Taiwan Part 6 - The Case of the Lost Ticket. And Green Island (I already spoiled it)
Oh no, the weekend is ending!
So, we got to the ferry on Orchid Island to head over to Green Island, and I realized that I don’t have any of my ferry tickets. Furthermore, we couldn’t find the receipt for the tickets to prove that we had bought 6, so as to claim that I was the 6th passenger. I felt I should have noted my skin colour (meaning the chances that I live on the island are pretty slim considering its population size), that I knew very little Mandarin, and that I had to have a ticket to even get to Orchid Island, but I refrained knowing logic doesn’t work usually.
So, once we had found out that my tickets had vanished, we decided to try bargaining with the ferry people. Thankfully, the ticket dude at the ferry was nice enough to Jenny to let me on. Success! I don’t know what Jenny said, but it worked! (It’s magic)
The ferry ride to Green Island was straightforward and unexciting compared to our first ride. We played more cards, and Evan and I successfully continued our attempt at a world record losing streak in Euchre. Sigh.
I also forgot my towel on the ferry. Whoops. (That’s probably how I also lost my tickets — Me 0 Boat 2)
We arrive on Green Island to find an old woman with the strongest desire to sell I had ever met. She was trying to get us to rent her scooters for 300NT each. Jenny told her no (in Mandarin), while the rest of us laughed (in English). Then, the lady said “Okay, come to my office and we can discuss”. So, on the hope that this meant a bargain, we did. We got to her empire of scooters, just to be offered the same deal of 300NT. After time had been wasted by this crazy coot, we continued on, only to have the old woman stalk us — oh, maybe she’ll give us a lower offer?
“300NT!!!!”
Sigh.
She continued following us belching out offers and recommendations in Mandarin. Eventually, she pointed out a hostel to us and told us how nice it was. I felt like she probably, somehow, owned the hostel. I digress, however, since we ended up in that hostel. It turned out to be nice, prices were reasonable, and was situated fairly close to the ferry we’d have to catch at 11AM the next day. Fine, old lady 1 Us 1
We dumped our luggage and headed over to another scooter rental store whose owner was willing to provide us scooters for 150NT each for a day — perfect! (On a side note, Dylan really wanted to rub it in that old lady’s face that we had gotten scooters at 150NT, but we didn’t get a chance). Us 2 Scooter Coot 1. Game over!
We scooted over to the island’s lighthouse at lightning speed in order to get pictures of the water, lighthouse, and sunset combined. It was a very nice area altogether, and we get some really nice group photos. Afterwards, we headed over to a restaurant and had a seafood feast (and local deer) at a locally well-known restaurant. Very tasty, and I learned how to properly peel a whole shrimp! Learning is fun. The restaurant also had some fantastic fried octopus, better than the Danshui roasted octopus we had earlier in the week, so it earned top points! (Though the flying fish was ridiculously bony, I found)
Afterwards, we drove to an official hot springs resort to try out some natural hot springs and hot tubs. Note to everyone: If it’s night time, don’t drive on a scooter in a bathing suit; it’s not warm. Anyway, we arrived and found out that towels were not provided for free, and that in order to use the hot tubs we had to have swimming caps. We should probably have come to this conclusion before, as it was known among our group that public swimming pools and hot tubs in Taiwan require a swimming cap. Thankfully, we could still go use the natural hot springs on the beach without them, so we head inside without buying into this farce (they charged 3 bucks for rental towels — frack that!).
After people changed into proper water-lounging attire, we ran down to the beach and jumped into the hot springs. They weren’t very hot, more like lukewarm; we weren’t impressed, comparing them to the Wulai hot springs. Regardless, we stayed in the hot springs for a while, noting both the darkness inside the pool (I could barely see other people in the same hot spring) and the abundantly speckled night sky. I think this was the first time during the trip that I actually noticed more than 4 stars in the sky; Taipei and Taroko Gorge both were highly polluted by light (and on the Orchid Island we were just so busy that I forgot to look up). During this time, Megan keeps telling me how all of the other white folks are Canadian. I dismiss these as funny American jokes.
Eventually, the group decides the hot springs lack the luster and heat required to amuse us, so we took a chance by heading up to the hot tubs without swim caps. We jump into a hot tub where all of its current occupants are wearing swim caps. “We absolutely don’t stand out at all”, I thought, “we’re totally not super white and all of us have black hair” (Except Jenny).
After about 10 minutes, as expected, one of the resident guards (yes, guards) hobbles over to our pool to see how amused people are. He points directly to me and then points to his head. “Well, guess it’s over”, I thought to myself (again). I tell the rest of the group about it and decide, for the best, to get out. Only Evan agreed, as we headed out of the pool to dry off (in the cold) just outside of the hot tub.
This decision turned out to be wise for two reasons:
- Neither of us had towels and required drying off, which we did by the time we left, and
- We didn’t have the guard call in the troops on us
We chill out until the rest of the gang joins us. We didn’t get in trouble, oddly enough. We head on back after Jenny returns Evan’s shoes (she wanted bigger feet and wanted them for herself). I also realized that the white folk to whom Megan was referring were definitely Canadian based on how they were constantly saying “Oh really?” with very thick distinctly-Canadian drawls. I also very clearly came to this conclusion when one of them had mentioned Quebec City, noting to myself that only Canadians would ever really go to Quebec City and mention it outside of Canada. So, as logic dictates, I yell out at them that I was from Canada too. Found out they were all from Saskatchewan. Oddly enough, once I found that out, the conversation awkwardly ended — I don’t really know why — between me and my fellow citizens. Megan spoke with them about Taipei and found out what they were all doing, but I stopped. How strange.
Then we went back to the hostel and got some shuteye.
The next morning we all get up and get a decent breakfast for about 200NT each (for the record, that’s roughly 6 US dollars). I’ll note that I actually like Taiwanese omelets; they stuff in a decent amount of meat, and cut the omelet up into bite size pieces that can be lifted with chopsticks. I also like Taiwanese coffee, despite it being instant coffee with cream and sugar.
After eating, we scooted around the island leisurely, stopping along the way for photos. Green Island was notably more commercial and touristy than Lanyu / Orchid Island — evidenced by the existence of a 7-11 and Starbucks (I found out that the Taiwanese 7-11s and Starbucks are owned by the same person — rich man for sure). There were some nice sights, but I think Orchid had better ones. The most fun part of this island for me was in driving my scooter, to be honest, because I had enough practice at this point that I could drive at max speed comfortably and make pretty sharp turns at will. Speeding in daylight on a scooter on mostly untouched roads is rad (hello, 70s terms).
That was more or less the Green Island trip. We returned to the ferry. Again, we had to try to convince the ferry manager to let me on. At this ferry, there were notably far more people getting on (tourists generally only go visit Green Island, so there are a lot more people). It’s at this time that Jenny becomes my knight in shining armor as she strongly urged the ferry person to let me on. She spent about 15 minutes demanding this woman to let me on. Alas, we unfortunately paid 480NT in the end just to get me on. The positive note I took from this misfortune is that Jenny is an awesome little lady and I thanked her deeply for trying. I’d love to send Jenny a gift from Seattle (she’s never been to North America) and am taking suggestions of what I should send (or perhaps Maple Syrup from Canada?!)
That’s it for Green Island. Not as exciting, to be honest, as the rest of the trip. Still nice, but nothing eventful to note other than it was a nice stopover.
Next up: getting back to Taipei, and a large amount of beer at a low price. Sometimes mixed with young deer antler before ossification.
