Last Sunday yet another of Tim’s cousins drove us to Hsinchu to meet up with Christine and her family. The trip should have taken only a few hours, but it ended up taking six. We stopped every two hours along the way for—what else—food. Taiwanese rest areas are like tourist attractions in themselves. I thought the ones on the Ohio Turnpike were nice… these were like miniature malls, complete with gift shops and little convenience stores. More cheap delicious pastries and food! By the time we got there the night was shot.

Monday we wandered around to forage for food before heading back to Taipei. The sanitary conditions (or the lack thereof) were really getting to us so we ate at this funky wannabe French café that specialized in spaghetti. We were the only gaijin there. Not surprising, considering we managed to avoid the McDonald’s and KFC nearby. There are even counterfeit food chains—there’s a DFC that also sells fried chicken…

Tuesday we went to Danshui, this touristy little town on the sea north of Taipei. It was nice to get slightly less smoggy air for a few hours. Of course, smog/fog from the city obscured what would have been a great view of the mountains across the water. We started off walking through a street market with so much cheap food we literally kept a constant supply of treats and drinks the entire length of the street, stopping each time we finished the last snack to get another. Some stores had authentic-looking aboriginal crafts (except, perhaps, for the cell-phone charms). Others had really bizarre kitschy stuff—like one that sold little ceramic figurines of pigs. But these pigs were wearing clothes. Or partially at least. So you could tell they were anatomically correct…for humans. Let’s just say they had a variety of different sexual poses and leave it at that.

We saw a sign for some sort of red castle with stairs leading up to a prime vantage point on a hillside for watching the sunset. So we climbed all 106 steps thinking it was some sort of historical site. And indeed it was a nice little castle…but it had been turned into a café. We went upstairs to sit outside and enjoy the view and take pictures, but this turned out to be a relatively expensive place. We were set to order tiramisu (for the price of a whole meal elsewhere in Taiwan) so we wouldn’t just be mooching off the place. But they had a minimum meal amount you had to pay to sit there. It was only US$3, but it’s the principle of the thing—getting ripped off on food just to see a sunset. We walked out, with big neon CHEAP BASTARD signs over our heads.