Planalto Cycles

Peggy had to leave for work in the morning and I tried to keep up my diary. There were two days full of events and even fuller with photos (not to speak about the videos, they must wait anyway!) and it is time-consuming to decide, which pics to take for the blog, which to keep stored although I don’t upload them  and which to delete, because they are just more of the same.
I was nearly finished when Peggy came back, and we set out to Kaba, the village where Peggy comes from. A bus took us to the “center” of the village and then a friend of Peggy, Mavis, came with a car to bring us around. The first stop was at her brother’s new old house, a very old village house that he carefully had renovated and now uses as a kind of restaurant that however only opens on demand.

We got nice food and a special tea and went on to a cousin of Mavis  There, they prepared bread for the night market and the smell was all around ?

We moved on to a pottery factory specialized in temple accessories. They get orders for special scenes and must form the figures according to sketches they get. And mysterious enough, it can happen, that a customer (some temple-person) calls (using a very down to earth and at the same time still mysterious mobile phone) them because s(h)e can feel that something is wrong with a figure. Then it must be re-done.

The forming of a figure takes half a day, then it dries, gets burned, coloured and again burned, all in all a process of 2 weeks. So, this is very costly but apparently necessary to make the gods happy and so they are so good and nice to the Taiwanese….
After that, we had a short time in the garden of Mavis’ parents, where James, her son, played and Peggy and I talked about this and that.

Meanwhile, Mavis and her parents sorted paprika according to colour and size into boxes for the market and re-sellers. I would have loved to help them, but they didn’t allow it and instead I got two big, juicy and sweet paprika for my next cycling day.
We then visited a temple and now I looked at those figures in a different way. For me, there are a lot of strange things and it is even more unbelievable than Christian belief and the combination of real people living in this crazy modern world and believing in a God for money (which presupposes that money was here before this God started to exist) becomes even more picturesque when you see how they people combine an archaic belief with modern technique.

The last event was Peggy’s English class for six 6y old boys. It was so loud and lively that you could see how much fun the boys had with the games and tasks they got from her. And Peggy was very exhausted after that….

Mavis brought us back to the village’s “main square and the bus back to Chiayi. We bought something for dinner and went home and although we talked for a while and I packed my stuff and me made another Bürgschaft-recording, we managed to get some sleep before midnight.

At 5:00, my body/brain system without asking me decided it is time for waking up. There was one benefit of it, because I had forgotten uploading my last videos to YouTube and so I started my PC. Then I opened komoot, the route-planner because I was curious about the first streets that I would go on the way to Pitou, and saw a 200m-hill at ~km15. This is not the biggest climb, but enough to get sweaty and so I looked for an alternative by clicking somewhere nearby the route and adding a waypoint. Now the route was 1,5km longer but 150m flatter. I make a rough calculation with 20km/h for flat and 10km/h and 5% for climbing, everything not really true, but easier to calculate. For the flat 1,5km, I would need 4:30min and for 3km climbing 18min, so I would safe 13:30min and would have an easier ride.
At 7:00, I packed my bike and when Neil left by car, I also left.

Amy now can use a bike for going to Hyvä with Lien and that means she and Neil don’t need to put the sleeping or tired girl into the car when it is time to leave for Neil, but it also means that Lien has to be awake enough for going by bike, and this means that she was sleeping when I left, so I only could say good-bye to Neil and Amy. The problem that Austria and Taiwan are far from each other works in both directions, so it is not easier for them to meet me again in Europe (even when they use flights) than for me to come again to Taiwan by whatever means. But Amy had looked up how to get to Uganda and said it seems possible for LAN to get there  This is so nice that she made this research! It is only my idea, a wish and a plan in genesis stadium for 2025, so who knows what will be then, but when you live so far from each other, time and distance get another weighting.
The way to Pitou now was indeed flat (66m on 43km) and I arrived there within 2,5 hours. Apart for some 100m of a road under construction the surface was perfect, and the route sometimes ran through small lanes with little traffic and almost everything else was on streets with extra bike lanes.

And I have to say, I was happy with this separation, because I was surprised by the way some people were driving, not exactly aggressive but in a way politely (+ euphemistically + silly) normally described as sporty driving style.
At Pitou Junior Highschool, soon some teachers came to the gate

and let me to their room where I also could park my bike.

