Other than not being coated in radioactivity, one the nice things about Taiwan is that it’s easy and cheap to get there now that cross straight relations are cozy. There’s lots of flights from major coastal cities of the People’s Republic, direct into Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung. We chose to fly into Taipei, as it’s always a good starting point. Unlike the last time however, we flew into Songshan airport instead of Taiyuan International. Songshan is great because it’s right downtown, and it’s small. I love small downtown airports. Seriously, fuck all the big airports that take an hour to get to, then another hour to get through because they’re designed to be giant shopping malls selling shitty luxury brands.

So I’m sitting in the Taipei hotel room on the afternoon of March 11th, and I’m enjoying me some uncensored internet with my twitter feed going in one of my firefox tabs. One of the things I follow is this neat little bot (@earthquakeBot) that tweets every time there’s an earthquake somewhere at 5.0 or greater. It’s great because it reports them only about 15 minutes or so after they happen, and it links to a Google map and the USGS details for the quake. “CHIRP TWEET CHIRP” (the sound I imagine Twitter to make when it tweets), I look at my feed, and low and behold Japan is rocked by a massive Earthquake. I throw on CNN/BBC/Some crazy Taiwanese news channels to see whats going on, and next thing ya know they’re going into hysteria about tsunamis and Haiwaii being turned into Atlantis and what not. The first place the tsunami was expected to hit (after Japan) was Hualien…Taiwan. The very city we were headed to the next day! I swear my travel buddy must have gone threw about 5 pairs of underwear that day peeing himself in dread for the potential watery doom that awaited us. Me having nerves of steel, I brushed off the news anchors as sensationalists, which they turned out to be when only a mere foot of water swelled Hualien’s shores. If there was anything to be worried about it was that entire towns had been wiped out in Japan.

The next day we headed out to Hualien as planned via a local train. The train service is good because it takes you all the way around the coast, so you get to see a fair bit of the country. The train service is bad because even the fastest one makes dozens of stops that take a while, unlike the bullet trains that stop for 2mins at like 3 places. Hualien has a real small town vibe going on, nice and local. Everyone was super friendly, and there was none of those major arterial avenues that cut a city apart with screaming traffic. It’s also the perfect place to stay if you’re checking out Taroko National Park, which we did. It was quite spectacular. Especially if you like GORGES. I fucking love me some gorges.

Hualien is also famous for its wonton soup, so make sure you try some of that out. We did, and it was nomlicious and of course super cheap. The town has a brand new airport, and unlike most new airports (refer to above point), this one is close to the city and tiny. My planning is so last minute, I actually wait until I’m too late to do something, then go back in time to a few minutes before when I still could do it. My son of a bitch time machine was acting up that day, and I was unable to procure train tickets to our next stop, Kaohsiung. You can bet the airport came in real handy.

Kaohsiung was pretty neat, but we weren’t there for long. Perhaps it is a depressing, vermin infested hell-hole that would swallow your soul and leave you as nothing but a hollow shadow to fade away into the darkness if you stayed longer than 24 hours. We didn’t. To be more descriptive and less humorous, it was big like Taipei, but more laid back, and had really good weather. I shall definitely return.

Oh and here’s some pictures of it all:

Literati Night Market (Shilin Yeshi/士林夜市):

Infinite number of teenage girls waiting in like to buy tickets for SUPER JUNIOR:

Random Taipei:

Random Hualien and its beautiful beach!!:

Taroko National Park:

People standing around bust of engineer dude who designed a bridge that was eventually washed away by a typhoon:

Part of the road that was closed because of rockfall!:

View from the train:

Kaohsiung, the heart of darkness:

Even though Shanghai sits on the Pacific (or East China Sea for you pedants), there ain’t much beach action going on here. Seems like they’ve used every inch of shoreline for container ports, factory waste dumpage or expo grounds. So it being summer and all, some friends and I decided to trek out to Shengsi Island to get some unhealthy doses of solar radiation, and booze.

Shengsi Island is actually not part of Shanghai. It falls under the administrative incompetence of Zhejiang Province. To get there requires a taxi from wherever you are in Shanghai to the bus station underneath the Nanpu bridge, followed by an hour or so bus ride to a desolate part of Pudong where the ferry terminal is, and then a 70 minute boat ride to the island itself. The boat is the worst part, the seats are tightly packed, the Chinese tourists don’t handle the sea well, and if your stomach isn’t sick, the non-stop Mr. Bean on the TVs ensure your brain is. Avoid the washrooms at all costs. You’ve been warned.

