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Sunday, Wulai (4/02/2000)
Chu-Wan's friends (Judy, Nora and Min-Min) wanted to take
us to a place near the town of Wulai. Wulai is in the mountains and we would be
having a picnic somewhere in the hills.
We had already lucked out Saturday when we went to Hsinchu;
by starting very early we'd avoided the 4-day weekend Tomb Sweeping traffic. On
Saturday, people still work and go to school in the mornings, but by afternoon,
most are free for the weekend. I read in the paper that Saturday had the
greatest number of cars on the highways of Taiwan ever recorded, beating out
the previous record on Chinese New Year 2000.
We missed it on Saturday, but we were stuck in the middle of
it on Sunday.
After picking up all the members of the crew we drove for
almost 2 hours. To understand the impact of this you must realize that Wulai is
only 30km from Taipei -- only 18 miles! My second shock came when, after we
reached a break in the traffic where everyone else turned left and we turned
right, we passed the Hsintien TRTS station. We were still in Taipei - less than
15 minutes by train from Chu-Wan's parents' home! I stored that information for
the return trip. The rest of the drive went rather quickly. Once we made the
turn, I sspect we we no longer heading towards popular tomb-country.
 As always, once out of the town, the beauty of Taiwan amazed me.
We drove into a restricted mountain area ("restricted mountain area" equates to
"toll area") parked and while the girls started a fire and prepared to cook the
food, I decided it was time for me to get away. (On my last trip to Taiwan, I
never set foot off pavement, I wasn't going to allow that to happen again.)
Nora, who chose the picnic spot, had mentioned that there
was a waterfall further up the road. My guidebooks on Taiwan also mentioned
that there was one of the largest waterfalls in Taiwan in this area, once you
were in the restricted mountain area. The possibility existed that we were
going to drive up to it after eating, but I thought I'd get the jump on them
and walk to it if possible. With no clue where it was nor how far I had to
travel I headed off on foot.
 I'll mention again that Taiwan
consists of almost comically steep mountains. Even if they weren't too steep to
traverse, they're so densely vegetated that it would be near impossible to
travel without using a machete. Not being so equipped, I grudgingly stuck to
the road (raed: pavement) that went up the mountain.
I set myself a time limit and estimated that I walked about
4km up the road (and up and up and up). When I reached the top of the mountain
the road lead down (and down and down and down). In the distance I could see
the road going up the next mountain.
I headed back, but first snapped a picture of myself by a
small waterfall just so I could prove where I'd been.
When I got back we ate, goofed around for a while and then
we started driving up the same road, about 2km up they stopped and parked the
car and we all started walking. They gave up before we even reached the point
where I turned around. According to Nora the "rael" waterfall was at least an
hour's drive from where we were. Adapting that to the weird time-dilation that
seems to occur when discussing time and distance with Taiwanese I figured I
could have reached the waterfall in another hour of walking.
On the way back, the girls wanted to drive to Keelung for
seafood. Not being at all interested in eating seafood, I had them drop me off
at the Hsintien train station (Like I said, I made note of it on the way out)
and headed back to the house for some much-needed sleep.
Monday, Taipei (4/03/2000)
Another day of shopping and meeting with Chu-Wan's old
friends.
Tuesday, Taipei (4/04/2000)
 I got out early in the morning to try to
make a panoramic print of the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial. It's an impressive
memorial (patterned, they say, after the Lincoln Memorial) set inside a giant
park. Green paths and walkways surround the backside while the front is a large
square where celebrations take place. It's flanked by the National Theater and
the National Opera House. Directly across the square is a huge Chinese gate. In
my previous trips the photos had not adequately captured the scale.
We had lunch at Round Table Pizza (my favorite restaurant in
Taiwan) with Johnny and Tiffany, my brother-in-law and his girlfriend, who
stayed with us in Phoenix last summer to study English. Afterwards we did more
shopping, then went back to the house to watch the movie Scream.
 After that Chu-Wan and I went to the 24-hour Eslite
Bookstore - sort of Taiwan's version of Borders where I picked up the latest
Michael Palin travelogue, Hemingway Adventures. Palin has written a
series of travel books, Around the World in 80 Days, Pole to Pole
and Full Circle. His books and TV series continue to inspire me to keep
these journals…so blame him, folks, not me.
Wednesday, Taipei
(4/05/200)
Yet another day of shopping.
Thursday, Taipei
(4/06/2000)
 It was rained again. One nice thing about the rain, it
clears the horrible pollution out of Taipei's air. On this trip, the pollution
was really awful, except when it rained. One odd thing though, is rain supposed
to burn?
We had lunch at a place called Woa Jia Niupai (My
Home Steak). The steak was a bit small, but included steak, eggs, pasta, salad,
vegetables, drink and ice cream… all for about $US 4.00. You can't beat
that with a stick - I decided this was a place to return to.
We took the train out to Shinlin again. This time we stopped
at Taipei Seaworld. I'm pretty sure it's not affiliated with the other "Sea
Worlds" around the world. It was just a fairly small aquarium, but it was
enjoyable. As always with Taipei, Seaworld is in a multi-story building and
people live on top of it. Part of the aquarium is on the roof of a two-story
addition to the building. People in the upper stories have a full-time view of
the roof exhibits. When I stood on the roof, I felt like I was in an aquarium
too.
 Then we went to the "big" Night Market in Taipei for some serious
bargain scrounging. Even on a Thursday night, it was very busy.
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