I was at least an hour earlier that the settled time, so Helen, who had been in contact with me and had organized this event had to go teaching. But also the other teachers cared for me in a welcoming way, giving me some treats to eat and helping me to connect to the school-internet (so, now I know how to find the MAC address of my PC).

Helen had brought me notes with questions of the pupils, some in Chinese. I now had time to integrate them into my PPP and was finished when pupils came to bring me to their classroom for the lunch break. They get a big box with different dishes and everyone brings an own bowl from home and takes out something. Students gave me a big bowl with very good food, and it took me some time to eat it up.

Meanwhile, Helen had introduced me to five students who would be ready to take part in my Bürgschaft-project, because I had watered down my regulation to record only couchsurfing friends (and family) whom I visited. It was interesting to see how difficult some words were for the respective student that was recording a line of the text and that the others not only could hear the difference between my pronunciation and these efforts, but also could reproduce it more easily. When it was their turn however, they had to face other difficulties. So, I could have got a perfect text-line by selecting and combining the best pronunciations of all five students, but it would be more confusing than funny to do that. Then, a group of four boys came, to rehearse the Ecosia-“advertisement”. During the presentation, they then had some tree branches to visualize it ?

This time, I only had 45min and additionally, Helen had to translate from time to time, so it was an extended short version and I dare to hope that I could transport the message at least partly. Now I was invited to a performing art class where pupils visualized an English word and the class had to guess what it is. First, I didn’t get the idea and thought all of them were showing a bridge, but then I learned that each of them embodied a letter of a word and it was the task to read it. After the correct guess the teacher re-formed the pupil’s pose more letter-like.

I left the class earlier, because I thought it was time for another presentation. But first I got presented something! Four boys made a traditional lion dance. This is a funny coincidence, because today I saw some temples with lions in front and wondered how they found their way to China (now in the sense of a cultural region), because the Asian lions had been living in regions around Iran to India. But with the spreading of Buddhism also the depiction of Lions came to the East.

The Lion dance was impressing, because they boys not only had to follow a coordinated choreography, they had to train those movements to look elegant and easy, although sometimes one had to carry the other one high above him and even turn around. One lion then approached me to give me a present, a bag with chestnuts. I didn’t know that you can eat them raw when they are fresh.

But finally, it was time for my second presentation, this time with a bigger audience of 3 classes, but all in all it was a similar experience like the first one.

We had some photo shootings at the end and then Helen showed me two groups of students training for upcoming competitions, one for speed running, but I only saw some warm-up and one for weight-lifting. The group we visited was 3 boys and 4 girls and I was impressed by their skills.

Weightlifting is not only a matter of strength, you must train the correct movements to prevent injuries and you have to be very fast in that moment when you bring your body under the weight with this typical quick sidestep or step forward.
Helen and I went back to the teacher’s room and talked a bit about the school system including cram schools etc.

She is aware of all those disadvantages this brings to the students and says that there might be changes but only small and little because this system is part and manifestation of Taiwanese (Chinese?, Asian?) culture and they fear to lose something when changing this system of pressure.
But now it was time to leave, the school was about to close (and still you could see pupils at the basketball playground and other areas) and ahead of me were another 50km to Chiayi.
This part of the road was as easy as the first one, and it only was getting dark soon, but most of the time I was going through populated areas so there were street lamps .
Peggy, my Couchsurfing-host in Chiayi and I would meet at the train station at 22:00 and I had more than an hour to write my diary, but still was not finished with day 220.
On this trip, I only had two warmshower host so far and Peggy was not only the first couchsurfing host on this trip, it was the first time that I got an invitation after making a public request. We walked to her apartment and talked a bit and again we touched on the topic school, because Peggy is running a cram school were many pupils usually go after school to get better mark to enter a better University to have better opportunities to make more money to… die after all like everyone else.
Soon it was after midnight and I had to give up, after a long day.

