20101030 Day 11 - Joe's Cycling around Taiwan (Taoyuan 桃園 to Hsinzuang 新莊)

Huayu Hotel surprisingly provided free breakfast.  I didn’t expect much.  But for the price I paid for last night’s stay, I would rate the breakfast to be very good.  Again it was the basic Taiwanese breakfast with hot rice congee and small side dishes.

For cycling around Taiwan, I have avoided making hotel reservations in advance.  In my first day’s travelogue I stated the reason being:

“No advanced reservation is made for hotels. I will look for a place to stay every night. This is an advice from other cyclists because unexpected (rain, bike breakdown, etc.) does occur when you are on the road. Advanced reservation forces you to ride at night, which is a no-no.”

But today is different.  I am only less than 30 kilometers away from today’s destination, Taipei.  I know for certain that I will reach Taipei today.  I better find out where I will be staying before I get there so that I don’t get lost inside the vast metropolis.

What I did not realize was that many people from out of town visited Taipei on weekends.  I called several hotels and hostels and was told they were all booked for the weekend.  This is the first time I’ve attempted to make an advanced reservation and it wasn’t as easy as I thought.  I need to find a lodging alternative.

I have also tried to avoid staying at any relative’s house.  As a cyclist on a long journey, I am usually tired at the end of the day and need to go to bed early.  I also need to get up early the next morning to be on the road.  This routine is bound to intrude on other’s daily life.  Although people in Taiwan are well known for their warm hospitality, I consider that it is more convenient to me and to others that I stay in commercial establishments.  But today I have failed to find a place to stay;  I need to break this rule.  I called up my cousin Rudolf.

Rudolf was surprised and happy to hear from me.  He and I are of the same age and we once roomed together in our sophomore year.  He and his wife now live in Hsinzuang (新莊).  Their house has two unoccupied bedrooms available to accommodate me.

After solving the housing crises, I was ready to hit the road.  This is Highway 1 leaving Taoyuan and going north.


My first stop was the Chang Gung Nursing Home (長庚護理之家).   The nursing home is about 5 kilometers away in the township called Gueishan (龜山).  Here is a picture of the nursing home from its website.
 

An uncle of mine had a stroke ten years ago and became immobile.  After several years of taking care of him, his wife developed Alzheimer’s disease and had to be hospitalized too.  Now both of them are in this nursing home.  They are very dear to me and my wife.  Whenever we come to visit Taiwan, we always visit them.  In the picture, my auntie was gently and lovingly caressing her husband in a visitation area.


The nursing home sits on a hill.  After the visit, I was pleasantly sliding down the hill at high speed.  Suddenly I heard a dog barking on my right side.  I turned my head and saw a big black dog fast chasing and loudly barking at me with a vicious look.  I’ve heard of cyclists being chased and bitten by unleashed dogs.  To be prepared for this kind of incident, I carry pepper spray.  Whenever I see an unleashed dog ahead of me, I'll hold the spray on my palm just in case.  Luckily, I have so far not fired the spray at anything.  But this black dog came out of nowhere.  I didn’t see it ahead and it was too late to take out the spray.  I sped up and thankfully was able to go as fast as 40 kilometers per hour in a downslope to get out of harm’s way.  It was the scariest experience.

Next stop on Highway 1 is my alma mater, Fu Jen Catholic University (輔仁大學).


My classrooms were on the 2^nd or the 3^rd floor.


Boys’ 1^st dormitory for College of Science (理一舍).  The floor in the common area was waxed and shining all the time.  I used to like to come back to the dorm building and be greeted with the aromatic scent from the waxed floor.  The hallway outside the bedrooms was slippery from the wax and we’d playfully slide on the floor, sometimes in underwear sliding toward the bathroom.  This maneuver was copied by Tom Cruise in the movie “Risky Business” a decade later.