Once you’re there, the island is pretty fucking ace. The air is as clean as you’re going to get in Asia, and that means there’s some awesome clouds doing their thing above you. Yes I love clouds.

When you plan your trip, it’s crucial you find a decent place to stay. I would not advise being bamboozled into 2 large rooms without beds for $150 a night, as our group was. Instead, there’s lots of guest houses around, and my independence seeking friend and I scored a nice air-conditioned and mosquito free place for $15 a night. Always remember to play the student card even if you’re rocking grey hair, suspenders and a sweater vest.

About those mosquitoes, you’ll want to bring the strongest repellent known to man, cause the little buggers aren’t little at all. They’re actually man eating beasts that move with the agility of mountain goats on crystal meth. I’m not really sure what that means, but they make Vlad Ţepeș look like a punk ass bitch.

The initial place we were staying at (the scamming rat bastards) had a “private beach”. What they really meant was a spit of sand covered in toxic waste from the nearby fishing/industrial village down the way. Luckily a 15 minute walk lead us to the massive, pristine Nanchangtu (南长途) beach with decent waves and practically no other people. Yeah it cost 20kuai to get in, but it was well worth being turned into a fried tomato, thanks to the Sun’s loving atomic rays.

The food on the island is mostly a poisonous variety of seafood that will destroy your intestines with the intensity of a thousand piranhas. I survived on granola bars and beef jerky acquired on the mainland. That’s called thinking ahead people. The best plan, would be to bring a small bbq, and get groceries from the town, and have a sweet rave party on the beach with glowing sweat. Interestingly, the main cash crop of the island was edamame beans that were in fact delicious.

If you can stomach other people not stomaching the boat ride, Shengsi island is a natural escape from the evil clutches of Shanghai. Just remember mosquitoes as big as 747s and seafood as bad as Michael Jackson circa 1987.

If you’re flying from Toronto to Beijing, make sure to get on the direct flight. The airplanes are the most modern in the fleet and every seat has its own standard electric plug and TV. Compare that to flying with a connection through Vancouver where you’ll be on jets that feel like Russian hand me downs. Before you get to the Beijing airport, stock up on all necessary goods. Once inside the giant liquor and cigarette warehouse that is PEK, you won’t be able to find any decent food, reading material or batteries, which I learned the hard way. You will be able to find lots of overpriced but duty free booze, and 4 stores selling the exact same Olympic merchandise adorned with the rainbow gremlins.

I noticed all the usual things once back in Canada, for example the streets are quiet, the air is so clean, everyone is obese, etc. There’s also some other things that I noticed that probably aren’t as normal. The service here blows. In China I do find it mildly irritating having a chorus of “欢饮光临” everywhere I go, but I never realized not having it and being totally ignored would be so much more annoying. There’s no hustle. People cross the streets whether or not they have the right of way as if they were immortal beings and time didn’t exist. Back in the PRC, they scurry across like little squirrels trying to avoid the onslaught of poorly built and poorly driven vehicles. Finally an obvious one: everything here is absurdly expensive. $2.75 to take the bus, are you kidding me? I can take the bus twenty freakin times for that price. Tonight I just had dinner for $30 and it wasn’t even that great. For that price I could have dinner for two at the fanciest restaurant in town OR I could eat so much street food that I’d need to see a proctologist.

It’s nice to see everyone again, which is the principal reason I came back. It’s good that I’m only around till next Friday though, cause with my world class whining, I’m sure they’re already counting down the days. Finally I’d like to announce to the world my discovery that jet lag is a bitch. I’m sure the scientists of the world have been waiting for such a breakthrough announcement. No matter how many sleeping pills you pop, no matter how soft your bed is, you’re still sure to screwed by random intervals of exhaustion and waking up in the night from sweet sweet dreams of cars honking and people horking.

Thanks to Mark for the turkey.

]]> http://dragonhunting.com/2007/re-entry/feed/ 1 http://dragonhunting.com/2007/that-place-outside-of-tokyo/ http://dragonhunting.com/2007/that-place-outside-of-tokyo/#comments Thu, 09 Aug 2007 12:38:08 +0000 james http://dragonhunting.com/?p=36 For the first time I made it outside of the mass of humanity that is the Kanto area. I decided instead of forking over $900 to the greedy airlines to take me on a two hour flight from Narita to Qingdao, I’d take the train and boat super happy combination vacation.

