Today was complicated. After the others in our hostel woke us up all night (and turned the lights on twice!!!), we started out the day tired. We soon found ourselves, Starbucks in hand, in a cab with an extremely talkative Chinese driver who pushed me to the limits of my Chinese conversational skills (I said 好 a lot, and he knew enough to end many of his monologues with 你聽不懂, not that it kept him from trying.) headed towards the National Palace museum.
The morning of looking at ancient artifacts was great; next, we hopped a bus and, several MRT transfers later, had lunch back near the hostel and retrieved our bags.
That's when the trouble began. We couldn't find an MRT entrance with an escalator or elevator; when we finally lugged my mom's big bag and our two smaller ones to the train and made it to our stop, we discovered that the directions the hotel had given us were crap. Seriously.
An hour and a half later, we admitted defeat and hailed a cab to take us to our hotel--which ended up being maybe five blocks away. Fail. But that didn't begin to cover our charming discovery once we got here that our reservation was for the wrong night. Last night, to be specific. EPIC fail. Fortunately they had an open room, but at this point we were both so frustrated and stressed that we proceeded to waste the next hour or so just sitting and recuperating.
We finally rallied ourselves enough to venture to Taipei 101, and we explored the observation deck for a while, and I then discovered my new favorite place in Taiwan, Page One. AKA the home of the largest selection of English books in Taiwan. Heavenly.
We were both too tired for our planned night market adventure at Shilin (sadly...) so we went back to our hotel, bought food on the way and planted ourselves on the bed to watch It's a Wonderful Life. Couldn't make it all the way through, though--after all, we leave the hotel at 5:30am tomorrow morning!
Annnd, on that note, I'm going to bed. Tomorrow should be easier, but also much sadder, as I have to say goodbye to my mom and send her back to America...it's been a fun trip!
Showing posts with label taxi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label taxi. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Friday, December 16, 2011
可以嗎？
I'm a terrible blogger when I'm traveling. And, as this post will show, I'm also a terrible traveler.My mom and I are currently about to go to sleep at Traveler Hotel Taitung--by means of no small miracle of friends' help and communication.
See, we were headed off to explore yesterday when I made our reservations, and today I completely forgot that all I knew about where we were going was that we had a reservation and its name in English. Which, obviously, is not enough.
On the train from Kaohsiung, somewhere around an hour in, I realized this. I also realized that the train (obviously) had no internet connection. In other words, we would be arriving in Taitung with no idea whatsoever about how to reach our destination.
So I texted Karina, asking her if she could find out how to say the hotel name in Chinese. And, though she wasn't near a computer, she’ｓ ａｍａｚｉｎｇ ａｎｄ ｓｈｅ translateｄ--and I copied it down. When we got to Taitung, I pulled out my paper and went to talk to the first cab driver:
Me: 你 知道 "lu ke guan" 馬? (Do you know "lu ke guan?")
Driver: 我 不知道. (I ｄｏｎ’ｔ。）
Me: O, 好... （Ｏｈ， ｏｋａｙ。。。）
And he drove away.
Ｓｏ Ｉ ｃａｌｌｅｄ Ｒａｃｈｅｌ， ａｎｄ ａｓｋｅｄ ｈｅｒ ｉｆ ｓｈｅ ｃｏｕｌｄ ｌｏｏｋ ｕｐ ｔｈｅ ａｄｄｒｅｓｓ ｆｏｒ ｔｈｅ ｈｏｔｅｌ， ｗｈｉｃｈ ｓｈｅ ｇｒａｃｉｏｕｓｌｙ ｄｉｄ ｗｉｔｈｏｕｔ ｔｈｅ ａｌｌ－ｔｏｏ－ｅａｓｙ ｊｏｋｅ ａｔ ｍｙ ｅｘｐｅｎｓｅ ｆｏｒ ｍｙ ｓｔｕｐｉｄｉｔｙ ｉｎ ｎｏｔ ｐｌａｎｎｉｎｇ ａｈｅａｄ。 Ｆｏｒｔｕｎａｔｅｌｙ， ｔｈｅｒｅ ｗｅｒｅ ｓｔｉｌｌ ｐｌｅｎｔｙ ｏｆ ｃａｂ ｄｒｉｖｅｒｓ ａｒｏｕｎｄ， ｓｏ Ｉ ｗｅｎｔ ｔｏ ｔａｌｋ ｔｏ ｔｈｅ ｎｅｗ ｆｉｒｓｔ ｃａｂ ｄｒｉｖｅｒ ｉｎ ｌｉｎｅ。
Ｍｅ： 你好， 你 知道 ＂ｌｕ ｋｅ ｇｕａｎ，＂ ４２ 安慶 馬？ （Ｈｅｌｌｏ， ｄｏ ｙｏｕ ｋｎｏｗ ＂ｌｕ ｋｅ ｇｕａｎ， ４２ Ａｎ Ｑｉｎｇ？＂
Ｄｒｉｖｅｒ： 安慶街 馬？ （Ａｎ Ｑｉｎｇ ｓｔｒｅｅｔ？）
Ｍｅ：隊。。。？ （Ｙｅｓ。。。？）
Ｄｒｉｖｅｒ （ｌｏｏｋｉｎｇ ａ ｌｉｔｔｌｅ ｃｏｎｆｕｓｅｄ）： ＂ｌｕ ｋｅ ｇｕａｎ＂？
Ｍｅ： 隊。 (Yes.)
