Toren Atkinson

FEB 27 2022

Things you find at a B&B! Meaty breakfasts and ‘disposable’ bath towels that don’t do the job

I drove the car up the crazy, narrow, winding, treacherous often single lane roads to Taroko Gorge and got pinned down by buses for a bit. One thing about Taiwan is most often the sinks are actually OUTSIDE the washrooms.

I parked the car in a small lot and then we took the bus further to the Tunnel of nine Turns.

During the bus ride back the bus had to stop and the driver had to get out and direct traffic to get unstuck on a dangerous corner. To get a sense of the treacherousness, watch this vid:

Afterwards we went to Qixingtan Beach and rented bikes to cycle along the path. There’s a military base nearby, and we saw some defenses.

A fine day indeed!

FEB 23 2022

Still staying at mom’s place in Kaohsiung, there’s a nice little breakfast joint right across the street where I would pick up breakfast for Erica most mornings in the city (I always was up and about first). It worked by Erica sending me a text message in Chinese which I would show to the staff, and then I’d hold out a handful of coins and they’d take whatever it cost. One of the great things about Taiwan is you don’t have to worry about tipping. Hopefully people are making a living wage!

We took the MRT to the immigration building for Erica to get some paperwork handled, and I got to see the Dome of Light at the Formosa Boulevard Station!

I love the welcoming vending machines in the stations, as there’s always something to feature on #torentries, like for example this salty sarsaparilla

As dusk fell, I drove through nightmarish traffic to a Korean BBQ restaurant to eat with the family, including Jiějiě (older sister) and her insane child, who enjoyed pretending to be a snake, hissing at the weird white man, and of course I played along, terrified!

Afterwards we took a little walk around that neighborhood and saw more things OF INTEREST

Next up: Lotus Pond!

TUESDAY FEB 22

I took a Ubike for the first time! So easy! So convenient! Just use your transit card to take it out. No helmets though, sorry – this is Taiwan!

JING YUAN LEISURE FARM

Right next to the Kaohsiung Airport! Hippo butts (‘pigu’ in Mandarin). There’s so much innnteresting foliage in Taiwan I went a big crazy with the photos.

RUEIFUNG NIGHT MARKET

Had a nice conversation with a Czech guy who was selling cake. This was a fine night market with lots of treats and I got some new summertime socks too!

These grapes covered in a candy glaze were fantastic! Definitely recommend

MONDAY FEB 21

Woahhhh! Driving in Taiwan is a bit scary – mostly because of all the scooters! But I got roped into it. TRIAL BY FIRE!

The bank: If it doesn’t say ‘no parking’ – it’s parking!

Foreign traffic directions are fascinating to me!

Good Morning! This is the place we got a lot of our breakfasts from when we were in quarantine hotel

I haven’t been to Mos Burger since I was in Japan in 2019! Good to be back! And…this one sells produce? In case you want extra tomato I guess! For some reason they were playing “White Christmas” – in February!

So during the quarantine period I developed a severe stabbing pain in my back whenever I shifted my body while laying down. It didn’t seem to be going away so we went to the hospital to make sure it wasn’t anything serious. They put us in a little room off to the side, and they had to bring a mobile x-ray machine in because during quarantine I wasn’t allowed in the general hospital halls or areas. They scanned me, but apparently the x-rays didn’t turn out because I was too chonky. Not sure how that works but that was what was explained to me! So the doctor just gave me a bunch of pills and said I could come back for an MRI in 2 weeks, but by then we would no longer be in Kaohsiung so we just went ahead with our travel plans and I suffered through the pain. Seems whenever I travel there’s always some problem – when I was in Japan it was frozen shoulder. We paid them some money and then I was off to try to manage the paperwork for my travel insurance. Fun fun stuff!

Next up: Hippo butt and our first night market!

Sunday Feb 20 2022

My first subway trip in Taiwan! From the Houyi station to Pier 2, where we saw lots of weird art!

Of course there’s 7-11 kiosks in the station, and they had my favourite, chocolate covered grape gummies!

Near Pier 2 there’s a book store called Eslite which is kind of like Taiwanese Chapters. I bought some Traveler’s Notebook products and unbeknownst to me at the time, there was a promotion – we got 2 free beers!

Many cool things were seen

As the sun went down we were treated to the light show. Here’s the Music Museum pre-dusk and at night. One of these is not my photo, can you guess which one?

At dusk we took a tram to the Lingya District (not far)

We met with my wife’s older sister and her family at the Canadian restaurant called Yaletown Bistro! We got the typical Canadian fare – poutine, Montreal smoked meat sandwich, and of course a Nanaimo bar! The owner is from Vancouver and was super friendly.

After that, we went home and distributed our gifts from Canada to the family.

Next… Mos Burger and a trip to the hospital!