Saturday, April 17, 2010

Headed South

Around noon today, we took the high speed train to Tainan. Taipei is in the northern part of the island and Tainan is in the south. The train was easy to use, and the seats were spacious and offered lots of leg room. The entire trip took just under 2 hours.
Most of the ride was above ground and included many passes through tunnels in the hills. We enjoyed seeing the different views of Taiwan. We made several brief stops at some large cities. Outside of the cities, there are lots of rice patty fields and farms . It's hard to describe some of the scenery. The houses varied from apartment buildings, to little shacks, to USA style farm homes. There was no rhyme or reason. There were also many factories along the way.
Once here in Tainan, it appears to have more factories. It's still a large city, but the high rises are not as high as Taipei. We are seeing more families here and perhaps the people have less money than in Taipei. People are very fashion conscious and "name brand fashions" are very popular. We are finding very friendly people, and I have had many little girls become very fascinated with me. Maybe it's because I'm so tall. I'm not sure, but I've had a few come close to listen to me speak. They get embarrassed when I look at them.

It's kind of strange, but we are having a bit of cultural shock here. I think it's that Taipei is a bit more International and here we feel like a bit of a novelty. We decided to call it a night.

4 comments:

Robin said...

How exciting. We never went to far out of Taipei and it is interesting to hear your impressions. Funny that the little girls are listening to you talk. Too cute. It will be interesting to see how many MORE looks you get when you have your baby girl with you:)I am looking forward to your next post. Each post makes me think back to our days in Taiwan and all the excitement about meeting our daughter. Enjoy your day.

Mare said...

I'm loving your narrative and photos! Thanks for sharing them all!

Molly said...

Thanks for sharing your photos and experiences. Hopefully, we will be traveling toward the end of the year.

Sarah said...

I felt the same way in southern Taiwan. Even had some pre-teen girls ask if they could take a photo of me.