I left my apartment at 7:30 in the morning to figure out how to get to the Matsue bus station to catch my 8:40 bus. The station is only 10-20 minutes away (depending on traffic) driving, but has no place to park, not that I wanted to leave my car there anyway, especially because I'm sure it would be crazy expensive. So I figured I'd walk at a last resort, but attempt to catch a local bus there. After a little bit of a walk to find the right bus stop, I somehow managed to get the correct bus to the station. Huzzah! Of course, I was ridiculously early, so I got to sit outside for 35 mins freezing my bum off. A great start! A 4 hour 30 minute bus ride later I was in Osaka, Japan, and now had to find the bus that would take me Kansai airport. After wandering lost in the humongous station and failing to be able to read the kanji on the maps, I figured out I was in the wrong building, and managed to find the line for the airport bus. An hour long ride later, I was at the airport. The airport is pretty cool in the fact that it's in the middle of the bay, and you have to drive across a huge bridge to get to it. I guess when you run out of room for airports, you just build them on top of the water. Got to chill in the airport for a few hours. yay.
The flight was fine, I was seated next to a lovely Taiwanese girl and her mother, but more on them later. I got a cute and delicious bento to eat, and watched Cowboys & Aliens. Not a great movie, but Daniel Craig sure is pretty.
Yum! The white tray lifted up to reveal more delicious food.
So my plane was supposed to land at 9:15, but due to weather, it didn't actually land until 9:30ish. By then I had made friends with my seatmate, the cute Taiwanese girl who had amazing English. They asked where I was going, and when I told them Taichung, asked how I was getting there. Steve had informed to follow signs for the shuttle bus to the HSR (high speed rail) station and to call him on a pay phone from there, so he'd know when to expect me. When I told them that, they offered to drive me to the station saying saying they could get there faster than the shuttle, and I could use her cell phone to call Steve. SO NICE! By the time I got off the plane and through the ridiculously long customs line, it was about 10pm, much later than I (and Steve!) thought it would be. Cute Taiwanese girl and her adorable father, mother, and who I assumed to be her brother squished me and my luggage into their car (so NICE!!!!) and hailtailed over to the HSR station, where she walked me into the station, helped me buy my ticket, and let me call Steve on her phone again. I bought a ticket for a train that was due in 10 minutes, and it was the last one of the evening!Phew! After thanking her profusely, I boarded the train and an hour later arrived in Taichung. Steve was there (no fro. :( ) to take me to his apartment on his scooter! Despite the fact that it was midnight (meaning1 am to my Japan time adjusted body) we stopped for soup. I then crashed on his really hard bed. After roughly 17 hours of travel, I had made it! Yay!
Steve and his scooter. (not taken when he picked me up. hence the daylight.)
Steve went to work the next morning while I slept like a dead person. When he returned and woke me up after noon, we went for bubble tea (YES!) and to show me around Taichung. We went so Steve could buy a new blanket since it was getting cold (he kept saying that. Felt pretty warm to me! But that's probably just compared to Matsue, where it was snowing at the time.) Hung out, I helped Steve look to see if he won anything on his receipts. Basically every receipt you get has a lottery number on it, and you can look at a website to see the winning lottery numbers. If your receipts match some or all of the numbers, you won a prize or cash. Steve had quite a backlog of receipts to look through.
Views from Steve's apartment.
My first bubble tea in Taiwan!
It has clear jellies, not normal tapioca bubbles in it. YUM!
A pile of receipts we checked the numbers on. Steve didn't win anything.
Steve's balcony.
Steve's beautiful new blanket. I talked him into buying a purple one, since it's his favorite color, but he couldn't handle the flowers on it, and 5 stores down, turned back and swapped it out for this beauty. It has leaves and little flowers, not big flowers so it's more manly.
The apartment!
