Hanoi, Vietnam to Taichung, Taiwan

I got to the airport after a 15 minute walk, stood in line to get my boarding pass, stood in line to go through immigration, stood in line to go through security and after about an hour, I was eating a Whopper at Burger King!  There’s something about Asian food I’m not crazy about besides the rice and noodles.  It’s a smell.  It’s in the instant noodles Nico and Jane used to eat (not on my watch), it’s at 7-11, it’s in the air and sometimes almost comes out of the pores of people.  Anyway that burger tasted so good!

The flight was 2 hours long as well as a loss of an hour.  I had a window seat and noticed a couple of things when landing - there are very few trees and it looked unpopulated until Taichung came into view-

There’s a calming here.  No one yells like in Vietnam.  No one pushes, horks or spits.  They’re civilized and it’s so nice.  Leaving the airport and walking to the bus waiting area, even though there was a long line of taxis, not one yelled or hassled me.  I saw very few scooters on the streets but did see lots parked but parked in a row, not helter skelter.  There are sidewalks where you can walk in a straight line- you don’t have to zig zag around bikes up and down onto the street.  There’s no horn honking: people seem very respectful.  

In order to ride a bus you need an easy card loaded with money.  They are available everywhere and some even come with small stuffies attached.  I bought the cheapest one that looks like a credit card and the card alone was $5.  There are no refunds when you leave the country either.  You can load them with any amount of money and use them everywhere to buy goods.  They seem more accepted than credit cards.  

After going through immigration and buying my easy card I found the bus area and had to wait about 50 minutes.  It took about an hour to get to my stop which was about a 5 minute walk to Backpacker’s 41 hostel-

I’m in a room with 8 beds but so far there are only 5 of us-

When I made my reservation I asked for a bottom bunk because of my arm and also I usually get up in the night.  They couldn’t guarantee it but thankfully I got one.  

Once settled I went to Chun Shui Tang Si Wei Original Store, where in 1986 they had the idea to add a typical Taiwanese street food - tapioca pearls to tea and voilà bubble tea was born.  Nico loved bubble tea and often when we went to Saskatoon he had to have a glass.  Here’s to Nico-

I also had soy sauce braised pork chop donburi with rice, mushrooms, broccoli, bean sprouts, a bowl of Chinese cabbage soup and some oden which is fish cake.  It didn’t taste like fish, it was kind of spongy - maybe it was tofu.  I don’t know.  It’s their best seller but wouldn’t be if I was their only customer-

After, I walked to Miyahara, a century-old pharmacy turned into a dessert paradise-

I’m not crazy about ice cream but had a scoop each of red oolong and Kavalan whiskey ice cream and espresso Basque-

You also could pick two toppings like nuts or cookies or cheese cake-

They have many flavours to choose from like rose white wine with cream and lots have a tea base.  I could definitely taste the tea in mine which seemed weird.  I’m used to chocolate or vanilla, flavours like that.  

They have maintained the pharmacy look of the building-

Traffic is very calm and NO ONE jaywalks or crosses at a corner unless it says to - except me.  Finally I asked a woman if you had to wait for the walk signal and she said yes, it’s a law here and you can get a big fine if you’re caught.  I guess I’ll start following the signals!  

The people are also very personable, friendly and willing to help.  It’s a nice place so far.

Tomorrow I’m going on a tour to Alishan which is a forest recreation area.  I’m glad I showed my reservation to the women at the front desk because I would have waited at the closest railway station and missed my tour!  I have to go to the high speed station to meet the group.  Sometimes there is just too much going on to get it all straight!