pain, rain, go away
We knew that we couldn’t go to Taiwan and not take some time to visit the temple in Taipei. It was a fantastic way to spend the morning. I had never before been through a session where my language was in the minority and I had to wear the head set. Amazing. Wonderful. You know what can make a morning like that even better? More shaved ice. Which we ate but I didn’t get a picture.
We spent the afternoon at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and gardens. The grounds and memorial are very similar to the Lincoln Memorial in DC. They were setting up for the New Year festival of lights so we got to see some of the exhibits in advance.
We were also there for the changing of the guards around the memorial
The gardens around the memorial were full of various green plants, flowers, trees, and, because of the celebrations, lanterns of all shapes.
For dinner we met up with some of Somebody’s high school friends. They chose a BBQ place that was nothing like a BBQ I was used to. We took over the entire basement of the restaurant were there were three long tables with three small grills on each table. There were serving platters all around the tables with every type of meat and seafood imaginable. You chose your piece of meat (most in bite-size portions) and grilled it on the grill closest to you. Frightening at first, but it was new and delicious. Somebody had a fantastic time visiting and laughing with his friends, and my parents and I enjoyed grilling the meat we recognized and taking advantage of the all-you-can-eat Haagen Daas ice cream. We used the ice cream as a beverage because, typical, the only beverage option was a hot tea. They offered us a wheat tea, but it just didn’t hit the spot like some melted strawberry ice cream. Apparently one of his friends commented that we sure ate a lot of ice cream, but, hey, it’s the American way.
Rita picked us up after the acupressure and took us up to a famous look-out point on the edge of the city so we could see the lights of Taipei. It was raining lightly but that didn’t stop us from taking advantage of the great view.
Things I want to always remember: * The peaceful feeling of the temple and the temple grounds.
* Watching Somebody be so at home and casual with his friends—I rarely see that side of him because we are never surrounded by people who only know him and don’t know me.
Things I will never forget:
* The incredible pain of the acupressure. A bad pain. And a good pain. In the end, though, a helpful pain.
* The yummy, yummy BBQ dinner.
The train ride started out okay. Once again it became obvious that purchasing tickets on the train did not guarantee you a seat. I will never understand this. Because we were traveling during the New Year holiday, the train was packed with people going to or returning from visits with family and friends. They seemed content to stand for the hour, two-hour, four-hour train rides. Somebody said that he had often stood for the long train rides—that it wasn’t a big deal. Am I spoiled, or what? For that first leg of the ride we had tickets for actual seats and enjoyed watching the scenery pass by. And then I looked at the tickets for the rest of our trip. Somehow we had tickets that departed from stop #2 BEFORE our train #1 even arrived at the station. Not helpful. This is where Somebody uttered his now famous phrase, “This is going to be suck.”
Somebody was doing all he could to get us seats on a very crowded train. He spoke with the tickets sales people and was told that he would have to talk to the train conductor in order to get permission to have seats reserved for the handicapped, but other than those seats there were no other options. Handicapped? You bet we were. He somehow managed to talk to the train conductor and was able to get permission for my mom and me to sit in the handicapped seats for the train ride. My dad moved around from empty seat to empty seat as they came available, and once all the ticketed passengers were on he stood for the rest of the train ride. Somebody stood in the space behind our seats for the entire train ride. I don’t know how those men did it.
Rita scrambled making arrangements for us to somehow get up to the Taroko National Park. I have no idea how she made these connections, but she found out that one of the shop owners at the top of the park was going to be in town picking up supplies and made arrangements with him to meet us at the train station, drive us through the park, then return us to the train station to catch our train to Taipei. Instead of a leisurely five hours we would have to race through in about two hours. It was so worth it.
Changchun (Eternal Spring) Shine
The Jiucyudong tunnel "The Tunnel of Nine Turns". Taroko National Park is named after the Taroko Gorge. On the Tunnel of Nine Turns, pedestrians are able to walk 2.2 miles on a former auto path that winds around the mountains following the path of the river the carved the gorge. The walls are marble and very steep--the scenery (including several waterfalls) was amazing. 
Guardrails? Merely suggestions for safety.
We spent some time at Tiansiang (Taroko's largest settlement) while GS stocked his store.
And then we sped down and back to the train station. GS dropped us off at a street market near the train station where we had time to shop for a little bit, eat dinner, and then catch our train to Taipei. 
Food this way. These street signs cracked me up.
We arrived in Taipei at nearly midnight. This final train ride was the best of the day and we were all four able to sit near each other and even play a few card games. It certainly had emotionally challenging moments, but looking back now this was one of my favorite days in Taiwan and one of the few touristy places that I would love to revisit. The day wasn’t nearly as suck as we thought it might be.
