Putaansuu Post: TAIWAN TRAIN VACATION

William wanted to take these Shinkansens in Taiwan. They are far cheaper to ride here.

They are the N700 Japanese shinkansen train.

At one point, we went to one of the stops only the local shinkansens stop at, and watched a train pass. It was so fast, we didn't get any good pictures!

This one is slowing down, so it wasn't too bad.

William's reflection in the window.

One evening, they were giving out Taiwan High Speed Rail bottles.

THis is one of the toilets.

This is the toilet for handicapped, and the door into the next car.

William loved that they had these foot plate joints. No falling down onto the track!

In each car, you had a map of what was closest.

I should start at the beginning. I heard that you could buy a Taiwan High Speed Rail Pass if you were a foreigner. But, you had to buy it in advance. Well, good luck to everyone who tries this!

The THSR website wouldn't let me buy it there. Why not? I don't know that. You'd think they'd want all of the money they could get.

The small print says that once you buy it, you have a certain time to use it in. The only place I found on the internet to buy them in English, was Singapore. I didn't have time to ensure it would get to me, and I was nervous about it. So, I finally asked my Taiwanese friend, Jun-yi, to help me. She had to do it in Chinese, and they asked for the Taiwanese personal identity number (how would I have one of those?)

She even had to put my name in Chinese characters. She made sure she used feminine characters! :)

It took two tries going to the travel agency she ended up using to get the passes we bought. And then, we had to go to the station and get the actual pass. This is a fairly normal line for tickets.

This is what they looked like:

Inside, they'd put our trip, date, destination, car and seat number. We had to wait in line each time for this.

This is the time table.

Then, at EACH gate, we had to bring out our passes and our passports and show them to the folks, who would manually let us through. No printed ticket to go through the machine. Kinda a pain when you've waited in a long line, and are trying to make a train!

Other than that, it is just like riding any other train... go to the correct platform, get the correct car..

The first few we rode weren't crowded at all.

Yep, looks like the shinkansen's we're used to!

Wheeee!

Their marketing was funny. They had vending machines for some of their items. We got pencils and a luggage tag. One stuck and wouldn't fall. I got help, and he went and got a bent coat hanger, and fished it up through to help it fall. Low tech help to high tech issue!