Ｄｒｉｖｅｒ： （ｓｏｍｅｔｈｉｎｇ Ｉdon't understand)
Me: 我 聽不懂, 我的中文 不.好... (I don't understand, my Chinese is not good...)
Driver: (something else I don't understand)
Me: 可以馬? (Can you?)
Driver: 可以. (I can.)
Me: Oh, 好... (Oh, OK...)
So yes, through broken Chinese and a lot of help, we finally found our hotel/hostel. And it turns out to be perfect! Just a few blocks from the night market (my mom's first, where we enjoyed fried dough balls, fried chicken, kiwi-pineapple juice and noodles for dinner) and from Watson's, where we bought anti-motion sickness meds for the ferry to Green Island tomorrow.
Looks like my Chinese will be tested this trip. And, though I thoroughly suck, I say bring it on.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Rediscovering Kaohsiung, part 2
Today, I got out of school at noon, leaving me ample time to show Dan
and Danny the sights, such as they are. Still not enough time to see
everything, unfortunately--not even I have seen everything yet, and I've
lived here for two months so far--but at least we got to most of the
staples.
1.) Cijin Island. This happened yesterday.
2.) Chialing's noodle shop. This also happened yesterday. And also today. Because she's just that amazing, and her food is just that delicious. We couldn't stay away; I firmly believe that no one who tries her food could possibly feel any different. She even had rice and green bean noodles for Dan. She's amazing.
3.) Wu Pao-chun bakery. It's kind of a big deal--beat out pastry chefs from around the world with its French bread--and it just so happens to be roughly 6 blocks from my apartment. We bought a loaf of red wine and dried berry bread (can't remember the kind of berry, which is embarrassing but true), still warm, and brought it back to the apartment for a sample, where both Dan and Danny declared it to be the best bread they had ever tasted. The statement "I could eat only this bread for the rest of my life" was definitely used.
We then hopped a Kaohsiung Cultural tour bus (itself an adventure, between figuring out where it was, fighting off a betel-nut-chewing cabbie who wanted to take us instead, and listening to the tour guides alternately try to explain things in halting English--maybe once or twice--and speaking in rapid-fire Chinese), and set out for the higher coastal area; that is...
4.) The Former British Consulate. Easily one of my favorite places in Kaohsiung, it was used in roughly the 1860s and it sits atop a hill which can see the entire city on one side, the lighthouse on another, the whole broad stretch of coastline on a third, and the lush greenery of ZhongShan on the last. All complemented by a constant light breeze, and set to the backdrop of a charming brick building with huge arches and white-painted wood doors. Lovely.
5.) 國立中山大學 (ZhongShanDaShue) After a leisurely stroll after the passing bus, which somehow succeeded, we discovered that it only took us the very short distance to the bottom of the university's sprawling campus. We (and by we I mean I) decided we simply must climb to the top, which had gorgeous views--including the one which is currently the background on this blog. On the way we saw lots of foreign students, lots of feral dogs, a terrifyingly large spider, lots of great views, and disappointingly few monkeys (read: none). Seriously, though, this mountain is gorgeous; in my view, no trip to Kaohsiung is complete without it.
6.) Thailand Burma Restaurant. It's 3 blocks from my apartment. It's the best Thai you've ever tasted. Enough said.
7.) Kaohsiung 85 Sky Tower. I've posted about this before--2nd tallest building in Taiwan, 13th tallest building in the world. Still has its uber-awkward Tokyo photographers exhibit. Still a cool place to visit, though, with fantastic views of, well, everything.
