Day 5 Spicy Hotpot, Martyr's Shrine, The Grand Hotel (2005-04-20)
On the fifth day of our trip, things didn't seem to go as smoothly as the previous days. First, we had trouble finding a bank to exchange for more Taiwan dollars. The first one we went to didn't do foreign exchange even though there was the usual exchange rate board with the red numbers on the wall. And then there's one which only exchanged US dollars, not yen. It was the fourth bank, the Bank of Taiwan, we went to that finally gave us some Taiwan dollars. We wasted a lot of time doing this exchange business. (Surely we could exchange our money from our own hotel, but their rate wasn't too attractive; plus we didn't think it was so difficult to find a bank that did foreign exchange.)
It was almost one o'clock when we went to a restaurant we saw the
night before when we were in Taipei Main Station area. The
restaurant was called Lin Gee Spicy Hotpot
(
)!
It has the same name
and serves the same kind of food as the one we were looking for on day
3, so we figured we would have a hotpot meal afterall. All was
well until midway through his lunch, KL found a big black dead fly in
his pot!! The staff got him a new hotpot, which KL was able to
eat some more while I was totally grossed out.
After we left Lin Gee, a restaurant we would never go back again, we
went nextdoor to get a snack called pepper bread. I saw lots of
locals buying it and the smell was so good. We waited 15 minutes
while the bread was baking in a tandori style oven. We took the
freshly-baked bread to the underground shopping area of Taipei train
station and ate it on a bench while some other people were eating
take-out lunch. The bread was the size of a very large grapefruit
with a crispy crust topped with sesame seeds. The filling was
minced and big chunks of pork and chopped green onions. It was
good but way too big for us, we were totally stuffed.
After the snack, we took an MRT to Yuanshan station
(
), from there we
took a bus (red 2) to Martyr's Shrine. It was in the bus that
came the third snag of the day. We dutifully pressed the bell
before our stop but the driver just kept on driving! Some
passengers were getting off at the next stop, so we hurried to the
front of the bus to get off ourselves. I asked the driver why he
didn't stop at our stop and he said because he saw no one coming to the
front of the bus before it reached the stop! In Japan I was so
used to being told never to stand up until the bus has come to a
complete stop to avoid injury; but in Taiwan, passenger safety goes out
the window. It doesn't matter how bumpy the ride is or how
shaking the bus is, you get up and trudge your way to the door to make
yourself physically visible to the driver and just stand there and risk
tumbling on the floor, dammit!
Although we were just one stop off from Martyr's Shrine, the stops
were far from each other on this remote part of town. We couldn't
walk the long way back under the 27 C sun. We crossed the road to
take an opposite bus to our destination. No fewer than three
buses had passed than we realized drivers would not stop even if there
are people waiting at the bus stop! (Another stark difference
compared with Japanese drivers who always stop at each stop regardless
of the presence of passengers) When we saw the fourth one coming,
I stuck myself right out on the edge of the street and waved
frantically to signal the driver. The first thing I did was to
ask him if the bus would stop at Martyr's Shrine even though I knew it
would (from the written route on the bus stop sign). I just
wanted him to KNOW that two passengers would be getting off at the next
stop. This time we had no problem and we arrived at out
destination around 3:45 pm.
Bus-load of tourists were arriving just after us to catch the
changing of guard ceremony which is performed on the hour. The
ceremony is similar to that at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. The two
guards at the gate entrance have the toughest time of all. They
have to wear metal hats on top of their thick uniform under the
sun. Their heads must feel like they are baking in an oven!
After the ceremony, KL decided to go to The Grand Hotel which is
just near by. We took a cab and were there in minutes. The
hotel is so famous because of its Chinese style architecture and
columns that tourists often go there just to take pictures. We
snapped a few shots and took a taxi back to an MRT station and boarded
a train to Shihlin station (
) to find a cafe for KL to have afternoon tea.
In Shihlin we wandered around a bit and went inside a cafe with
"afternoon" tea set (which is served all day, breakfast and dinner time
as well) and yummy-looking cakes near the counter. We spent a
good 45 minutes in the cafe and were totally stuffed again. KL
said, "There goes my dinner!"
When we went back to the hotel after our tea set, we were just so
tired and full. I waited a couple of hours and still wasn't
hungry. As much as we'd love to have another bowl of beef noodles
or more hawker food for our last dinner in Taipei, we just couldn't jam
another meal into our stomachs. Besides, we had some cakes and
fruit which we bought the previous days that needed to be finished, and
so we spent our last night in Taiwan staying in the hotel.
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