20070424

070425 Thaikarl on the east coast of taiwan


friends,

where are we now? Hualien City.   Got off the train at dusk, just as it started to rain.  short walk across from the train station and found a hotel for NT750 ($22.61 USD).  not as nice as the room in the other city, but oh well.  and of course, when we walked down the road we saw hotels with signs for rooms for 500 NT.  bt the food we found was very good.  they have these buffer style restaurants, where the various dishes are in steamer trays, and you select what you like to go with your rice and soup.  very good.  a young boy in the restaurant spoke excellent english, and with some encouragement from his parents and sister, help us order food and directed us to a shopping district where i could buy some pants.  i only brought one pair.

taiwan has some notable aspects.  the country side is lovely, mountainous along the whole of the island, alluvial planes on the west.  there is a rather utilitarian plainness to the houses.  very little flash in the architecture, few curves, decorations or design flairs.  boxes for people to live in.  very few houses say "rich man lives here"  the people are very nice, and friendly, dispute the lack of english.  they try to understand, and try to be helpful.  i forget a word as soon as i hear it.  i know three words as Tok just pointed out to me - good morning, 100 and thank you.  :-)

we are taking the train back to taipei this afternoon.  spend the night at doug and jasmine's tonight and go into taipei on the subway tomorrow.  Tok would like to go up Taipei 101 - the tallest building in the world.  then friday, its off to thailand for both of us... on different planes at different times. that should be interesting.  i didn't tell you what happened when i went to get Tok from her plane the first day.  I'll put that in another post.  i'm short time in this game arcade.

onward!
Nu
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I am in southeast asia April 19 - July 20 2007 ::: http://thaikarl.blogspot.com/

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