Other moments of note today: I randomly met another American on my way to school! A guy pulled up to me and said "hello," and I turned, expecting it to be a Taiwanese person practicing their English. We both did double-takes. Turns out, he though I was his co-worker at the cram school down the street from Han-min. We got stopped at 5 lights in a row, so we got to have a nice little conversation! Gotta love random moments like that.
Also, I was the navigator in taxis to and from Kaohsiung 85. And both times, the cab driver knew what I was saying. Chinese lessons ftw.
Well this has been one of my most random, rambling blogs, the apparently straightforward formatting notwithstanding. But hey, at least it covers all the staples!
1.) Cijin Island. This happened yesterday.
2.) Chialing's noodle shop. This also happened yesterday. And also today. Because she's just that amazing, and her food is just that delicious. We couldn't stay away; I firmly believe that no one who tries her food could possibly feel any different. She even had rice and green bean noodles for Dan. She's amazing.
3.) Wu Pao-chun bakery. It's kind of a big deal--beat out pastry chefs from around the world with its French bread--and it just so happens to be roughly 6 blocks from my apartment. We bought a loaf of red wine and dried berry bread (can't remember the kind of berry, which is embarrassing but true), still warm, and brought it back to the apartment for a sample, where both Dan and Danny declared it to be the best bread they had ever tasted. The statement "I could eat only this bread for the rest of my life" was definitely used.
We then hopped a Kaohsiung Cultural tour bus (itself an adventure, between figuring out where it was, fighting off a betel-nut-chewing cabbie who wanted to take us instead, and listening to the tour guides alternately try to explain things in halting English--maybe once or twice--and speaking in rapid-fire Chinese), and set out for the higher coastal area; that is...
4.) The Former British Consulate. Easily one of my favorite places in Kaohsiung, it was used in roughly the 1860s and it sits atop a hill which can see the entire city on one side, the lighthouse on another, the whole broad stretch of coastline on a third, and the lush greenery of ZhongShan on the last. All complemented by a constant light breeze, and set to the backdrop of a charming brick building with huge arches and white-painted wood doors. Lovely.
5.) 國立中山大學 (ZhongShanDaShue) After a leisurely stroll after the passing bus, which somehow succeeded, we discovered that it only took us the very short distance to the bottom of the university's sprawling campus. We (and by we I mean I) decided we simply must climb to the top, which had gorgeous views--including the one which is currently the background on this blog. On the way we saw lots of foreign students, lots of feral dogs, a terrifyingly large spider, lots of great views, and disappointingly few monkeys (read: none). Seriously, though, this mountain is gorgeous; in my view, no trip to Kaohsiung is complete without it.
6.) Thailand Burma Restaurant. It's 3 blocks from my apartment. It's the best Thai you've ever tasted. Enough said.
7.) Kaohsiung 85 Sky Tower. I've posted about this before--2nd tallest building in Taiwan, 13th tallest building in the world. Still has its uber-awkward Tokyo photographers exhibit. Still a cool place to visit, though, with fantastic views of, well, everything.
Other moments of note today: I randomly met another American on my way to school! A guy pulled up to me and said "hello," and I turned, expecting it to be a Taiwanese person practicing their English. We both did double-takes. Turns out, he though I was his co-worker at the cram school down the street from Han-min. We got stopped at 5 lights in a row, so we got to have a nice little conversation! Gotta love random moments like that.
Also, I was the navigator in taxis to and from Kaohsiung 85. And both times, the cab driver knew what I was saying. Chinese lessons ftw.
Well this has been one of my most random, rambling blogs, the apparently straightforward formatting notwithstanding. But hey, at least it covers all the staples!
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Taxi!
Considering my other non-Taipei, non-USA weekends since I got here, I did a remarkable amount today. But it wasn't quite intentional.
The day began with me looking at my clock and thinking "Huh, 10 o'clock. Not a bad time to get up!" Seconds later, I looked over and saw that it was now 11 o'clock.
Once I was up, though, I immediately set into cleaning mode: our apartment decided to set up weekly cleaning people, rather than divvy up weekly chores like we did at my last house. And this was my week, and I hadn't yet completed probably the biggest and most important of my cleaning jobs: sweeping and mopping all the common areas. It wasn't pretty, and it certainly wasn't fun (take all the joy of normal cleaning, then add 15* and humidity), but it was rewarding to see the outcome: clean floors, for about 5 minutes. Se la vie, I guess.
