The farewell was short due to LAN’s tight morning schedule, and I headed to the MRT station. I had Amy’s directions, which I confirmed with Google Maps, but the announcement at the station raised questions: There were several stations that looked like I could take the subway directly to my train. I asked a conductor and got the same information like Amy’s, so—no experiments!
Later, I knew: The train to Hsinchu had one stop after Taichung Station, namely Hsinchu. And I can only assume that some trains make intermediate stops, but it’s too late to delve deeper into that science.
The next thing to delve deeper into was how to make calls/messages via phone/line/WhatsApp in front of the closed hostel door in Hsinchu. Why was the E-SIM, which only provides data, interfering and usurped the call? Then I was able to get the Taiwanese SIM to work, but the number I was trying to dial was dead. There were QR codes for line and WhatsApp, but they didn’t work either. Finally, I called again using that number, but via WhatsApp (now added manually), and that worked. I was given a door code and told to drop NT$600 in the mailbox for the night.
I only had NT$1,000, so I first met Fangfang at Café Hsinchuku, which used to be a dormitory for Japanese soldiers and is now a considerate vegan cafe. (For sharing, packing leftovers to take home, etc.)
We shared good food and shared thoughts, and after a short tour of the city, Fangfang drove me back to the hostel on her motorbike. The hostel was completely empty, and it seemed like I at least had the 6-bed room to myself. Fangfang tried her best to keep the “line” running even if I switched back to my Austrian SIM card, but even the AI told her that was impossible.
In our conversation about “everything and anything” (in German: “God and the World”), I learned that Guanyin (Goddess of Mercy) is the female manifestation of Buddha. Fangfang seems to have an approach to Buddhism that may be inspiring, but ultimately, there wasn’t enough time to scratch more than the surface.
That evening, I went to a shop to buy a taro drink and on the way saw the Xinzhu Hou Zhan Night Market. It wasn’t easy to find something that was at least vegetarian, but I ended up buying a kind of dry donut, because I would and taro balls, both intended for breakfast, since I was still full from my lunch with Fangfang.
I went to bed with the fan running, not only to make the temperature more bearable, but also to dry my clothes (in my experience, it takes up to three days otherwise). But at 1 a.m., another guest arrived and turned on the air conditioning as well—I froze for the rest of the night.