According to some routine, I went to the old market to get my (cheap) breakfast, before I would go to Louisa coffee to get something more expensive to justify my long working hours there.  This time, I first went a bank to withdraw money, which worked better this time and to a supermarket to get more of this cheap but good Taiwanese chocolate. In the first supermarket, I would have got Polish, German, Belgian, Italian and Japanese chocolate but not the Taiwanese one, so I went on to that market where I had bought it last time. Then I went to the park where Amy, Lien, Eleanor and I had been on my second evening after coming back to Taichung (see day 215). The festival apparently was over, the booths, the big pigs, the decoration was stored away and the park was being cleaned.

I ate my cheap breakfast and crossed the street to Louisa. First, I didn’t get the seat I meanwhile was used to take because it is a bit farer from the vans. I am still not able to catch the idea to cool a room down so that nearly everybody there was sitting in a jacket. This time, I stopped working earlier, because I wanted to buy a Ukulele for the upcoming ship travels of 12 + 21 +24 days. Last time, with Neil and Lien I had chosen an instrument for 3600T$ what is as much as 125€. It was the best compromise between good quality and price but I thought about the risk to ruin it during travelling and wanted to find a cheaper one. At the shop, they understood my concern and showed me one for half the price and one somewhere in the middle. My ear started to cry and I couldn’t comfort it. The seller saw my dilemma and made it bigger by offering me a discount for the good Ukulele. Now I would get it for around 100€. What should I do? Risking bleeding or grumpy ears or investing 100€ in something that I didn’t really need or could ruin?
15min later I was again sitting in the park and tried to find the chords on the Ukulele that has a different tuning compared to the guitar and was still happy about that sound – it is a real instrument, like the one Arash and I saw in that music store in Shiraz (see day 082), not just some toy. At the time, I couldn’t withdraw money (in Iran impossible for foreigners, because most credit card companies are American) and was sad that I couldn’t buy it for Nikoo.
Amy had told me that her parents had again invited me for dinner, and I had asked Carrie to reserve some of her cakes as a dessert.

I came with my new instrument and tried to play a bit.

Then we had a nice dinner with a special soup where a chicken is cooked in Taiwanese rice wine (this is NOT sake, as I now know). Amy explained that it is a tradition to serve it to women after giving birth when they stay in bed (for a month!!) and it should give them back strength. But it is also a tradition to eat it on cold winter days what sounds more dramatic than it is, so no snow storms and blizzards, but the soup for sure could cope with that, too.

Leo, Carrie’s husband was also here, and I hope he didn’t regret, because immediately he was integrated in the Bürgschaft recitation.

It was nice to talk with him (or did I just talk to him?) and so it was late quickly, and we had to leave, because Lien would need to go to bed. At home, Lien came up to the guest room with a stuffed horse and I hope she didn’t really mean to give it to me, because I left it there when I went on. It would have been hard to take it with me anyway, and I also didn’t like to imagine she later would regret if it is gone. On the other hand, I also wouldn’t like to give her the impression that I don’t like her present. In any case we played a bit with the horse, and a kind of curling with the cloth cover of my phone that slided perfectly on the wooden floor, and a kind of hide and seek with the walk-in wardrobe where I “couldn’t” find her several times. It is funny, I don’t know if she thinks I really couldn’t see her when I investigated the wardrobe or if this was part of the game for her, too, that I pretended it. When she finally went to bed, for a change I was busy finding my bike keys. I really dislike keys, because the like to be lost or not to be found. In this last case I remembered that they had been on the table and that we wanted to have this bike trip that finally had to be cancelled due to the rain and that I then did “something” with them, most probably preparing them for leaving. So, I now looked through (again!) my handlebar bag, my trousers and normal jacket (3^rd time), my bike jacket and shirt and everything nearby where the key could have landed by accident or muddle head caused. Nothing.
At that time, I was wearing my second pair of trousers, that I normally use only inside a house because they don’t fit well and now only accidentally felt they keys in one of the pockets. There is simply no reason to put the keys there…

Lien: ”Do good people also sometimes do bad things?”
Amy: “What could that be, if they are good people?”
Lien: “Maybe they don’t want to go to work?!”

