The Initial

So I am at Taipei International Airport with four and a half hours to spare and a free internet kiosk...
So you survived Taipei I can hear you ask with incredulity.
Barely Would be my reply!!
You see, I thought it wise... hmm "wise" is clearly the wrong word... I'll start again: I thought it my duty to explore Taipei to some degree since I had a stop-over here for a bit over a day. My temporary travelling companion, Skye, agreed. We decided over our complimentary breakfast to do something that would be regarded as worthy of a traveller, and sitting in a hotel room (albeit a 4.5 star hotel room) just didn't qualify. There were some flyers at the reception desk, but they tended to involve either another language or a multi-day trip out of the city. We were soon to discover why!!
Skye and I had the same flight itinerary, depart Sydney, overnight in Taipei, onward to Vancouver. It seemed rediculous not to join forces and explore some of the city together. Finding nothing to do amongst the brochures we agreed to just go for a walk and see where we ended up. The receptionist was able to provide me with a map. In Taiwanese. Useful. Just before we reached the main door the concierge called to us, ran up and handed us each a small card. It was their business card. Clearly he expected us to get lost and would need someone to help us back to our hotel. He obviously hadn't met any Aussies with Bush-Sense (the uncanny ability to find one's way using nothing but the time of day, the angle of the sun, your latitude, and a good imagination).
No sooner had we stepped outside and our noses were assailed with a distinct stench. Hong Kong has a distinct smell too. I sometimes catch similar wafts in Chinatown, Sydney. It is not necessarily pleasant, but neither is it necessarily unpleasant. Parts of Taipei, however, were extremely unpleasant, the rest of it just smelt bad. It was all Skye could do to stop herself from dry-retching.
We overcame this and walked down the street that the hotel was on. Pedestrians were not catered for in the planning of this area of the city (I can't speak for the whole city). It was busy with cars and trucks, but teamed with mopeds. And they had an apparent disregard for road rules as I have never seen before!! Everyone used them. Old, young, men, women, I even caught on my camera a mother riding along with her two very young children standing on the moped footrest between her legs, hooning along at breakneck speed.
I haven't seen so many mopeds in one place - except some movie set in a south-east asian city... But no foot paths!! We had to walk on the edge of the road and sometimes were forced to move onto the road to get around cars parked too close to the buildings. It was definitely an exercise in taking our lives into our own hands. We walked for a while, then using bush-sense found our way back to the hotel in time for our complimentary lunch (complete with Green Beer!!!) We now knew why the tours were all away from the city!! It was then time for a bath and a book.
A hotel shuttle returned us to the airport by 1930, just in time for our 2355 flight!!

...but anyway, this is the route. Yellow is current location, Red is where I'll be in 15 hours!

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