After our adventures in Alishan it was time to head South, on to the islands second largest city Kaohsiung. Thanks to the free WiFi at 7/11 and some luck we arranged to stay with another CouchSurfer, Boris a local from Kaohsiung with good (British) English due to studying in the UK for 7 months. Boris was nice enough to meet us at the station and stop by a night market for some more snacks before heading back to his place. I'm pretty sure as soon as my head hit the pillow I was wiped out, it had been a long day.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Monday, August 20, 2012
3:50am wake up call
After not so much convincing I decided to cancel my train Sunday morning and stay in Taipei for another day. I think a major factor was the wine buzz I had going Saturday night and thoughts of catching an 8am train were no where in sight. After realizing he didn't have to work the rest of the week Grant asked if he could tag along for the next leg of my trip. Why I agreed is beyond me - after all this is the guy that told me I looked older (that's a first) than 23 due to my wrinkles, although he later determined it's because i'm always smiling/laughing so i'm okay with that. But in all seriousness I was up for having a travel partner, and with his help renting a scooter was now a much likelier possibility.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Sour Grapes
After our adventure on Thursday I agreed to tag along with Grant and a hiking group on Saturday - destination Beishi Stream Historical trail which would connect us to Wantan trail and Pingxi/Xiangliao trail. The total time was estimated to be between 7-8 hours of hiking but there was promises of ending at a beach for swimming and seafood so I was sold.
It was another rushed morning, partly due to the fact that I didn't set an alarm and was woken about 5 minutes before we had to leave, but soon enough we were on the platform waiting for our train. The only problem being that we weren't 100% positive the rest of the hiking group was there with us. The train was longer/slower than expected but I spent the time eating my bagel (with mystery filling) and coffee from 7/11. Once we got to Shuangtai station we met up with the rest of our group, bought some more food for the hike and hopped in taxis which would take us to the start of the hike. I met a few people from the group including the leader YiRu who told me that I look European when I asked why she said "well you're not fat" - Grant actually had a similar reaction when I told him I was from Wisconsin, as did one of his friends - woo hoo go USA. The taxi ride up the mountain nearly caused me to lose my breakfast but I managed to keep it down.
It was another rushed morning, partly due to the fact that I didn't set an alarm and was woken about 5 minutes before we had to leave, but soon enough we were on the platform waiting for our train. The only problem being that we weren't 100% positive the rest of the hiking group was there with us. The train was longer/slower than expected but I spent the time eating my bagel (with mystery filling) and coffee from 7/11. Once we got to Shuangtai station we met up with the rest of our group, bought some more food for the hike and hopped in taxis which would take us to the start of the hike. I met a few people from the group including the leader YiRu who told me that I look European when I asked why she said "well you're not fat" - Grant actually had a similar reaction when I told him I was from Wisconsin, as did one of his friends - woo hoo go USA. The taxi ride up the mountain nearly caused me to lose my breakfast but I managed to keep it down.
Over the River and Through the Woods
To be honest I didn't plan all that much before leaving for Taiwan - I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do and some of the sights I wanted to see but aside from that my days were up in the air. At some point the trip turned into a cross-country, full island hiking tour and i'm okay with that.
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