The building with a round roof is the gymnasium Zong-Mei Hall (中美堂).  When this gymnasium was built, Madame Chiang Kai-shek was the chairwoman of the school board.  The name Zong-Mei was derived from the middle characters of her husband’s name Chiang Zongzen (蔣中正), aka Chang Kai-shek, and her name Song Meilin (宋美齡).  Nowadays, Chiang Kai-shek is no longer being looked at with a kinder eye in Taiwan.  The connotation for the name Zong-Mei now carries a more literal interpretation as Sino-American (中-美).  The tall building in the back is the new Medical School.


Cousin Rudolf’s house is not too far from the campus. He greeted me at a gas station and led me to his house on the 9^th floor of an upscale housing complex.  We reminisced a lot while his wife very kindly put all my clothes in their washer and dryer so that I’d have a set of clean clothes to go out at night.  Rudolf had a prior dinner appointment so I asked him to take me to a subway station to go to Shihlin Night Market (士林夜市).

It was raining so the night market wasn’t very busy.  I found many tourists from mainland China.  Without them, the market would have looked somewhat deserted on a rainy night.

A long line was formed in front of a fried chicken stand.  I got into line and had a big piece of chicken breast for NTD $50 (USD $1.66).  It tasted good but the portion was too big for me to finish it.



I’ve read a recommendation for this Cantonese congee (廣東粥).  It took a while to get the food because it was cooked to each individual order.  It’s good and worth the wait.


This night market has too many food-stands selling the same things, such as oyster omelet (蚵仔煎), squid soup (花枝羹).  I was somewhat underwhelmed until I stopped by a stage in front of the market.  A nearby church was having a crusading concert.  Group after group of young men and women were eagerly belting out upbeat gospel songs.  I didn’t quite get what they were singing but their enthusiasm and devotion were clearly showing.  I admired their dedication to come out in the rain and energetically sang to a group of a less exciting audience.  I listened for a long time before I headed back to Rudolf’s house.


The next day was Sunday.  Rudolf, his wife, and I went to visit another cousin, George.  I grew up with George and was close to him.  He and his wife spent many years in upstate New York operating a Carvel ice cream shop before retiring back to Taiwan.  Three years ago, after several nights of non-stop Mahjong games during the break for Chinese New Year, he had a stroke.  He survived and recovered from a 6 months coma.  He is now living at home, able, but needs help from his wife to walk.  I was very happy to see him making big signs of progress toward his full recovery.  L-to-R: me, Rudolf, George, and Rudolf’s wife.


After having lunch at George’s house, I went to Ximending (西門町).  Sunday afternoon at Ximending is an interesting venture in itself.  The area was once the most prosperous commercial district in Taipei.  After the commercial center shifted to the east side of the city, Ximending saw its fortune declined a bit.  Now it has rebounded to become a lively mecca for young people to shop and hang out.


In front of a department store, an orchestra played for passersby.


The pedestrian zone got crowded early in a typical Sunday afternoon.


Ximending has many stores selling anything Japanese.  It is known as Harajuku (原宿) of Taipei.  Here is one of many cosplay characters seen on the side of a street.


A candidate, Yin Shau-Wei (應曉薇), for Taipei City Assembly was campaigning among cosplay characters.  Her eager assistant took this picture for me.  The candidate was very polite, soft-spoken, and with a disarming demeanor.  She would later win the election and become an assemblywoman a month after this picture was taken.


The first map shows the full island of Taiwan.  My bike ride for Saturday alone was from 11:30 position to 12 o’clock position.  The second map gives a closer view of my ride.



Vertical profile of Saturday’s ride.  After the nursing home, it was all going downhill to Hsinzuang.   The tiny step-up at far right is from the elevator going up to Rudolf’s house on the 9^th floor.


Summary of Saturday’s ride.  It was a very short distance of only 31.33 kilometers.
 

-Joe


Next:  20101101 Day 12 - Joe's Cycling around Taiwan (Hsinzuang 新莊 to Keelung 基隆)