With Time to Spare (Barely)

Dearest Rachel –

As much as I’ve been trained to try and get every place I mean to be as early as possible, sometimes that just doesn’t work out. I’d spent the entirety of yesterday evening uploading the mall footage from Hong Kong, and this morning dealing with the Kai Tak rooftop garden video.  The latter literally finished uploading only 20 minutes before I need to be down in the theater; so I linked the both of them to your letter, and sent it out before grabbing my jacket (because it’s raining today) and my backpack and charging downstairs, arriving with perhaps a minute or two to spare.  it wasn’t that moment that I realized I had left my ‘video’ camera back in the room.

This would not do.

I set everything down in an empty seat, and charged back to the stairs, going up two and three steps at a time in order to make it back to my room, four floors above the meeting place in the theater, and back before my number was called.  I know it takes an inordinate amount of time for the tour of groups to assemble and be called to head out, but I didn’t really want to take the chance. At the same time, I didn’t want to be left without my camera, either.  In my mind, this was a real gamble.

However, if it was, maybe I should try my luck at the casino, since I made it back only to find my group, still waiting to be called.  I even had time to write these last three paragraphs while I was waiting after returning.  Crazy, huh?

***

The walk through the terminal is nothing compared to Hong Kong, but they do take their security check seriously, with both scanners and a sniffer dog.  Granted, the contraband they’re looking for are food products; they can’t be brought onto or taken off of the island.  In my case, I had a decent enough breakfast that I don’t need to bring anything ashore; and in any event, if I get hungry, I’ll be more than happy to try something local (which I sometimes suspect is the real point of these prohibitions, and not so much some concern that a single fruit seed would suddenly overrun the island).

The bus leaves the terminal about forty minutes after I’d come barreling down the stairs; honestly, that’s not all that bad.  Our guide (who goes by ‘Joyce’ for our convenience, much like ‘Patrick’ in Hong Kong) doesn’t talk all that much for the first ten minutes of our trip, which might be for the best; I’ve heard smatterings of Spanish and possibly one dialect or another of Chinese among our group, so I suspect it might be difficult (if not impossible) to address us all at once.  Like I said before, that probably merits a completely separate letter at some point.

But she does eventually greet us all, and passes out maps for the city.  We have the option to go up to the top of Taipei 101, but apart from that, we’re on our own – which is certainly truth in advertising, as that’s literally what our excursion is called: “Taipei On Your Own.”

We arrive at the foot of Taipei 101 a little after ten or so.  The bus is to pick us up from here at 4:30, but Joyce discusses options for those who wish to return to the ship sooner.  For my part, I can’t imagine why one would; sure, I can understand getting tired and footsore, but why go to all that trouble and expense, especially considering there’s only so much time to wander around here?

Of course, it begs the question as to how. Joyce hands out guides to the city metro, and I note the fact that a day pass runs 150 Taiwan dollars, or a measly five bucks.  Hey, why not? I hop on the red line to check out Chiang Kai-shek Square, followed by what turns out to be a fairly quick detour to the local SOGO department store, which has branches on either side of a nearby brown line stop.  However, most of what it offers is of little interest to me (haute couture, or something like that) or impossible for me to take back with me (foodstuffs – as if I’d be able to get anything past that sniffer dog).  So I turn around, after a quick run through, and retrace my steps back.

Those who are interested are to gather on the observation deck for a ride up to the top floor of the Taipei 101 at one o’clock, and I make it back to the station beneath the building with half an hour to spare.  Of course, I still have to make my way out of the metro station and up to the fifth floor, so I’ve budgeted just enough time, as it happens.

It doesn’t seem, however, that anyone else has managed to do so.  I’m literally the only one there when Joyce shows up, holding the ‘lollipop’ with our tour number.  To be fair, a few of them seem to have balked at the idea of having to pay an additional price to go up to the top.  But hey, it’s not as if I would have expected it to be free – although we might have been forgiven for thinking it was included in the tour price – to do so.  So I pony up my twenty bucks, and get into the (what Joyce claims is a surprisingly short) queue in order to make my way up.  Apparently, the price comes with a free green screen photo; so that can’t be bad.

It turns out, the photo isn’t free, as such – or maybe it’s more that the frame it comes from has a price to it. I sort of feel like I’ve been had, but I did walk into this. Besides, this is the sort of thing that happens on vacation, and it’s not a terribly costly expense. In fact, it’s cheaper than the ride up to the top of the skyscraper itself, so I’m not about to complain. 

I spend a good 40 minutes wandering around the 89th floor (and above it) before I decide to return to earth. It’s been that I realize there’s just as much of a queue to head downstairs as there was to head up, which I suppose stands to reason.  And wouldn’t you know it, but I find myself next to Joyce, who’s also heading downstairs at this point.  She informs me that a handful of others have come up as well, although there are those that had their own plans (which, to be fair, was the whole point of this particular excursion), including one fellow, who was going to hit some three or four temples along the way.  Not my thing, but I see nothing wrong with that choice.

Speaking of choosing; Joyce tells me that I ought to try somewhere other than the food court beneath Taipei 101, as I would be dealing with prices and crowds.  “Every building here has a food court,” she informs me, and while she doesn’t seem to be wrong, I’m so overloaded with choices that I can’t settle on anything. Besides, I’ve been told about this one dumpling place, and it seems to have its flagship outlet at the base of the skyscraper.

Unfortunately, she’s not kidding about the crowds here. Even though it’s well past lunchtime, the crowds are insane here.  I find myself balking at the possibility of not getting my order in time.  But what else can I do, and where else can I grab something?  So many places…

By the time I’ve settled on something, and actually eaten (as well as recorded the process, or at least my first impressions of everything), it’s gotten on past four o’clock. I can make it to the meeting point, sure, but it’s actually a closer call than might have been expected. Of course, the fact that she has to wait until everyone is assembled before summoning the bus to bring us back to Keelung makes it feel like I’d had more time than all that.

Really, it was quite the eventful day, honey. I probably could have kept going for a while longer; certainly, I didn’t get as much out of the metro pass as I could have, I suppose. But all things considered, I think I covered a lot of ground. And isn’t that what matters?

Anyway, I need to get moving on to my next story, so until then, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.