Normally, Saturday should have been off school and work, but because of a holiday next Thursday, people can have a free Friday, if they work to compensate on this Saturday. So, this Sunday would have been the only chance to have a bike tour together. We had planned to get out at 6:30 for breakfast and then meet friends for a ride.
But it rained all day, the bike trip was cancelled, and we had to find something else. Neil and Amy wanted to meet another bike family from Taipei in Nanzhuang Township at a place called Hakka-Tea. There, we first played old children’s games like stilt walking, hula hoop and string jumping while we were waiting for them.

They had also some old tools and objects to see

and the traditional board game Go that Lien in a self-invented version played with me.

Amy explained to me the first part of our DIY “lunch”, a traditional Hakka kind of tea/soup crossover, called lui cha with black and white sesame, pumpkin seeds, green tea and three other ingredients that I have forgotten, but as far as I found on Ecosia, it can vary anyway.

The other family arrived, and we started from theory to practice. We had to grind the seeds with a wooden stick (Guava wood) for at least 20min so, that the oil comes out of the seeds and the mass becomes mushy. Everyone ground for a while because you get tired fast.

After that, we got another, even more exhausting exercise: for rice-balls, we had to smash cooked glutenous rice, also called sticky rice and it doesn’t take long to get the meaning of the word, because not only hammering down was hard, you also needed strength to get the mallet out again. At the end of this process, the host showed as what real power is and finished it – onehanded…

The sticky mass had to be divided into small balls and then were rolled in a mixture of ground peanuts, sugar and sesame.
We enjoyed the self-made lunch together with spicy cookies and a second kind, called “cat-ears” and a little bit sweet.

The four children aged 3,4,6 and 8, found ways to spend their time for a while by chasing or playing Go and the parents and I could sit and talk. The mother is from Kinmen Island that has a very special situation, since it is only a few kilometers from mainland China and for decades was the most endangered part of Taiwan. Instead of now bringing an incomplete overview I just report one detail. “Since the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, Kinmen has become famous for its production of knives and cleavers made from PRC artillery shells.“
One of the boys still had some homework to do and we could see his workbooks. We talked a bit about Waldorf, both families had been or are still thinking if it could be good, better or worse for their kids to be at a Waldorf school and sooner or later change to the normal system and have to face some challenges. I could not say much, because I just know from Austria that you can well “survive” outside the “system” and additionally I don’t know much about the way Waldorf school is adapted to Taiwanese reality.
I just can say it makes me sad, to see that one of the most important things for mankind, the education and upbringing is more focused on unquestioned specifications and expectations instead of giving children what they need to grow their abilities, to save their curiosity and joy of learning. Just trust them! Nobody needs to teach a child to walk and talk, they just want to master it and they don’t have a clue about grammar, syntax or whatever when the are a few months old and still, after a few years they are little philosophers and scientists asking things like “Is wind air?”

On the way back home I asked Amy why some Taiwanese still want to unite with China and was shocked by the answer. According to this, some people think, as China is so rich and powerful, also they (or Taiwan) would become richer. So, they would sacrifice all achievements that set Taiwan apart from China for something that is not even true. Of course, China is the biggest economy in the world, but India is number 3 in this ranking – anyone here who would like to unite with India because of that?
The truth is, that the average Indian, Chinese and even far too many US-citizens (number 2 as economic superpower) is poor. And even when you take the average, US is number 8, China number 75 (8640$/person – world average would be number 66 with 10600$/person) and Taiwan is number 36 (24600$/person).
It took 5 min to find out these numbers – is it so hard to understand or to communicate them?
We had another stop at the Lai Xinkui Noodle Restaurant in Sanyi to get a Hakka noodle dinner with that special black egg.

At home, we went to the roof of the house and Lien performed on her pushbike. She is so fast, and she has so much fun moving around and show tricks. Maybe I could do something to get better photos with my camera but if there is not enough light, soon photos of movements become blurry.

At 7:00 Cheryl from Nantou Senior High School fetched me, and we went to Nantou. Before I would have my first presentation, she showed me the teachers room, where also pupils come in when they need something and then brought me to her class.

The pupils rehearsed a song for the “English song competition”. At first, they only had a mobile phone lying in front of them and were singing along with the performer of the song. I should give them feedback and advice and first of all thought it would be necessary for them to hear the song better, because they were out of tune. So, we only could take the microphone to the mobile phone to make it a bit louder.

