Today Jing Wo left earl in the morning. I woke up and told her goodbye then went back to sleep for a few more hours. I didn’t need to meet Jillian and Nick until noon so I wasn’t too worried about it. I got up had a lazy morning, went and got an bread cooked in egg with some cheese, very good for breakfast and cheap. Then I headed out to go meet Jillian and Nick at Zhong Shan. I actually arrived a little bit too early. I don’t really have an intuitive sense of how long the MRT takes between stations. As it turns they were running behind so ended up waiting for a good 45 minutes. It all works out though, We headed off to Brown line which is in the east. 
It actually took us a while to get where where we wanted to go. We had to make three transfers and then take about 30 minutes on Wenhu line. It was fun getting to ride the above ground train. I like being able to see the city, it also gives me a better sense of direction. We arrived and were immediately greeted by wall art of Pandas. We were at the stop for to Taipei Zoo, which has two Pandas, I want to go to the Zoo but maybe I will do so in July. We walked over to the Gondola station and hopped on.
The ride was actually about 30 minutes. We were in the Gondola with 3 Thai persons, one of which was wearing buddhist monk robes. Super interesting! The ride gave us a lovely view of the area, it was kinda neat to see the 101 appear as we got higher in elevation. We actually went up to almost 1000 ft. Not very high in terms of altitude but you take what you can get in terms of mountains. The area that we stopped at is a large tea growing area. They have lots of little farms all along the hillside. There were tea shops along the road for us to stop at.
We ended up at a tea shop with a lovely view of Taipei. It’s such a shame that the city is so polluted, the smog hangs over the city and makes it very difficult to see the city. But such is the trade off for industrialization. We ended up eating lunch and just staying at the tea place drinking the oolong tea. It was really relaxing and it was also on and off raining. We must have been there for about an hour maybe two. What was good was I ended getting to keep the loose leaf tea, so now I can brew that in my special mug. Very pleased about that as it will last me a long time.
We walked, following the road. We were having discussions of hiking over to the Second stop on the Gondola line. Though those plans were sadly shut down when we realized how long it would probably take us. Another day perhaps I will o back up there much earlier in the morning and do the full hike. We ended up instead doing the little health trail that starts at the Tea promotion center. It was a lovely 20 minute jaunt around the area. The landscapes are just so beautiful. We wandered back to the Gondolas. For some reason I was very tired and I ended up taking a quick nap on our way back, Jillian very smartly grabbed my camera a snapped a few shots of me napping. Upon arriving back at the MRT station we got some ice cream to celebrate our trip.
We headed back and again it took a long time, for some reason the trains were really congested today. Apparently it was a good weekend for traveling. Coming back to the dorms everyone was even more frenzied to move out. Trash is piling up near the trash cans. There clothes and other things thrown away. I decided that later I would go poke around for anything I needed. I went out to my lovely dumpling supplier for the last time. Since I won’t be living near the Shida night market anymore I probably won’t be getting food from their. Instead I will be eating at the Gongguan market. After that I was so tired from the day I decided to lie down for a quick nap.
After I got up again I started packing. It surprised me how quickly I finished, but I guess I don’t have very much. One suitcase, a backpack, my laptop bag and a few plastic bags for hangers and things. And that’s all I have. Nick and Jillian are going to be helping me move. I need a few extra hands to get my bed to Gongguan. There are some people in the group who are not super happy about this move and to be honest I am not thrilled either, but we shall see what happens. I’d rather not get too worked up and not be able to deal with things that might be manageable. There will be pictures and a full report tomorrow after the move.
I have also made friends with my neighbors who are also moving to Gongguan. They will be a few doors down, one of them is Japanese her name is Yuzu. She helped me figure out that I will have two Korean and one Japanese roommate. I am stoked for that because it means I will have to use my foreign languages to communicate. No English for me! My roommate also keeps giving me things to take with me, since she is leaving for China tomorrow. It’s actually really nice and I now have some snacks for studying. So that cool for me. Well tomorrow is an early day so I will say good night. Hopefully this will all work itself out in the wash.
No comments:
Post a Comment