Kitchen area. There's not even a hot plate! and I thought my kitchen was bad. Though I do envy the cabinets! Also, you can't drink the water in Taiwan, you have to buy it bottled. Which Steve informed me, AFTER I had already brushed my teeth and drank some.
Entry way/kitchen/closet.
Jorgie showing off the bathroom.
See that trashcan next to the toilet? Not your normal trash can! The pipes in Taichung can't handle toilet paper be flushed. So, instead of flushing it down, you wipe, and then throw it in that trashcan, which you buy special scented bags for. I'm sorry, but that is disgusting. Steve says you get used to it pretty fast, but I'm still disgusted.
Steve! Still fro-less.
That evening we attempted to find a night market in Taichung, which resulted in a scenic tour of the city from the back of Steve's scooter. After seeing all sorts of roads and buildings we hadn't planned on seeing, Steve found the correct road to get us there, and found a place to park his scooter.
An aside if you will, scooters are huge in Taiwan. HUGE. Everyone has them. They are everywhere. Parked on sidewalks, parked on road sides, most are parked illegally, but there's literally no where else to park, so everyone seems to park their scooters illegally. Scooters also rule the roads. They go faster then the cars on the roads, weave through traffic, and go past the cars to the front when stopped at a traffic light. While sitting at a light (on the correct side of road, unlike Japan!) you can stop and notice that you are surrounded by scooters. I felt like I was in a motorcycle gang, or would that be a scooter gang.
In Japan, scooters are a pain in the butt. They go slower then the cars, and you get stuck behind them on the narrow roads. You finally manage to get around them and go a normal speed again, when you get stopped at a light. The stupid scooter then squeezes by you on the side of the road and you have to do it all over again. Luckily, in Matsue, there's not really a lot of people on scooters. Also luckily, this is not what scooters are like in Taiwan. You don't get stuck behind a slow scooter. They leave the cars in their dust.
Anyway, back to the night market. Very cool. Stores will open all their doors and put out tables and items in front of them, there are food stalls all over the place. Very crowded, hard to walk, but great deals to be found, and they sell basically everything somewhere in there. There's little alley ways leading to different shops, and about 5 meters in, I knew I wasn't going to be able to find my way back out. Luckily, Steve could. :) I got a cool leather jacket so I could look hardcore in the scooter gang (also because it was to warm for my winter jacket. Dying of heat in that thing. and I wanted one!) And I got a fluffy bear hat, because it really did match perfectly with said leather jacket. (It doesn't match at all. really. but I still love it, even if I look ridiculous in it and Steve made fun of it.) And of course delicious food and bubble tea! Some sights: (I tried taking more pictures, but most turned out too dark or too blurry. sigh)
This is a children's clothes store. Go figure.
I don't really know. I was just amused by the toast.
Candy covered strawberries. on a stick. YUM!
Where I got yummy scallion pancakes.
The next morning was CHRISTMAS! YAY! Steve finally opened the christmas present I got him, and we went to play basketball in the park near his house with some of his co-workers. My team somehow managed to win, not due to any help from me. Then we met Steve's friend Timmy, and took of to visit the National Art Museum, with a small detour to see bumblebee.
Interactive art! It was a puzzle about getting people on a boat to the other side of the river!
Timmy, Me, Rebecca (Steve's coworker)
We gathered a large crowd watching us shove these pieces around, but in the end we solved it! Yay!
Giant pillow! Complete with chair surrounded by mushroom lamps and slippers.
After the museum, we went out for christmas dinner and ate yakiniku! (grilled meat) You grill your own meat, and it's all you can eat for 2 hours. Plus all you can eat ice cream and all you can drink soft drinks and juice. I'm sure there was probably tea too. (you know I'm all about this!) We finished the evening watching Love Actually in Rebecca's apartment. What a good, if slightly abnormal, christmas!
Steve rocking my bear hat.
That actually looks like GOOD airplane food!
ReplyDeleteIt was pretty yummy. :)
ReplyDelete