23 Aug 2007
Squareface safe in Taipei
Posted by: Squareface In: Taking in; on; and to Shanghai (or China in general)| Travelogue
I cannot elaborate on things right now because my weak internet connection may go off anytime, so here’s just to bao ping an (report that I’m safe) to you faithful readers! Despite my parents’ and friends’ concern about last week’s Taipei typhoon and this week’s China Airlines’ explosion, I’m in Taipei unscathed!
I haven’t seen much of Taipei yet, but I feel more at home here than in Shanghai. I hear people speaking a dialect similar to what I grew up listening to, and people are really friendly! To get to Happy Family Hostel from the airport, I was aware (after reading up online) that there’s a bus I can take instead of throwing money to a cab driver (which will cost me at least NT$1000). I approached the airbus counter (大有) to ask about the bus to Sheraton Hotel, which I heard was near my hostel, and in return, I was given rather detailed instructions on how to get there, because the very nice guy behind the counter actually called up the hostel to enquire the location, and then showed it to me on the map. The bus ride only costs NT$90 (S$4.50)!
The journey took almost an hour, and I walked a big round and made a detour, but I finally reached the hostel with not too much ache from the heavy bags I was carrying. I left my biggest luggage at the airport for collection on Saturday, so that I can stay in Taiwan without that huge hard thing, so at least I wasn’t lugging around that black hard thing.
Right. Now for the scoop on the hostel. It is shabby. As I’m typing now, there are ants crawling on the windowsill near my shoulder. Whenever a heavy vehicle passes by, I can feel the floor tremble. I’m on the 5th floor, and not all the staircases are lit, so it was creepy when I went to the OK convenience store to get water. A mirror in the middle of the landing did not help that experience. The common bathroom does not have any hooks anywhere, and there are so many cracks on the ceiling and the sides that I constantly felt that I have to shower fast in case anything falls. Well, for a single room in the city centre for NT$500 a night…unless I find something better I guess.