We had not enough time to rehearse together, because I had to go to another room for preparing the PC and open the links to sites, I wanted to show the pupils etc.

This time, I had a better feeling about contact to and attention of these 37 students. There are some possible reasons for that – they were older. There English skills were more advanced and maybe my attitude and way of talking to them was more appropriate. Additionally, I had changed the start of the presentation to a more dramatic one intro about activism.

So, the presentation was longer but didn’t take longer. Only because of the many photos that had to be taken, there was a delay of time and that was a problem for the second presentation, because I had no time to prepare, it was additionally confusing that we started with a big photo session when I wanted to prepare but I had to sit among the pupils and that the PC was different to what I am used to (not only because of Chinese writings!), because it was designed for presentations and for me it was hard to switch from my PPP to internet and back. But even though the audience was big (106 students and several teachers) and although the start was not ideal, I again felt in contact and got the impression that most of them concentrated on my remarks.
But for me the most touching moment was after the presentation (and the photo shooting) when one student who also had helped me with the equipment wanted to ask some questions that he had even prepared the day before. He had written them down on his phone and we talked for a while.

After those two “performances” I was relieved and suddenly felt very tired.

Cheryl and a colleague showed me a multimedia room where they can make video conferences with people around the world and their students can present something or learn something. They hope to be connected to me or my school in future, too.

Then I was invited to have lunch. The teachers extra for me had bought a Vegetarian lunch box and I liked the food.

Now there was some time to wait for the headmaster of the school who would bring me back to Taichung after attending a meeting. So, I had some time to continue my blog entry for the last day. In the car, the headmaster and I talked a bit, partly with voice translation, but when the conversation paused, I immediately fell asleep and only sometimes could wake myself up to continue talking.
At home, Neil was waiting for me and we made a short bicycle ride to Rainbow village.

The story behind these few colourful houses (a shortened abstract from Wikipedia):
“The Rainbow Village was created by Huang Yung-Fu *1924). He began painting houses in his settlement to save them from demolition. Over the years his colourful artwork has spread over the remaining houses in the village, which once contained 1,200 homes. Residents were offered compensation or new housing to move but Huang remained even after his neighbours had left and only 11 homes remained. Local university students campaigned to save the village. Authorities eventually agreed that it should be preserved.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Village

In the evening LAN and I went to a Vegetarian Restaurant run by or associated to the Fo Guang Shan monastic order. I have to read more about that before I can say anything, but apart from that what Amy told me it was strange enough to see how rich and big and fancy this restaurant was. But for the moment I can say that the food was good.

We went home and tried to get to bed early to catch some sleep for an early (6:30) start on Sunday for a bicycle tour.

Amy had got a new bike with an extra seat for Lien and together we left home in the morning. At the market, I left them to get some breakfast before I went to the post office. With the food, I sat down in a park and wondered how clean it was

(except some plastic bubble-tea cups and plastic bags) although there was not any dustbin around, something I find a bit annoying, if I have waste like a banana peel and don’t know how to keep it but also find no way to get rid of it. I prepared a package for Sevginaz, the 10y old girl in Urumieh (see day 55-57) that could talk English so well. She was sad when I left (and I was, too) and I wanted to send her “The little prince” as a present for her next birthday in April this year.

I wanted to buy the book in Taipei in Eslite bookstore (see day 211) but Li said she would give me her special edition in Chinese-English-French and Audio. So, this book would be a special present, because it has more than just the story inside to tell.
I added some of the stickers that I had got at Xinguang Junior High School as a present, because Sevginaz can also give them to friends and tell a story.
In Louisa café I started another working session and later continued it in the café/restaurant where Carrie’s friend is chef (see day 216). He suggested a Vegetarian dish, prepared and served it to me and it was great to eat warm crispy leaves mixed with a cold half boiled egg and all the other ingredients.

At 5, I went again to Hyvä

to meet Amy and Lien, but it was not only meeting, I was invited to dinner by Ela and Robert, Amy’s parents.

I didn’t only enjoy their hospitality and a delicious meal, I also took advantage of the situation and caught again some lines for my “Bürgschaft”-Project.

