We slept in this morning, but since had to check out by 11:00 AM we still got up early enough to do something. While Irene and James packed, I took Michelle out for another hike.
I like Alishan a lot, but quickly realized that there are only a few trails you can go on and you simply cannot tramp out across country. The last viable trail we hadn’t hiked yet was the Giant Trees Trail #2. I essentially begins and ends in the same place as Trail #1, making a completely loop when combined. I didn’t know about the trail yesterday because it isn’t on the map signs around the park, but it was listed on a paper map we had in the room.
Once again we started at the top and went down and down the steps. This time we kept catching up, passing and then falling behind a tour group. Each time we passed, they all tried to talk to Michelle, who, for whatever reason, completely refused to acknowledge them speaking to her in Chinese.
This time I brought the GPS along and measured our progress. It’s so difficult to guesstimate how far you’re walking on stairs and feet sometimes feel like miles when you’re trying to pace a 3 year-old.
It turns out the hike was 1.15 miles and we averaged 1.3 miles per hour, although at one point we reached a blistering 5.5 mph.
When we got back to the room, Irene was watching the news. Today’s big story: 5 cm leech removed from man’s sinus cavity. The news story showed the leech wiggling around, being removed from a specimen jar and being placed on a chart of the mans sinuses to demonstrate where it was.
My question was: Why the hell wasn’t that leech dead? What kind of doctor humanely removes a leech from a man’s sinuses and preserves the leech’s life? And what was that man doing? Sleeping in a mud puddle?
Being checkout day, there’s not much to do except check out, store your luggage behind the front desk and sit around the grounds until the bus comes to take you to the train station.
We finally stopped at the coffee shop and had our “free” drink which was included in our package deal. It’s a good thing they were free because a single cup of black tea was $100NT, or $3US. I was glad that, during the breakfast buffet both days I managed to drink about 8 cups of tea or $24US worth of tea! If I’d have known, I’d have had more.
The coffee shop is outdoors and very nice and relaxing, but those prices were highway robbery. Other than that, the hotel still gets very high marks from me.
We caught the train without difficulty, and, in an effort to spread out and make room for everyone on the less-than-crowded train, we took seats all over the car. I was essentially by myself for the entire ride down the mountain and had room to pop open the iBook and play some computer games and try to work on this entry.
One thing can be said about the Alishan Forest Railway: The Japanese didn’t build it for comfort. The narrow gauge train rocks back and forth about 20 degrees making reading and writing somewhat difficult.
Although I’m not generally prone to motion-sickness, trying to read the computer screen was having a real go at making me sick so I gave up, stared out the window and listened to my iPod.
Inhospitable and remote as it was, as we’d pass through the wilderness, suddenly there would appear a small path with a person or children on it, caught in a single moment of their lives, usually staring at the train and seeing the object and not the people behind the windows, but sometimes (usually the children) waving.
It made me think about their lives and how completely clueless they and I are about each other. What were they doing the moment the train came along? What course in their life and brought them there at that moment, and where do they go once they’ve left my sight? Are they real or just phantoms of the mind?
I had too much time to think idle thoughts on the 3.5 hour train ride.
We also had extra room on the ride back to Taipei, but not as much. The kids were also being more demanding of Irene and she was pretty much maintaining order for the whole ride until we got back to Taipei around 9:30.
Even back at home, James was being demanding, so I went out and got some medicine for myself to try to kick the lingering cough from my cold. While I was out, I also picked up some mango ice for Irene. Mango ice is one of those bizarre concoctions that they have here, sliced mangoes, served over crushed ice with condensed milk on it. How anyone could even attempt to con people into buying a plate of mostly ice shavings is beyond me, but she likes it and that’s all that matters to me.
Well, one other thing matters: How to order it. I had to order by number and that should be easy enough but it just happens that mango ice is #4 on the menu. The numbers 4 and 10 in Chinese sound somewhat similar. 10 is easy, it sounds like the English word “She”, spoken with a rising tone. 4 is more like… shu or shr or shi or si, spoken with a down tone. it doesn’t quite have a proper phonetic equivalent in English, but, even to my ear they are easily differentiated.
Apparently that was not the case for my pronunciation when I tried to order. I kept saying “Shu” and she kept saying “She?” Luckily the assistance of another patron who could understand me and the judicious use of fingers resolved the issue satisfactorily, but I came away rather disappointed. I really felt that, at the very least, my counting to 10 in Chinese was intelligible. Apparently not.