Tales from Taiwan 4

We got off to such a slow start on our last day, it’s a wonder we even started at all.

I would have happily stayed cocooned in bed, grazing upon a room-service breakfast tray, until check-out time, but the brother was pushy and insisted we see some of the local countryside.

After much grumbling and jostling, we eventually made the long walk to the metro – squeezed in a snack break en route – and hopped on the train to Tamsui – a long meandering ride that involved a change of trains, which was a bit of a novelty for the siblings.

Arrived at the charming brick station that had a noticeably Disneyland feel to it, in the sense that everyone was cute and helpful and friendly and armed with colorful illustrated brochures.

We moseyed outside and down to the riverside promenade and all the wonderfully distracting food stalls, which were already worth the train trip.  Fried octopus was a huge hit, and so were the milk teas. I bought a Yakult shake just because that particular stall was playing Selena’s It Ain’t Me, which was my jam in those days. #maoy

So engrossed were we in munching that we almost missed boarding the ferry, where to out great delight, a pair of corgis with matching canine strollers (clearly, puppy prams are a thing here) were among our fellow passengers.

It was a gray, spray-filled journey to Fisherman’s Wharf. In(advertently) keeping with the touristy moniker, a busker playing the Meteor Garden theme met us upon arrival, and of course it had  a long photogenic pier that caught the fading sunset quite prettily and had everybody Instagramming the hell out of it.

That’s not all.

They had a Lovers’ Bridge.

Nothing romantic about the great curving metal span, although it was an attractive bridge in its way, so I wondered why they named it so as we made our way across.

Found out soon enough. The bridge came to an end in a heart-shaped extravaganza of foliage and blooms, complete with a giant flower-bedecked arch that was so saccharine and sentimental that I absolutely refused to have my photo taken with it.

(I was probably the only sourpuss there, though.)

As the big sister, I shepherded us to the bus stop to wait for the red one that would take us  to the mainland – good thing I made the siblings top up their Easy Cards as the light was failing fast and I’d hoped to have us back in the capital in time for a leisurely dinner.

We stepped off the train at the Shilin night market and endured a long-ish walk to the warren of streets – some wide, some narrow, a few with darkened temples behind them, all lined with gaudy stalls and crammed with people.

One would have thought we would have gotten used to the olfactory walloping, but the smells still made me quite faint and my sister and I give up and find a mercifully quiet alley. We sat on the sidewalk to enjoy our fried fish balls and oyster omelettes and grilled beef cubes and I leaned against a pillar and pondered mortality and the lack of fire escapes.

Soon enough it was back to civilization in the hotel lobby and the smiling red-coated saviors who booked our seats on the airport shuttle. I had a total mom moment rearranging the contents of our luggage, with flashbacks to the time my friend and I sat ungracefully on the floor of the lounge at the Conrad Singapore (that blissful place) doing the same. (Have the pics to prove it, too.)

The shuttle arrived on the dot and we settled in for the TWD$145 ride to the airport (heartbreaking when I remembered how much I’d paid for the taxi) and wondered aloud why we couldn’t have nice things like this big, safe efficient, comfortable bus back home. *cries*

At the airport we were met with a cacophony of recognizable languages from the motherland, and realize that actually this is where the Filipinos have been all along.