Planes, Trains and Automobiles. (Taiwan)

Planes:

One 14 hour flight from LA to Taiwan on Singapore Airlines. Much better than that stupid Air Canada flight I took. I'm so glad that through out my whole trip, I'm with Singapore Airlines. I've heard that they're good, but they surpassed my expectations. They consist of:

- Hot, wet facecloths
- A menu to choose from a variety of different meals that you can have
- Leg room wasn't amazing, but enough to stretch your legs
- The nicest staff in these cool Asian dresses
- Each chair is equipped with its own tv screen and remote
- around 35 channels, 80% are brand new movies that I don't think have even been released on DVD yet, such as Charlies Angel's 2, 2Fast 2Furious, Matrix Reloaded, Daddy Day Care, etc.
- ear phones with Dolby sound
- games, including nintendo games, I was playing like Dr. Mario and Pokemon puzzle and stuff, there was Zelda and all these other games; interactive brain games, personality quiz, etc.
- Washrooms had mouthwash, lotion, cologne, etc
- Drinking water and glasses were also provided by outside the washroom
- They give you a toothbrush and toothpaste, as well as socks to wear so you don't have to worry about your feet stinking up the whole cabin.

All in all, Singapore airlines is the way to go!


Trains

Mike and I have now been on a few different trains, within Taipei, the Metropolitan Rapid Transit (MRT) is much like the train systems in most efficient cities, ie: Montreal, Toronto, Berlin, Paris, London. The cars are all connected, so you can see from one end of the train all the way down to the other end if the train is going in a straight line.

Then we also took a train to Taipei and down south to a city called Hua Lien.
- Tonnes of leg room
- Can recline almost all the way down, probably about 145 degree angle.
- The train doesn't stop booking tickets once the seats fill up, they'll continue to sell "standing" tickets. There's handles on the sides of each seat where patrons can stand and hold for the duration of their trip from city to city. Mike and I had to do this for 45 minutes, it was originally supposed to be 3 hours, but we found seats last minute.
- To go from one side of the train station to other side is not possible unless you have tickets, which kind of makes sense, but to walk through just the station doesn't really consist of going on to the platform or anything. Mike and I had to pay 60NT (about $2.50 - $3.00) just to get to the other side of the train station.


Automobiles

So you know how Canadians have that stereotype that Chinese people can't drive? Well, its not that they don't know how to drive, they just drive as if they're back home. Everyone here doesn't really follow the traffic rules, but amazingly I think it works, there's hardly any backed up traffic and I haven't seen any accidents on the side of road yet.

Scooters
Mike says everyone calls them Motorcycles here, but don't really know what the difference is between the two. If you think about it though, a scooter is a motorized cycle. Anyway, they're everywhere! I'm sure there's way more scooters than cars.

I've never been on one until a few days ago. I was pretty freaked out at first, you've got to put a lot of trust in the driver to just hop on the back of one and go. Thank God for helmets. At first I was clenching on to the little handle bars behind my seat with all its worth, afterwards my hands would be vibrating and soar. Not to mention, my legs and ass get really soar too! I've got to stretch my ham strings wide open as I straddle the bike sitting behind Mike, try staying like that for a long time, not easily done. The last couple of days while in Hua Lien, we had rented a different scooter, and I got quite used to it. Its quite adventurous, but at the same time, really safe.

Its amazing how many people you can fit on these things! I've seen a family of 4 on one little scooter. One child will stand up at the very front, the driver (usually the father) will the be at the front of the seat, behind him is the other kid being squished by the Mother who is at the very back. Mike has seen a family of 5!

One last thing about scooters... you get filthy!!! After riding and riding through all the polluted streets, your face becomes like a sponge for soot and dirt. You scratch your face and there's dirt under your nails, lots of it! I saw some people wearing masks while they were driving and thought it was for SARS, but it because they don't want the pollution in their face!

Just like the movie!

The reason I titled this one "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" is because Mike had booked a hotel room in Hua Lien and could only find a room with one double bed and a little heart on the door. We had to sleep in the same bed and all I could think about was that scene where Steve Martin wakes up with his hands between John Candy's "two pillows"! Don't worry, it didn't happen though... phew!