Zouing, Taiwan

Our first trip, we went the fastest and the furthest we could, and ended up in Zouing (Kaohsuing).  We had no idea what to do, so the tourist office had us take a bus to Lotus Lake.

Lotus lake is named aptly.

First stop was this temple.  I don't know the name of it, because the Tourist Map we got was in Chinese!  This is not the Confusious Temple that is huge on the north end of the lake.  This is one of 2 smaller ones on the south part of the lake.

Love all the circular entryways. 

Everything is so ornate!

What an incense burner!

On the lake, across from this first temple, were the dragon ad tiger pagodas.

Apparently, if you go in a dragon's mouth, and come out a tiger's mouth, you'll turn bad luck into fortune.

This is a view of the temple from the dragon's mouth.

William met Sister Perry at the top of one of the pagodas.

I thought the twin towers were pretty cool.

                ...and so did William.                             Dragon's breath...  eww... but it's a good cause!

A bug on the pathway.

More lotus flowers.

I loved this picture most of all.

We headed to the other pagoda near the spring and autumn pavillion.

And on the way, we found this.  A fish!  I could tell you could put in money, and something came out, so I did it.  Turned out if was fish food!

But we fed the turtles instead.

Free loader.

William had people want to take a picture with him.  Most of them were Chinese tourists from China.

Spring and Autumn pavilions temple was under construction.

No worries, we headed towards the pagoda on the lake.

I thought the yellow lanterns made it so cheery.  And now you can see the pavilions and temple back on shore.

Guanyin (Kuanyin), Godess of Mercy on the dragon in front.

Don't know who this dude is.

A crow, really?  

This time you enter and exit from this dragon.  I wonder what that means?  Bad luck in...   ?

William ran the whole way out...

...and all the way back.

These guys were fishing for small little fish.

They'd then take out the hook, pull up the pot..

...and put them back in the water.  Best way to keep it fresh.

It was a cool dragon.

Then we took a taxi back out to the high speed rail station.

And I had the worst meal of our entire trip.  The egg was one of those boiled in soy sauce.  It was good, but the rice was icky, and the green beans tough and old tasting.  Ewww...

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!

Yep, we went FAST!!!

The station's control room.

A couple trains.  I thought they looked like 2 different types.  Nope.  Same kind!

William posing!

At Tainan.

The stations are new and airy.

It's coming!  Take a pic!

Camera's second pic, that's how fast it was going!

And then we got a picture of our local train arriving, and another leaving south.

They switched out drivers.

It really was fun riding all we wanted, but it kind of got old.  I did read 2 books while on these trains.

This is more typical of how many people are on the trains.