Our train was supposed to leave at 1pm and we had arranged that if Yuling was available they would pick us up and take us to the train station. She wasn't 100% certain if she would be available so I wanted to be ready to leave earlier in case we needed to. I woke up around 8 and took a shower and did some cleaning of my room and finalized my packing. At 10 was my family phone call that we have every week, it was fun to be able to get on and not have to rush to class after 30 minutes, I ended up staying on for almost 2 hours and was able to talk to 3 of my brothers.
To be sure that we would have enough time to walk if we needed to I called Yuling's house at about 11:15, their cleaner/helper answered the phone and said that they would be able to take us, Joseph (Yuling's husband) would come around 12:30 to get us and if we hadn't seen him by 13:35 to call. Since I wasn't concerned about time I was able to talk some more with my family. I finished my phone call and asked Andrea if she wanted to try calling her family, by the time we were able to get her family on skype and get it all figured out she was only able to talk for 5 minutes but I think that she appreciated being able to hear their voices.
12:30 came and we still hadn't seen Joseph, I tried calling there house but the phone was busy, I tried calling the cell phones- one was turned off and the other no one answered. I was starting to get really frustrated and anxious, I knew that there was no way that we would make it if we had to walk. I kept trying to call the house and finally at about 20 till I got through, I was told that Joseph had been on the phone with his Mom and had lost track of time but that he was on his way now. We were outside waiting for him when he pulled up, he apologized and explained that he had been on the phone, he then proceeded to rush to the train, he was going really fast honking at people and zooming around them. It was quite entertaining to watch as just on Friday night Yuling was telling us how Joseph is not a angry driver, he always lets people go before him and takes his time while driving.
We got there and we still had about 10 minutes before our train was supposed to leave but they were already lining up and getting on, so we quickly got into line and found our seat on the train. Andrea and I talked for probably the first hour or so, it was really nice to just have some sit down time and to talk with each other, the last several weeks we have had some tension building between us, I am not very good at expressing things because I don't want to hurt the other person or to make things awkward between us, but I guess I'm not very good at hiding my feelings even though I wasn't expressing them, so we were able to talk about it and other stuff and just make things a lot better and smoother.
After talking we both fell asleep for awhile until right before we pulled into Taipei. We got off the train and headed towards the other part of the Main Station where the MRT (Taipei Metro System or underground trains)) was, we first need to purchase our MRT cards (electronic cards where you put money on them and just scan to pay for your ride), I needed to pull money out of the ATM before I could get my card but I couldn't get the ATM to work finally I tried doing something different and I was able to get it to work.
I had written down the instructions on how to get to the hostel, they were a little confusing but we were able to figure it out and got there safely and with no real problems. We came to the door and buzzed up that we were there. We went to the 8th floor where the hostel was and walked in, I had made the reservation in my name so I was asked to fill out a little sheet with some information about myself, 1st problem…I didn't have my passport with me ("where did you come from?" oh we are working down in Hualien…oh ok--I think that I freaked her out for a 2nd saying that I didn't have my passport with me), it was ok I could just put my e-mail instead.
I finished filling out the paper and paid her, she said let me show you your room, She walked to this room that 2 sets of bunk beds, and told us that we would be using the top and bottom of that bunk. And then she said the worse words that I could hear "and this is your roommate…Paul" my first thoughts going through my head…please let Paul be a girl who had real mean parents. That thought was quickly dashed as Paul (very much male) got off his bed to say hi. I felt bad but I quickly asked "umm…do you have anything without…boys?" She told us that she was full but that the other dorm room had been reserved by two people and they had reserved the whole room, they were supposed to have already been there, she normally gives them an hour to call but that we could wait and see if they came if not we could have the room.
We both sat down on the couch, probably both silently praying for a solution, something that would not be against our morals and what we believe. After we had been sitting for a few minutes she said "you know Beth I do have one room that is available, why don't you come and look at it" she showed us a very small room with one double bed, we would have to share the bed, we didn't care we both very quickly said "we'll take it!"----Isn't it funny though? When I had first been looking at hostel's this room had been available but then when I went back to reserve like 20 minutes later it wasn't available and now it was again! (but we weren't going to complain, we weren't having to share a room with a guy possibly even two!)
Man after that story the rest of our week is going to look pretty tame :D The rest of the evening we went out and had dinner at the Taipei Main Station, a yummy Indian pita place and then went to watch a movie at the Breeze Center, we watched Valentines Day, we were lucky that it ended up not being R (they didn't have any ratings anywhere so we went in with faith that it wouldn't be rated R or be really bad), it had a lot of big name people and had a cute story line but there were several parts that I could have done without.
After the movie we quickly ran back to the MRT (we weren't sure what time it shut down) to get back to the hostel, we stopped at Family Life to pick up some snacks and something to eat for breakfast and then went home. We played cards on our bed for an hour or so and then went to bed.
Not bad for our first day!
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| AB Taipei Trip: The Hostel |
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