Anyway, after that, Rachel and I set out to try to find a way to spend $2,500NT. That may sound like an easy task, but ours was actually more complicated--the reason we were trying to spend money was that the gym we're planning on joining, Fitness Factory (for the record, not the gigantic one with the rock climbing wall and pool pictured; we're going to a smaller, cheaper branch off of Sanduo), is having a promotion in which, if you spend up to $2,500NT at once at one of their partner stores, you can deduct that amount from your joining fee of $2,500NT. So, really, it's a question of "Do you want to give us $2,500 and get nothing, or spend $2,500 somewhere else and get something?"
Big surprise, we chose the latter.
But it was not an easy task! We visited Fitness Factory on Tuesday, found out about the deal, and were given a pamphlet listing all the partner stores. It was, however, written entirely in traditional characters, which neither Rachel nor I can read. (We could read "SUBWAY," but $2,500NT worth of sandwiches is a bit extreme...) So we (and by we, I mostly mean Rachel) spent the week asking various Taiwanese friends what the places on our pamphlet were, and where we should go. With the help of Chialing, as well as Rebecca and Karen (Rachel's LETs), we got some translations and narrowed down the list to a few contenders.
And this morning, we clutched our little green pamphlet, grabbed a cab across the street (and down a ways, since the guy in the cab directly across the street was sound asleep in the driver's seat), and asked him to take us to a car store. Now you may be thinking "Cars? But you don't have a car.." which is true. Our thought was that they might also sell scooter stuff, and we have both been hankering for a better scooter helmet.
Turns out, though, that your thoughts were right--nothing doing. As Rachel pointed out, we could have gotten Ferrari bumper stickers for our scooters, but I really can't say that's something I'm in the market for.
So we hailed another cab and asked him to take us to our back-up place--a jewelry store which turned out to be right around the corner from the gym. It also happened to be a tiny little section of a department store, with prices beginning at $40,000NT. Next!
We hopped another cab and asked him to take us to either of two watch stores on the list; whichever was closest. He agreed and set out, but as we looked closer at the address on the pamphlet, we realized that even the "closer" one was in Zuoying--by the HSR station, quite a ways from where we were. *sigh* One $200NT cab ride (spendy for here, but dirt cheap by US standards) later, we finally found the store, and discovered we'd finally found somewhere to spend our money. I walked away with a great watch and a pair of cheap clear glasses (for scootering at night), and Rachel walked away with a pair of cheap clear glasses and a pair of "designer" (we're not sure if they were telling the truth...ever hear of Martini?) sunglasses. I was actually a bit disappointed, though, because they gave me a discount, meaning my total was less than the $2500 allowed. Never been disappointed about a discount before! But now I have to pay a good $420NT to join, which is unfortunate.
Anyway, since we were in Zuoying and I'd promised Karina a visit today anyway--she lives in Zuoying now--we took the MRT down to meet her puppies. They are absolutely adorable! She adopted them off of Cijin Island a few weeks ago, and though she's since discovered she can't keep them--she's taking them to Taipei next weekend to become animal therapy dogs--it was so much fun to see the little pups and watch them play. Their names are MoMo and ChiChi--combined into "Mochi" their names mean "an unspoken deep understanding" in Chinese--and they were born at almost the same time that we got to Taiwan, Karina says. I do wish she could keep them if only for that reason--they have the same amount of history here as we do! In any case, though, it was lots of fun to see them, and to see where Karina and Esther live now.
We then grabbed another cab and went back to our apartment, where Brittany (who had been at a Taiwanese engagement ceremony of the friend of one of her LETs all day) was waiting for us to go to Kaohsiung Sky Tower 85--the landmark building of Kaohsiung, which we hadn't been to yet.
So we hopped in yet another cab and went to the 85, as it's usually referred to around here. At the top (or, rather, floor 74, where the observation deck is), we enjoyed some great views and an....interesting....Tokyo photographers exhibit, before grabbing dessert (caramel apple cheesecake for me; Haagen Dazs for Brittany and Rachel; Karina didn't want anything) and heading home.
For Karina and I, anyway--we walked to the MRT and went our separate ways. Brittany and Rachel grabbed another cab and went shopping.
And that was my day! Did some application work when I got home, which I should have done all day, and now I'm sitting here doing this. At least it doesn't require a taxi!
The day began with me looking at my clock and thinking "Huh, 10 o'clock. Not a bad time to get up!" Seconds later, I looked over and saw that it was now 11 o'clock.
Once I was up, though, I immediately set into cleaning mode: our apartment decided to set up weekly cleaning people, rather than divvy up weekly chores like we did at my last house. And this was my week, and I hadn't yet completed probably the biggest and most important of my cleaning jobs: sweeping and mopping all the common areas. It wasn't pretty, and it certainly wasn't fun (take all the joy of normal cleaning, then add 15* and humidity), but it was rewarding to see the outcome: clean floors, for about 5 minutes. Se la vie, I guess.
