Taichung, Taiwan

I had a great sleep and didn’t get up until 7:30!  My first stop for the day was to walk a few blocks to a bus depot to see if I could get on a bus there to go to Sun Moon Lake tomorrow instead of at the high speed station.  They told me my ticket was expired!  So, I contacted the company and they sent me a new ticket.  Luckily I checked before trying to use it in the morning!

While I was there I asked a girl if she could use google maps and tell me which bus I needed to catch to go to the 921 Earthquake Museum.  Now, I know I should have walked back to the hostel and caught a bus I knew went there rather than fuck around.  But no, I trusted her.  She told me to get on the bus that had just pulled up and thank goodness she got on it to.  We went a couple of kilometres and all of a sudden she said I was on the wrong bus!  So, I got off and wandered, looking for someone who might speak English.  I stopped at a gas station and through translating she pointed to where I should go.  Bus 23.  Okay.  After 10 minutes of walking I was at a bus stop for bus 33.  WTF?  I stopped at a small café and she took me next door to talk to a teacher who was doing remedial work with very young kids and she could speak English.  I used their wifi but neither she nor I could figure an easy way to get there by bus.  It was 13 km from where I was.  So, finally in frustration, I called an Uber.  $20 later I arrived at the museum.

I couldn’t understand why they would put the museum so far from the centre of the city but as we pulled up, I got it.  This is where the earthquake actually happened and there are destroyed buildings as part of the exhibits.  That kind of gave me a creepy feeling.

The museum is well laid out and very informative.  On September 21, 1999 at 1:47 in the morning, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake hit this area.  2,415 people died.

As I learned in science class, the Earth’s interior is made of three parts- the crust, the mantle and the core.  Plates include the core and the uppermost layer of the mantle.  All the rocks we see are part of the crust.  It’s the shifting of the plates that cause earthquakes and tsunamis-

Fault lines around the world-

There are lots of photographs of the area after the earthquake.  The dotted line is the fault line and where damage occurred-

A golf course driving range-

Parts of a track lifted-

This school was partially destroyed and the track was lifted more than 2 meters-

Sun Moon Lake has an island in its middle.  Before-

After-

The museum is on the site of a former elementary/junior high school.  Because the earthquake happened in the night, the students were safe, at least from the school’s collapse-

Schools used to be all built the same with one whole wall windows to let in light and fresh air.  Of course that side didn’t have strong columns to hold the building in place.  Since this quake the structure of schools has been hugely updated.  

The track had exceptional damage and since has been a big studied subject by seismologists worldwide-

The museum is very good.  Not only are there actual collapsed buildings but there’s a huge educational area for kids as well as another large area explaining how the country has improved its response capabilities.  They also have a 10 minute video with an earthquake simulator.  It was frightening to be shook that hard and if you were in a building with multiple stories, especially in the middle of the night….

It was simple catching a bus back to the hostel and in no time I was there.  I also wanted to go to the National Theatre and to my surprise it is open until 10 pm. They also have a great website that lists numerous buses that pass by all leaving from Taichung Railway Station which is close to me.

The National Theatre is a new building in a very modern style-

On the roof is a funky garden-

It’s in a very modern and new area.  There are beautiful residences all around it-

The gift shop is expensive.  A bar of soap costs $17-

They sell live flowers-

and terrariums for $180-

There’s also a nice expensive restaurant-

Coming home the garbage truck was on the street.  It plays loud music just like the ice cream trucks used to and that’s your signal to bring your garbage out-

The recycle truck follows-

Across the street from the hostel is a 7- 11 that sells all kinds of prepared food such as pork stewed sticky rice balls, classic rice balls, salads, pogos, other weiner sandwiches, burritos, bagels etc-

I hadn’t eaten all day except for a bubble tea because I wanted to go to the Yizong Street Night Market which is just north of Taichung Park.  Taichung Park was made in 1903 and looked beautiful in the dark.  I would have liked to see it in the day-

The night market runs 5 or 6 blocks through a commercial area-

They have whole stores full of these rip off games-

The market has good quality shops, not the garbage like in other countries. There are lots of food booths such as Chicken Cake-

 which is a waffle that looks like eggs-

At this booth you choose what you want in your soup, pay for it and they cook it for you, either to stay or to go-

There was a horrible smell in the street and I finally realized it’s stinky tofu-

I’ve read about it and going to have to try it because “they” say it tastes pretty good.  It’s the smell I smelled yesterday- the butchering rank stink.  At least I know what it is!  

For supper I had a brown sugar bubble tea which was very good, a steamed bun and numerous dim sum items-

I also tried some deep fried sweet potato balls.  They were hollow, sweet and great although they didn’t taste much like sweet potatoes-

It was a very busy day but was able to see what I wanted to.  Tomorrow I catch a bus at the Taichung High Speed Railway depot at 8:45 to go to Sun Moon Lake for 2 days.