det dags att ge oss av igen. Tåg tar oss till Kaohsiung och vårt hotel där. Vi vandrar runt ett litet tag och går sen och lägger oss.

Back from Malaysia

Day nmber 3 we took a tour, I normaly donbt like it but it sounded like a good option this time. Our small bus left early in the morning for Kinabalu park where we walked around in the botanical garden and our guid, who was surprisingly knowledgable told us about different plants. From there we rolled down the mountain and found a restuarant and had a nice meal. A bit of a drive later we came to another park area where we trecked up a rahter steep slope then climbed a set of stairs to a platform. Ahead of us lay four bridges among the treetops. It was a thrill to wlak out on the canopy walkways, mainly built from ropes and nets. The swung and bounced with every step and it was a long way down to the ground. Not for the feint of heart. I consider myself a rahter fearless fellow but even I felt slightly scared crossing the longest one which had the longst drop and the most bounce. This was clearly the high point of the day and the real reason to take this tour and not some other one. After that we got some free time to relax in the nearby hotspirng and cool pool before going home.

The next day was our last real day and we planned to go scuba diving. However the man at the other end had mixed up the time when we made reservations so we missed the morning dive. Having less than 18 hours to our flight it was too late for the afternoon one. (The body needs a fairly long time to equalize the preasure before flying in order not to get sick). So we stayed in late instead thgen went out in the afternoon. Once again we found our way down to the local boat docs and found a friendly man named sam who took us out in his little boat.

We went to an island again but not for swimming this time. Around the island closest to the city are several water villages with houses on stilts. Se sam drove his boat around there and let us look around at all the houses and small boats and such. This was, in short brilliant. The houses were nicer and less junky than the ones we saw in hong kong and most people waved to us in a friendly manner. When we came back from this fantastic little tour yini wanted  massage, since I am not a massage person i left her at a spa and walked around for a while and picked her up later. We went to the waterfront market to have some freshly barbequed seafood for dinner and that is pretty much it. The rest was just getting on the early flight back to Taiwan.