The bullet trains out of Tokyo Station run more than every hour, and they take you from there all the way down to Kokura, the northern most city on the island of Kyushu, in about 5 hours and a bit. There are different kinds of bullet trains, and I opted for the one that allowed me to see the beautiful Japanese countryside at 300KM/h. They call it the Noizumi and it’s about $200 one way. May seem a bit much, but it makes few stops, the seats are big, there’s tons of leg room and you get to check out Kyoto and Hiroshima on the way. A lot of the time you spend barreling through the darkness of mountain tunnels. It can be strange going at that speed on ground for extensive distances. If the train were to hit anything on the tracks, or even worse, collide with another train, it would probably give Hiroshima a run for it’s money.

Once I made it to Kokura, I had to transfer to another train and backtrack to Shimonoseki, where all the ferries to China and Korea were. This was no easy task being as I was caring around all my luggage and a bike, and there were no directions on where to go to switch trains. I somehow accomplished this using my superpower of reading overhead signs in Japanese. Hint: look for the symbols printed on your ticket.

I finally arrived in Shimonoseki around 7:30, exactly 30 minutes after the city had officially shut down for the night. I checked into the Wing International Hotel, conveniently a minute’s walk from the train station, and proceeded to the nearest 7/11 where I acquired several rations of microwave gyoza (something I am strangely addicted to), Sapporo Draft and dried fruit snacks.

The next day, I assembled my long dormant bike and spent most of the day cruising around the city. At first it reminded me so much of Kitchener, because it’s really only that big, and had a real towny feel to it, but then it started to remind me of Preston, because the average age of the population appears to be 76. There really wasn’t anyone around and it was eerily quiet other than the random old Japanese person walking by. The city is clean, not as anti-septic as Tokyo, but better than anywhere in China. The waterfront is nice, lots of little piers and boardwalks and there’s a Marineland type deal with windows where you can check out the dolphins who will give you the “free willy” look. One of the interesting things I saw as I pedaled along was a fisherman catching a medium sized octopus which I’ve never seen done before, and the bait he had used was a squid.

Later in the day I picked up my $160 dollar boat ticket, which has gotta be one of the cheapest ways to get to and from this island, and I figured that being as it was to be my last night in Japan I might as well have sushi. While I was at the travel agency, I asked the helpful agent where the best place was in town. She pointed me to this place called Karato Ichiba, a fish warehouse, and told me to head to the second floor.

So I left around 6:15, and arrived at the place but it looked dead. I began thinking she had played a little joke on the gaijin, but I climbed up to the 2nd floor and sure enough nestled in between the offices of the warehouse was a sushi place. And what a place it was, it had a multi-page waiting list, where you had to write down your name, then go wander around and wait for the lady to shout your name. Luckily I was on my own, and even though there was a relaxing looking sunset going on outside, I quickly got called up to take my place at the sushi bar. I then tried very hard to put several species of fish into extinction. The sushi was so damn good, I don’t even know what to compare it to. The fish was so fresh as the warehouse was downstairs. Every morsel was like eating a piece of molten butter. I know that sounds disgusting, but both you and I know, if it weren’t horribly fattening, we would do it. It was so smooth and there was no fishy taste to it at all. If I was blindfolded, I wouldn’t have even known what the hell I was eating. These fish were obviously caught with the bare hands of virgin supermodels in the crystal clear lakes of Elysium. I ate a pretty massive amount and picked more than my fair share of the more expensive fatty fish sushis, had a draft Asahi, and the bill only came out to $34. I bet tubby cockneys spend more than that on frozen fish sticks.

So now I’m almost out of this interesting little city in south Japan. I leave in the morning, and I’ll be oddly happy to get back to Qingdao and into a place where I can understand the swear words the locals are yelling at me. I like Japan, but unless you know the language, you’re pretty much as useless as a girl in a gay bar cause very few people speak English, and once you get into the smaller cities, it’s only the travel agents and the one guy in the Hotel. Also I can’t help but feel like I’m getting the stink eye from some of the older people, which is almost everyone, but I don’t really care. One more funny thing about this town, apparently it’s the capital of the Fugu fish, the puffer fish that only has a tiny little piece of edible meat, and the rest is deadly. Every year some poor wanker dies from eating one. No, this year that wanker will not be me.