Looks like I’ve found the limits to showing people the Chinese characters and having ’em show me the right bus.
Today, I was off to Kwan Lin Shan (or Guang … or … etc. spelling is sure flexible). No sweat. Seemed like a piece of cake. Bus hit the freeway south of where I was going, so it looked like it would come up to the mountain from the south. It did. … Except it pulled in to a parking lot about 5 miles south of the hill. I showed the driver the characters and tried my words. He’s all agreeablable and points around a building to the southeast. Ok, maybe there is another bus to take.
But the building is a bathroom. Around it further there is a big, Buddist shrine. And a nice little creek with walkways and such.
OK. If you don’t go where you expect, enjoy where you are. So I watch a couple guys playing a chess-checkers-like game. Then see the shrine. Then a women selling thingees in the parking lot points me to the bus to Taipai.
At the stop, waiting, there is a 6 year old girl, her mother, and her grandmother. The mother speaks a couple words of English. We establish that the fare is 51 NT. I have 47. They make up the difference and say it’s from the Buddha. And give me a flower, a tootsie roll pop-ish candy, and a bottle of good-health-water from the shrine. Cool. The mother’s English gets better fast. Her folks live in NY, apparently. On the bus back, the little girl worked on her English numbers and helped me with Chinese numbers.
So, it was a good little side trip.
Cultural things someone observed:
Contrast Chinese and, say, nordic cultures. Notable thing here (and in China) is lack of maintainance. Buildings, for instance, look old really fast. I noticed it in the town across from Kowloon (Hong Kong) on the last trip there. That town (I forget the name) is about single-digit years old. Was a tiny village. Now has 7 million people. “Now” was ’98? Anyway, I saw old looking apartment buildings. How could there be old buildings in a town that was just built? Connie Chen noticed me noticing. “People here don’t take care of their buildings.”
Same sort of thing here. Apparently, the thing is: Build it (perhaps nicely). Use it. Replace it.
‘Nother thing that’s kinda interesting: Taiwan feels like the US in the ’70’s. How? Prices, for one thing. More cluttered than the US is now. Small shop around the corner that has a guy hand-crafting an ink stamp. His main job, it appears, is duping keys. And fixing clocks. And fixing other things.
I’m glad you got on the wrong bus because if you hadn’t then you wouldn’t have been able to talk to me! YAY for talking!… also the next time you go out you should ask someone to take a pic of YOU! so that we know remember what you look like. Also you should remember to get some authentic chocolate from there!
Hostel or hotel… not the question. Characters, or in this case travel companions, should be introduced; Otherwise, ones readers are left to their own imaginations… Connie Chen?
Connie Chen – Tegic, China. Sales and marketing.
Tegic? Has your vacation turned into business? Are you planning to extend your trip?
Hey —— Scott just clued me in to your blog. Wow!
Re: unmaintained buildings. I noticed them too, but also realized the really bad examples were in heavy-duty earthquake country, hurricane territory, or places with an occasional tsunami. All of those could quickly change your mind set, as could mostly warm weather so a roof was mostly not essential to survival. Now the folks in Kashmir, they have real problems this year.