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Monday, January 06, 2003
Leaving Kaohsiung, we flew to Hualien and took a super-windy, super-bumpy, so-close-to-the-edge-that-you're-on-the-verge-of-falling-off-in-some-places, mountainous road (some parts being wide enough for only one car) to Taroko, a place in the famous for its hot springs and marble canyons. There, we saw some sights, took some pictures, and relaxed for the day. The next day, we took another fun ride back in another bus to the train station in Hualien and rode to Taipei.
The first night we were in Taipei, we ended up going to visit my aunt (mom's older sister) and their family. Since my uncle had a van, he took us out on a driving tour of Taipei, showing us the president's house and other major landmarks. Afterwards, he took us to the largest shopping center in Taiwan, the Core Pacific City Mall. What's amazing about it is that it is huge and that it's open 24 hours a day (just parts, though). (According to my dad, it was built by a guy who used to have nowhere to hang-out at night when he was a kid, so he decided to create a mall and make it open 24-hours, so that people would have a place to go at night.) The next day, we went to Keelung, one of the coastal cities famous for its fisheries. The main marketplace was super-smelly (even more so than being on the streets of Taipei/Kaohsiung, which already have a sewerish scent). At this fishing harbor place, you can shop around for all kinds of seafood and then they have restaurants adjacent where you can have them cook up your seafood for a meal. That night, we visited Tamshui, which is in the northern part of Taipei, located on the waterfront. Unfortunately, we had gotten there pretty late and everything was already closed, except for the Starbucks (which was 4 stories tall) and the McDonald's (also quite large). On the way back on the MRT (similar to the BART public transportation system in the Bay Area), I ran into some people from San Diego that I had not seen in quite a while. My brother was startled when he saw these two "tough-looking" guys approaching me while I was sitting on the train, but I was fine since I recognized them right away. Before leaving Taipei the next afternoon, my uncle took us to the Sogo Department Store (all of the department stores are huge, multi-level structures, usually with a supermarket on the bottom and sometimes with movie theaters inside). During lunch in the food court, my brother and I made a couple of trips down to the supermarket to buy beer for my dad and my uncle. The second time, my brother wanted to see if they would let him buy the beer. (Alcohol consumption is very relaxed in Taiwan, even by minors. According to my dad, "if you can talk, you can buy beer." That thought conjured up images of toddlers and babies ordering beers.) I bought some freshly-made dried bean-curd (because it's good), although it wasn't that much better than the packaged kind. That afternoon, we headed off to the CKS International Airport on our way to Japan..
1:08 AM Albert
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..a life in DUO