The next morning I set out to explore a bit more and feeling a little peckish again, I looked for a cafe or restaurant. I saw a few places but because of the lack of English signs, decided against them until I came across a place with little plaster-cast models of different dishes in the window. Steak, Crab, Noodles and Rice and suchlike.
My first thought was that this could not possibly be a Ladies Hairdressing Salon and so I entered the establishment and attempted to converse with the very attractive young waitress in English. To no avail, I took her to the window display and pointed out something that looked like bacon and eggs. She smiled and we went back to the menu and she pointed at something, I smiled and nodded agreement.
When it arrived on my table, it was not remotely bacon and eggs but some sort of a beef noodly dish, which was very tasty, so I made a mental note to remember where I had pointed on the menu and paid and left, giving the waitress what I thought was a reasonable tip.
I returned to the same restaurant the next day and pointed at the menu at the same place and a different waitress looked at me quizzically and brought me a sort of omelette dish, this was still quite tasty, so I paid up with a reasonable tip and left.
The third day I went back and did the same thing and ended up with a fish soup. To this day I have no idea what I was pointing at on that menu. It could have been “A service charge of 10% applies in this restaurant” or “ No shoes, No shirt, No service” or “Please do not bring pets in here as they may be served up to the next customer”. After that I stayed with the “Golden Arches”. It may be plastic on plastic with a serve of plastic fries, but at least you know what plastic you’re ordering.
I decided to go down the coastal road on the east side of the island by bus and ended up at a resort near the start of the ‘East-West Highway’. I was sitting in a cafe enjoying a beer, when I was approached by a middle-aged guy who asked me in English if he could join me.
By this stage I was delighted to even hear English, so of course I said yes. He also had a younger friend who joined us, they were both trying out their conversational English. The elder of the two was a bio-ceramacist (don’t ask me what they do, something about artificial bones) who had studied and taught in the US and the younger one (who didn’t speak very much) was one of his students.
This guy was incredible, his English was a tad rusty, but almost perfect (as was probably, his Japanese and no doubt his Mandarin and Cantonese) and he was extremely well read. I asked him why Taiwan, which is such a beautiful country didn’t try to attract more Western tourists and he said that it was far better to get the Japanese tourists. The Japanese were widely understood, spent more money and were far more generous than the Westerners, so what was the point.
I also asked him why there was not far more animosity against the Japanese for them invading Taiwan, he just shrugged and said why don’t the majority of Japanese hate the Americans? Good point! I also asked him if there were any physical differences between the two races and he said not really, some Chinese can pass for Japanese and vice versa, although he may have been polite and tactful in saying that.
I spent a great couple of hours with them and learned more about Taiwan in that time than the rest of my time over there. I should have stayed in touch, but unfortunately I lost his card. From there I took a coach over the East-West Highway and it is a very impressive piece of civil engineering, with some incredible tunnels through mountains and bridges over valleys.
It was originally built for the military to get men and materiel from one side of the island to the other, in case of an attack by the sneaky Red Devils from the mainland. I would also imagine that the mountains are riddled with tunnels and caves concealing all sorts of delightful weaponry, but this is pure conjecture. From a tourist point of view Taiwan is worth visiting for that journey alone.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
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