Amy, Lien and I went back home by bike with a little detour to the little park where Ela danced with her friends nearly every day.

At home, Amy and I made a bilingual story-time for Lien and then Lien and Amy presented a Chinese children’s book to me.

When Neil came home, he, Lien and I went out again to get some food for a second dinner (hm, first for Neil, I guess). Directly neighbouring to the restaurant was a store for music instruments, mainly Ukuleles! I wanted to look inside and didn’t see the glass door, so I heavily crashed against the door and the owners startled rushed out of the back-office, maybe the thought a robber tries to enter? I was a bit dizzy and my forehead hurt but I felt lucky that no glass had broken, neither  their door nor my glasses.

When I halfway had recovered, I tried two instruments and was pleased by the sound of one of them and decided to buy it (when I manage to withdraw money, because some problems had occurred recently, and I must find a way to solve them). At home, I also got a Bürgschaft-recording of Neil.

Then, I went to “my” room and wanted to write diary, but I got an email of Monica from Xinguang Junior High School with some feedback, questions and hints of her and her pupils, so I dealt with that to be prepared better for the next presentation and then it was late enough to sleep because another early morning lay in front of me.

In the morning, Eleanor and I went to the old market near LAN’s house and then set down for breakfast in a family-mart where she should could get a coffee. We set there for a while for talking and then said good-bye.
I again set down in café Louisa, mainly for preparing what I wanted to say during the presentation at school and then went on to the next café, Carrie’s Dessert Hyvä to get one of a creative and delicious compositions.

Later, a friend of her came and took another cake, that Carrie only recently had created because of the death of her husband Leo’s grandpa. The friend is chef in another café/restaurant, and I planned to go there the next day.
Amy, Lien and I went to the Xinguang Junior High School

and first got a guided tour by Monica.

At 4, the students and some teachers came, and I started talking about my trip and soon started to feel a bit uncomfortable, because I could see that something is going wrong, I could not get a contact to the pupil’s, I even couldn’t catch their attention. One explanation for that was that their English was not good enough for following easily. When I started talking about the topics I really wanted to share, Ecosia and “2000m²” it was not getting better, because they had no connection to these topics. But it was too late to find a way out of this situation, because it was near to 5 o’clock, so it was not possible to start a question round or some other way to meet their interest.

After this, they gave me a bag with cards and stickers and some cakes, and it was time to take photos. Now there was more life in the room and some students even started asking questions (how old and how tall are you, why do have one earring). Some wanted signatures on the information paper that Monica had prepared and extra photos. This was a strange situation for me, because I didn’t expect that after having bored and confused them, they would want to take pictures with me.

On the way home, Amy explained that pupils are very much focussed on there studies and do not bother too much about those bigger topics.
Before that, I had wondered why there are still so many bicycles in the school yard

and Han, who had launched the project “Couchsurfers in Class” and who had accompanied Amy, Lien and me, had told me that many pupils stay at school for getting extra support, then pupils go to extra private classes in the evening and even later, at home study and do their home-exercises. You could fear for good old Europe with our relaxed system and lazy pupils for the future, but there is something to add: the students are not really interested in what they learn, just in getting good grades and many of their studies seem to be of low relevance for later, not to talk about meaningful in the “outside” world, something my pupils often complain about (“Where will we need to know this?”).
This experience leaves me thoughtful.
There is a country that I like that much for its nice people and careful organisation of many things but in the end it seems a bit superficial and irrelevant what they care about. For example, I felt a bit unsure where to put my bike when I want to lock it to go in a shop. You find parking for motorcycles, neatly drawn on the street, but is this also for a bicycle? I didn’t find any other one there, so I guessed maybe not, but where to lock it in the best Taiwanese manner? Before I would do it wrong, I asked in my café-office and the solution was surprising, I should put it in the café ?
Another thought:
I know Amy and her sister Carrie a bit, and they care more about other stuff. (In Carrie’s café you find a photo about plastic, killing wales and turtles, she uses washable metal drinking “straws” and you find meaningful writings on the walls).
Where, when and how did they and others learn about topics that are more relevant for the progress of our societies and survival on this planet than filling your head with figures and facts for a multiple choice test?
At least at my school, pupils come from primary school with a high level of awareness and knowledge and many teachers try to integrate important issues in their program or offer extra activities.
But, depressing enough, this still doesn’t mean that Austria is ahead on the way to a sustainable lifestyle that would protect our planet for later generations.

