Getting there is half the fun
My cousin took a half day off to take us to some local sites. Back in 1999, what is now refered to as simply 921 an earthquake up to 7.3 on the Richter scale decimated much of central Taiwan. A site at the Damn in Taichung was built to remember those who perished in the quake. At the damn, some sections of the land rose as much as 20 feet. 
Next on the list was an old abandoned Japanese train station in the mountains
, unfortunately I’ve forgotten the name. During Japanese occupation, the Hakkien people were forced to build a railway thru the mountains. Many died during the process of digging thru the mountain often by hand. What should have been a quick drive up the mountain became the infamous 3 hour tour trying to find our way around. It didn’t much matter to me as I had never been to the places we were lost in and really how bad can mountain vistas be? Unfortunately, my aunt was all worried that I was bored and felt bad although I repeatedly assured her that I was fine, quoting “Getting there is half the fun”. A few of you may recall a similar trip in Jamaica to YS Falls AKA Wally World. By the time we got to Miaoli, famous for expert wood carvers
, the museum was closed. There were many shops down the street from the museum that had some finely carved and some not so finely machined wood carvings that were great to browse through.
That night, I learned a little too late that Taiwanese beers contain significantly more alcohol than the beers that I’ve become accustomed. We did a bit of a pub crawl to a place called Party Animal where this old dude wouldn’t leave the poor bar girl alone on the dance floor
, Nest run by a German guy named Martin who married a Taiwanese girl and decided to open a bar, a Karaoke bar that has no discernable name at least for me, but the list gets cloudy after that. As you can see I have no pictures after Party Animal. All I remember is waking up when my aunt came into my room and said “ur in trouble now”! I was supposed to be on a bus back to Taipei 2 hours before to meet C and some of her friends for a trip to Wanli to soak in some natural hot springs baths. I was pretty much out of commission most of the day although I did manage to make the monumental mistake of going to the top of the worlds tallest building, Taipei 101
that sways a few feet in the wind at the top with a major hangover. I think being in Asia has affected my ability to talk Engrish goodly, but that’s OK because I’m off to Korea, the land where no one speaks Engrish at all.
Tags: Travel
Kane
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