Bike Trip Part 3 (Day 2)

We slept that night for 4 hours waking up early the next morning around 5:30 am. To ride! The sun and heat didn't really give me the option to sleep longer.

We rode for hours and hours, just peddling none stop except for the occasional 7-11 stop. At one point we didn't see a civilized town for a long time. Our water bottles got low as our skin boiled in the heat. Eventually, we stopped and asked these kind elderly people sitting on their porch for water. We ended up sitting there for 1-2 hours, being served tea, hot water and watermelon. Jake fell asleep while I stumbled over my Chinese trying to get directions. Before we left they gave us a little ice cream, fruit and hot tea to go.

These photos aren't of abandoned buildings but of actually people's homes. This is a very normal site to see houses and buildings in the country or city to be so full of junk even in some store fronts.

Fellow Bicycle-lists

We rode mostly near the west coast. Some villages had piles of clams lined up all through the town.

All day we rode using the Sun as our compass. But as it faded we continued to ride. As it became dark we ran into another young gentlemen on a bicycle. He rode past us, an hour later to be we passed by as he walked his bike along the road. The next time we saw him he caught back up to us. He began speaking English to us. We then rode along the road with him too the city of Puzi. 

 After looking at Jacob's bike he decided we needed to take Jake's bike to a bike shop. His uncle happened to own one. As they worked on our bikes more and more people began to show up. It was about 9pm, and we realized all these people came to see the Americans. Before we left there was about 15 people or more that showed to see us. They took our picture and sent us off without a bill.

After riding into Tainan we needed a little help knowing how to get to the train station. I knew if we got there we could find a hotel. After asking a 7-11 employee, one of the costumers offered to help and drive his car as we followed by bikes to get us to the road we needed.

At night everything in Taiwan looks pretty sketchy even though its not. So it is really hard to judge the unsafe areas verses the safe. We saw a sign for this hotel across the street from what seemed to be a big party area. After walking down the dark ally (picture above), and being greeted rudely by the employee of the hotel, we really didn't know what to expect. The hotel turned out to be nice and clean but very small.

We rode 150km that day to arrive in Tainan (台南) totaling about 200km for the trip.

Taiwan Night Market - Yi Zhong Night Market (一中街)

It is habitual for the Taiwanese to head to the night markets every weekend. If you go on vacation they will tell you about the famous night market in that city (having such a small country you eventually realize that everything is kinda famous).  The streets fill up with crowds of mostly college and high school students.

The night market food and atmosphere is one very similar to a carnival. They have corn dogs, candied; strawberries, tomatoes, and Taiwanese plums, many different kinds of teas, and lots of clothing stores.

Sleeping on the Job

Some people don't consider the fact of the crowds of people when trying to drive a car or scooter down the streets. For everyone else they take the next road to avoid the crowd.

What makes the night market so special is the strange smells. I would describe it but my description might offend those reading this. The stinky tofu stand is the easiest thing to find, as to the smell that helps you find its location. The Taiwanese love to share their strange foods with you and feel like your the one missing out if you don't try it. Here are some first timers trying out the stinky tofu.

Skating the Taichung Canal

Antonio Chen - Casper Flip

Me - Kickflip

My Favorite Yellow Curb

One Piece

I watched a famous Japanese cartoon called One-Piece on the Taiwanese television. The man in the picture is holding what looks like and says "Bible". In the episode I watched, it looks as though he actually kills or defeats all the good characters in the show. I don't really understand what happened but it seems as though he can read a sentence from the book and then kill people.

Here is a link giving all the bio for the character.

4th of July Celebration

They don't really celebrate 4th of July in Taiwan.
Seeing how America's birthday is so important to us. I went out and bought some fireworks with some friends and celebrated in the park. We had some fireworks that had picture of a butterfly, apparently they flew and sometimes at you.