Log Five

Once again our plans didn't pan out right. The 6:00 alarm never rang and we awoke about 7:45, just minutes before breakfast. That left us with no time to drive around before breakfast.

My only complaint about the Full House Hotel was that breakfast was very, very small. Most hotels I've stayed in that served "western" breakfasts seem to have a set menu of 1 piece ham, 1 egg, toast and maybe some fruit. Except for the egg, everything was in mini-proportions. I knew I'd be snacking before lunchtime.

Chu-Wan's parents wanted to look around the shops while we went out driving, but nothing was open this early, so they came along with us. We headed for the parking lot below the Tzuen Pagoda, where her parents would sit in the car watching the lake, while Chu-Wan and I climbed to the pagoda, which was about 500 meters uphill.

The hitch turned out to be that you cannot see the lake from the parking lot, so my in-laws decided to drive somewhere that they could see it, giving us 25 minutes to climb to the pagoda, take a picture and rendezvous with them back at the parking lot.

The Tzuen pagoda sits at what appears to be the highest point close to the lake, and can be seen towering over the lake from nearly anywhere around. It had also been damaged during the earthquake, and supposedly started leaning. I was told it has been repaired and is now safe. I don't know if it was my imagination, but no mater how close or how far away from it I got, it still looked like it was leaning considerably to me. The view from the top was impressive, though.

I'm notoriously bad about keeping timetables when on vacation, so it took us 40 minutes to get back to the car. When we did return, we would have been immediately hustled back on the road if Chu-Wan hadn't needed to use the restroom. It seemed a logical precaution, so I followed her down to the restroom. Down, down, down the steps we went until we reached the secluded restrooms at the bottom of the long set of stairs. I stopped for a moment, looking at the wheel-chair accessible sign on the door of the men's room. I looked back at the long stairs we'd just climbed down. I circled the restroom, looking for a (non-existent) alternate path to them. I looked again at the sign and then the steps. I entered the men's room. Sure enough, a one of the stalls was clearly wheel-chair accessible.

My father-in-law works with polio victims and other disabled persons, so when I returned to the top, I asked him why they would make the wheel-chair toilet at the bottom of a long series of steps. He explained to me that the Taiwanese government strongly encourages construction projects, especially at tourist locations, to provide handicapped-accessible toilets, but that the people who build them don't always think things through very clearly during the implementation phase. Sometimes it's not just the thought that counts...

Next we headed to Hsuankuang temple, which sits on the shore. Unfortunately, it was here my mother-in-law began showing more obvious signs of car sickness.

Over two years before, I had stood at this temple, and in silent protest to being unable to reach some spot where I could get off the pavement, I managed to find a spot to walk off the pavement and set foot on natural earth – if only for a moment. Suddenly, I was beginning to feel that I might need to take that same precaution again today. So while the rest of the family attended to my mother-in-law, I quietly slipped off and found some dirt and stood there for a few moments.

We returned to the hotel to drop off the in-laws at the hotel. Check out time was in one hour, so Chu-Wan and I took off in an effort to view as many sights as possible.

Realistically, that isn't many sights. We managed to walk a short distance down one trail, and also to stop at the Wenwu temple (home of the world's largest stone lions.) This beautiful temple still stands, but is unsafe for entry. A small temporary temple has been built on the steps while reconstruction efforts carry on behind it.

We checked out of the hotel, but as we started back, Chu-Wan's mother felt she needed medical attention. A brief stop at a pharmacy told us that her blood pressure was up and so we headed into the emergency room of the hospital in Puli. For the next several hours, there was really nothing that could be done. While Chu-Wan waited with her mother, my father-in-law took me out for a drive.

Puli was essentially ground zero for the 921 Earthquake. Reports that I had seen on the news put the damage at 96%. I was never sure if that was 96% of the buildings were destroyed or 96% of the buildings suffered damage. From observation, I think it must be the latter; however, there are certainly signs that a very high percentage of building were no longer standing after the quake. We stopped at a winery to look around. Apparently the winery had been significantly damaged and had rebuilt itself rather quickly. Inside was a gallery of photographs taken after the earthquake. The pictures proved almost unimaginable. I can hardly describe them. The pictures of building crushed as effectively as if a team of bulldozers had flattened them were nothing. I can hardly think of a word but "unimaginable" that describes the force that must have been exerted during the quake.

There were pictures of shorn-off reinforced concrete pillars. These pillars were once holding up a building, but now they were broken clean in the middle. The top half sitting 6 feet away, the hundreds of pieces of metal rebar bent in grotesque shapes like a dried-up plate of spaghetti; hills and mountains literally pulverized; houses tipped and sitting on end. The pictures of destruction went on and on.

We returned to the hospital, where the doctors decided to continue treating Chu-Wan's for at least 2 more hours. Chu-Wan and I went for a walk, finally running across one of the towns MacDonald's. It was very hot and humid in Puli and we didn't mind sitting in the restaurant for most of the time enjoying their air conditioning. While we were there, a party was being held on the second floor. The guests were all school girls. I apparently made quite an impression on them, as I could hear almost all of them making some comment about the tall foreigner as they went up the steps. At the same time, they made quite an impression on me too because of one singular fact: they all had exactly the same haircut. I asked Chu-Wan about it and she explained that, until fairly recently, there had been a nationwide standard haircut for school children. (Fortunately, they at least had a different one for boys and girls.) While Chu-Wan was in school, the mandatory haircut law was changed to allow the schools the leeway of deciding if they wanted to enforce a haircut. Clearly this school had opted to continue the enforcement policy. With their matching haircuts and uniforms, it was somewhat disconcerting watching them file into the restaurant.

After a full 5+ hours in Puli, my mother-in-law had been sufficiently treated to allow her to attempt to travel. My father-in-law was very tired and so I undertook the 4 to 5 hour drive back to Taipei, stopping only at the last rest area to swap drivers and let Mr. Huang navigate the streets of Taipei.

I discovered the Taiwanese truck drivers have a very annoying tendency. The speed limit was mostly 100kph, and, using the GPS unit, I was able to ascertain that the car's actual speed. (The speedometer in the car was off by about 5kph). Despite not having cruise control, I managed to keep the car steady at 4kph over the speed limit the entire distance on the freeway. Furthermore, the freeway is always 3 or 4 lanes wide. I always stayed in the center lane whenever possible, and yet, somehow, the trucks would always come up behind me, way above the speed limit (and trucks actually have a speed limit 10kph lower than cars) and sit behind me flashing their lights to get me to move out of their way. Considering this would happen when there was not another car on the road, I could not help but take the "move your lazy ass to another lane, buddy" attitude.

We returned to Taipei very late that night.