Out to the Countryside
This is a bridge down near the hot
springs. Since the typhoon had just past, the skies were
still gray and dreary and the river was gushing with
power.
Here's
some food that we ate while in Taiwan- there's water, a
flower-roll (made out of dough and steamed, kind of like
a steamed bun, but with nothing inside except green
onions) and some chicken and maybe some Taiwanese-style
BBQ pork.
We headed back to T'aipei, this time riding on one of the commerical buses. These had "presidential" seats, meaning that they were bigger and made of leather. It took us longer to get back because the bus also stopped at a couple of places before T'aipei. Because the bus was double-decked, it couldn't go into downtown T'aipei, but stopped on the outskirts. We had to then get onto a small van which took us closer to downtown, but we had to walk to get to a bus that would take us back to T'ienMu. To top it all off, it was raining and we were carrying with us a big box of food and the two fans that we bought in Kaohsiung. But we got back to the small house before getting too wet.
Finally, 16 days after arriving in Taiwan, we packed up our stuff for our trip home. We had to cram all of our stuff into our luggage- we hadn't given away all the candy we had brought we us for our family and friends, plus we had some Taiwanese goodies to bring back to Los Angeles. The cardboard boxes that held the two fans had gotten all wet from the rain and we had to get new boxes. Luckily, we managed to get all our stuff together and made it safely back to Los Angeles, where the weather was mild and cool. Customs was a breeze to get through and we were glad to get back to a world of cheap soda drinks and automobile transportation. In Taiwan, because it is so crowded, a lot of people take public transportation, even those with high-paying jobs. It's just easier that way since the population density is very high and land is limited. It was sad to leave but great to be home.