At 7:30, LAN left for work and Eleanor and I went to a café with wifi and current on every table, for working as well.

I set there until late afternoon when LA came to go with us to the park with lantern festival attractions and food. Beside the usual stuff, I prepared the presentation for the schools. My goal was to make only a short introduction about me and my trip, because there are more important things. And out of those many important topics, I chose the green search-engine Ecosia that I want to promote all over the world

and the 2000m² -project that can give a feeling for those connexions between everything we do and the impact on the world.

In the park, we bought some food but after a day of sitting (and also eating/drinking something from time to time) I was not hungry enough to enjoy at least 10% of what was attracting me. The park was dominated by huge illuminated pigs in different outfits according to heroes that children know from cartoons etc.

But Lien enjoyed the soft version of bungee jumping most, maybe for 20 or even 30 min (the owner said, if after the paid 10min she wants to stay, she can)

and when we left the park

there was a lighted spot that she used for dancing for a while.

Only late in the evening at home, Lien had a breakdown because of being tired. But even then, she was not angrily shouting or furious raging like kids at this age in such situations sometimes do, she tried to argue and bargain in her sadness and fatigue. You can clearly see that there is a good relationship of trust and reliability between her and her parents you give her so much love and offer so many possibilities but at the same time are clear and give Lien orientation.

Lien: “Mama, are you a foreigner?” “No, why?” “Because you can talk in English, I only know some words!”

Li and I met at 8:30 to go to the HSR station and after a short good-bye (we will meet each other “soon” anyway, which means in a few years), she left to the office and I stayed there until 15:19 when my train left for Taichung.

Staying in this case meant to sit down in a Starbucks for the first time in my life and eating a cake. I guess it was produced in Taiwan and there was no plastic around it, so I hope the damage of this interruption of Starbucks boycott is not to harmful. Why did I do that?! Because I could sit there for hours and could plug in my PC and work. It is easy to corrupt me.

In Taichung, I took the same way back to the café of Carrie, but in less hurry, so I could see the city “coming nearer”, first through village-like areas with rice fields, then suburbs, then city and skyscrapers.

From the café, we left to a park where Lien had her pushbike class. It was impressing to see the teacher dealing with those young kids and to see them racing through the parkour and being so active for more than 1,5 hours and after the class still having enough energy to go to the playground.

It was the adults who had to stop Lien, because we had to go on to the  bike shop where Eleanor, another couchsurfer staying with LAN was waiting for us.

Gorilla, as the owner of the bike shop is called, had down a great job with my bike, it looks good, because he cleaned it completely, so all parts are shiny like new and some are.
Eleanor and rode to LAN’s home on those cool bikes.
We sat down for a while and even did a fast Bürgschaft-recording before going to sleep in a big extra room the Amy and Neil have ready to use for guests.

Amy, my friend in Taichung, know a man, Han, who had raised the project “Couchsurfers in Class” and had asked me if I would participate. Of course, I would! So, I filled in a form about me, the topics I would present/talk or discuss about and got a list of schools all over Taiwan who participate in this project. Those schools also got the information that there is someone available and so I contacted a school in Taichung and additionally was contacted by two schools 45km outside. So, I had to organize my stays and the schedule when I could go to the schools and started to make a Powerpoint Presentation for those meetings. This took until early evening and then I went

to meet Li at the Vegan Restaurant “Flourish” for a kind of good-bye dinner.

After dinner we took a little walk before going home.

What should I say? It is again a farewell situation…
But Li had been visiting me in Austria two times and I now also was the second time in Taipei and maybe this can continue in a way or other although it is quite clear that I cannot repeat this bike trip in the next years and who knows what I will be able to do later?
And Taiwan and Austria always will be far apart from each other.
With Taipei, I also leave the most North-Eastern destination of this trip and the next freighter will bring me to the most South-Eastern and also final destination:
After travelling ~255 days I should reach M&M = Markus, my brother, and Martina, his wife.