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Published: October 14th 2011
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When we were packed we went to the main house to use the internet and figure out where we wanted to go. After a recommendation from Diane (Hsien's daughter), we decided on Tainan. I sent a bunch of Couchsurfing requests and they invited us to lunch! Two of Diane’s friends were there cooking, Kate and Julia. Kate had made a quiche for the first time and they had lots of food, so we got a free lunch! The people were super nice and I’m really glad we got a chance to stay there…Diane was fun to chat with and Hsien was funny because he always tried to compare Portuguese and Spanish. But despite the language barrier, we had a great time.
Kate and Julia were heading to Taichung and we needed to go there to get a bus to Tainan, so they graciously offered to take us there in their car. I checked Couchsurfing really quickly and found that someone had responded! So fast! So I replied, jotted down his number, and we headed out!
They dropped us off right outside of a bus terminal and we only had to wait about 10 minutes for the next bus to
leave. We were sort of confused because after we bought our ticket the lady told us to do something and we didn’t understand, so she had to do it for us. We had to go to another counter and get a ticket number or something like that. Then we had to wait inside until the attendant called our number. He spoke English and told us that we had to wait for him to call us and that the seating wasn’t assigned. So I don’t know what the number was for. Seems superfluous to me.
The bus left at 15:39 and it took around two hours. When we got there I called Thomas (our host from Athens, Georgia) and he came on his scooter. He put us in a cab to get to his place and then we walked through winding cobbled streets to his house. There we met Bárbara, his girlfriend from Brazil, and their dog, Sato.
For dinner they took us to an overcrowded night market that only had food! It was really good and we left with our tummies full. After letting our bodies digest our food, we went to Tin Pan Alley, an open-air restaurant/bar
nearby. We had weak drinks, so switched to beer. The draft was 150 NT, pricey for us, so we left for another bar, full of foreigners. We met some of their friends and left not too soon after. Ronald and I didn’t have any more money to spend and it was late.
It’s much warmer here so hopefully it’ll be a nice sunny Sunday tomorrow!
Technical details -along the drive the landscape had the look of industrious towns – not very pretty
-most of the bus terminals are sort of like mechanic shops -- there are lots of them and they don’t have their own buildings and are sort of just plopped in between other businesses
-bus from Taichung to Tainan = 170 per person
-the houses in the area we were staying in in Tainan were conjoined. Everyone shared two walls and most of the houses were three stories high, with large brick walls and metal gates lining the streets. It was a lovely neighborhood, really. Very quaint.
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