My journey across Asia — Taiwan Part I
My fourth day
I got up at 6:30 AM and had to hurry up to be on time meeting Toshio. He is a Japanese Couchsurfer in his fiftish I got to know while I was looking for a place to sleep in Japan. The Japanese public transportation is terrible. You can barely pay by credit card and you need to get a ticket for every ride. On top of that, you had better always have coins with you. Finally I managed to come to Momodani Station and after a while Toshio picked me up with his small truck.
We then went to his favourite breakfast restaurant. Just as we sat down he started a conversation with a family from the states sitting next to us. The father, realising that I am Austrian, proudly told me that his daughter made Sachertorte (maybe Austria’s most famous Cake) at school. After chatting with the family we started talking about eduction systems, society and so on.
Toshio is self-employed and sells covers for cars. After an hour we saw each other off and I moved to Osaka Castle. I still carried my whole stuff: a 20 kg backbag, a 8 kg piece of lugagge and a small back weighted 3 kg.
It was very hot and I just made little progress. I had to take many breaks and I was short of water too. On top of that, I had to walk up some stairs until I finally reached the imposant castle surrounded by thick massive walls and two broad moats. It was really worth making this effort. I took the mandatory selfie and then carried on to the train station. I was now on my way to Kansai International Airport. Next destination: Taipei.
One thing I have learnt during my journey so far is that there is always a surprise awaiting for you. Before taking off I had to pass the security check. I was almost done until one security guard came over to me and wanted to check my wallet manually. My wallet, a Kickstarter project, was made of steel and had a beer bottle opener included. I had passed several aiport checks without any problems until…that day. So he checked the wallet thoroughly, showed it to his collegues. They asked my what the hand grip was supposed to be, since they assumed a hidden knuckleduster. They kept claiming that I could use it for that beating purpose. I tried vigorously to explain to them that there is no point in thinking of a weapon. Then they worried about the beer opener and left me alone waiting while they were discussing. After ten minutes they came back and told me that I was not allowed to carry it on the aircraft because it is against the law. I was upset and realised promptly that it was no use trying to change their minds. So I left it at the security check and felt blue during my boarding. I had been waiting for this wallet one and half year to receive it from the States and now just several months later I had to leave it in Japan.
They were certainly jealous of me having this sophisticated wallet.
After a couple of hours sleeping with my head on the table I landed in Taipei, Taiwan.
Taiwan
High humidity welcomed me and I immediately attempted to figure out how to get to my hostel. Unfortunately the Wifi-signal was rather poor and I couldn’t look at Google Maps the direction. So I texted Ying, a friend of mine, who recently moved to Taipei, and she told me to go to the main train station. I took a bus. While I was riding I could see many motorcycles on the streets. I have never seen so many in my life before. Taipei is huge, yet doesn’t have much room. The motorcycles are cheap and need less space than a car.
I got off and took the seemingly new underground. However, I didn’t find the station at once. Then, after beeing successful I arrived at the station. It had recently rained. I just wanted to have a shower and have dinner I with Ying. So I asked some locals the way and I walked streets up and down until I finally reached in the street. The street was very narrow. I didn’t feel comfortable. Since there were just few lights glowing and the supposing building didn’t appear as a hostel. Nevertheless, I rang the bell and after a while a guy opened the door. I asked him hopefully if that was the hostel but he denied. I was really exhausted as I had been travelling all day long and what’s more, I was tired of carrying my lugguage anymore. The guy seemed to be the same age as me and I asked him if he could call the hostel. It took me much more effort to persuade him as he first looked sceptical but in the end I got by. He could reach the owner of the hostel and it turned out that the hostel was in a complete different location, Andy, the owner, promised me to pick me up and so I waited for twenty minutes until he arrived. He apologised to me and you could tell that he felt bad about this. After another twenty minutes we arrived at “Little Sunshine” and I felt happy that I eventually arrived. The hostel was tiny and had a lof charme.
I had a quick shower, changed into other clothes and then met up with Ying at Xinan. There were many restaurants and bars.
I had been looking forward to meeting her since we hadn’t seen each other for more than a year. As I already mentioned, she recently moved to Taipei and now works for Google. We ate at an all-you-can-eat BBQ and had a lot to talk about. I was really stuffed when we saw us off and a taxi brought me back to my hostel.
