8th April 1984: Taiwan, Japan and Falling in Love

Sunday 8^th  April  Had breakfast of hotcakes and ham with guava juice. Then met Jane to go shopping for boots, which we both wanted. But the shop we were directed to wasn’t open, wasn’t going to open and wasn’t suitable, so we wandered off to the park of the Museum of Taiwan.

There were many people there and it wasn’t raining. A lot of the people were small children – aged five or six – with drawing board, paper and writing implements. They were sitting all over the place. Most of them were doing drawings of the museum building and these were absolutely brilliant – incredible accuracy for children so young, and they hardly looked up. I’m sure kids of the same age in Western countries could not draw so well. It might have something to do with having to write Chinese characters. Some had started colouring in with water colour or texta.

 Also in the park were fête-type stalls – a sloped tube from which a water-filled balloon rolled out and was smashed by a stick was at one. Chinese men doing their slow exercises. An outdoor amphitheatre – but the event hadn’t started so I don’t know what went on.

  I bought a bag of small tomatoes for $25 – good to get rid of the coins.

Should have added this yesterday: cover of the ticket to Hualien. Cute, isn't it?

  We went up the street, Jane and I, towards the railway line. [Looking at the good ol’ Google Earth, there are no above ground railways in that part of Taipei – they’ve all gone underground, it seems.] The first shoe shop we went in, in a row of shops on the side of the line, bore some boots that fitted Jane fine. She bought them. We went back to the hotel, picked up Dee and went back to the railway line. Into a department store – Dee bought some things. Next door was the start of a series of six or seven shoe shops – all in a row – which yielded nothing for me.

  We crossed the street by way of an overpass that crossed the railway line.  On t’other side are lots of shops. We looked in one, and then another and another. Every few shops there are speakers which play songs (loudly). It’s like twiddling the dial on the radio as you walk along the path – all different songs, you see.

  The footpaths are crowded because that’s where they park their motorbikes/cycles. We went into many shoe shops and eventually I bought a pair of boots for $800, though the quoted price was $880. I think they need a lot of wearing in. (Jane’s were only $450.)

  We made a wanderbout return trip to the hotel. I bought a passionfruit drink on the way.

China Hotel receipt, including transgers gee

 The bus from the hotel left for the airport at 1.00. We duly arrived, checked in. Customs weren’t so bad except that I had to have my films x-rayed. We waited awhile for the plane then flew to Osaka. A bumpy landing there – not one of Captain Charn’s best.

  Customs at Osaka Airport took a while. We dragged our stuff to the bus stop but one bus would not fit us all in, so I stayed with six or seven others to wait for the next. The ticket machines accept notes and gave the change accordingly, ¥650 to Kyoto.

  On the way to Kyoto, I talked with a Japanese business man who had just been south to sell leather golf clubs (it took a while to work that one out). He taught me ‘conichiwa’ hello [konnichiwa], ‘adigatô’ thank you [arigatô], ‘kagi o kudasai’ give me my key. Everyone knows ‘sayonara’

  We finally arrived at Kyoto Station to meet the Holiday Inn Bus. All our baggage and two porters – no, one porter. We lost the other one. He remembered, after we had arrived at the first traffic lights, that he had left his clipboard at the pick-up place. He got out, raced back to retrieve it. Meanwhile, the lights changed, the driver did a U-y and we saw the porter, in a streak of yellow, race back towards the bus, which wasn’t there anymore because it was going back to pick him up. The driver did another U-y and we never saw the poor porter again (well, he got back to the hotel some other way).

 Kyoto was fine but chilly that night, but Room 706 was warm. The bathroom is like stepping into a caravan [a unit bathroom]. It’s a nice hotel, with its own shopping centre, McDonalds, ice skating rink, tennis courts, pool, etc etc. [This hotel doesn't exist anymore, it seems.]

 Having been here only a matter of hours, I like Japan.