Anyway, after that, Rachel and I set out to try to find a way to spend $2,500NT. That may sound like an easy task, but ours was actually more complicated--the reason we were trying to spend money was that the gym we're planning on joining, Fitness Factory (for the record, not the gigantic one with the rock climbing wall and pool pictured; we're going to a smaller, cheaper branch off of Sanduo), is having a promotion in which, if you spend up to $2,500NT at once at one of their partner stores, you can deduct that amount from your joining fee of $2,500NT. So, really, it's a question of "Do you want to give us $2,500 and get nothing, or spend $2,500 somewhere else and get something?"
Big surprise, we chose the latter.
But it was not an easy task! We visited Fitness Factory on Tuesday, found out about the deal, and were given a pamphlet listing all the partner stores. It was, however, written entirely in traditional characters, which neither Rachel nor I can read. (We could read "SUBWAY," but $2,500NT worth of sandwiches is a bit extreme...) So we (and by we, I mostly mean Rachel) spent the week asking various Taiwanese friends what the places on our pamphlet were, and where we should go. With the help of Chialing, as well as Rebecca and Karen (Rachel's LETs), we got some translations and narrowed down the list to a few contenders.
And this morning, we clutched our little green pamphlet, grabbed a cab across the street (and down a ways, since the guy in the cab directly across the street was sound asleep in the driver's seat), and asked him to take us to a car store. Now you may be thinking "Cars? But you don't have a car.." which is true. Our thought was that they might also sell scooter stuff, and we have both been hankering for a better scooter helmet.
Turns out, though, that your thoughts were right--nothing doing. As Rachel pointed out, we could have gotten Ferrari bumper stickers for our scooters, but I really can't say that's something I'm in the market for.
So we hailed another cab and asked him to take us to our back-up place--a jewelry store which turned out to be right around the corner from the gym. It also happened to be a tiny little section of a department store, with prices beginning at $40,000NT. Next!
We hopped another cab and asked him to take us to either of two watch stores on the list; whichever was closest. He agreed and set out, but as we looked closer at the address on the pamphlet, we realized that even the "closer" one was in Zuoying--by the HSR station, quite a ways from where we were. *sigh* One $200NT cab ride (spendy for here, but dirt cheap by US standards) later, we finally found the store, and discovered we'd finally found somewhere to spend our money. I walked away with a great watch and a pair of cheap clear glasses (for scootering at night), and Rachel walked away with a pair of cheap clear glasses and a pair of "designer" (we're not sure if they were telling the truth...ever hear of Martini?) sunglasses. I was actually a bit disappointed, though, because they gave me a discount, meaning my total was less than the $2500 allowed. Never been disappointed about a discount before! But now I have to pay a good $420NT to join, which is unfortunate.
Anyway, since we were in Zuoying and I'd promised Karina a visit today anyway--she lives in Zuoying now--we took the MRT down to meet her puppies. They are absolutely adorable! She adopted them off of Cijin Island a few weeks ago, and though she's since discovered she can't keep them--she's taking them to Taipei next weekend to become animal therapy dogs--it was so much fun to see the little pups and watch them play. Their names are MoMo and ChiChi--combined into "Mochi" their names mean "an unspoken deep understanding" in Chinese--and they were born at almost the same time that we got to Taiwan, Karina says. I do wish she could keep them if only for that reason--they have the same amount of history here as we do! In any case, though, it was lots of fun to see them, and to see where Karina and Esther live now.
We then grabbed another cab and went back to our apartment, where Brittany (who had been at a Taiwanese engagement ceremony of the friend of one of her LETs all day) was waiting for us to go to Kaohsiung Sky Tower 85--the landmark building of Kaohsiung, which we hadn't been to yet.
So we hopped in yet another cab and went to the 85, as it's usually referred to around here. At the top (or, rather, floor 74, where the observation deck is), we enjoyed some great views and an....interesting....Tokyo photographers exhibit, before grabbing dessert (caramel apple cheesecake for me; Haagen Dazs for Brittany and Rachel; Karina didn't want anything) and heading home.
For Karina and I, anyway--we walked to the MRT and went our separate ways. Brittany and Rachel grabbed another cab and went shopping.
And that was my day! Did some application work when I got home, which I should have done all day, and now I'm sitting here doing this. At least it doesn't require a taxi!
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