A day of Not Nothing

Ever need a vacation after going on vacation?

My friends and family know that my trips are anything but relaxing. I have a great time, but as you can see I'm usually very active. While others spend their time relaxing at the beach or pool, chilling in a restaurant or cafe, or spending a whole day slowly wandering around, I pack in the attractions by the dozens. Rarely is there a day of nothing in my travels, unless I expect to need a "make-up" day for missed attractions and can fit it in my time off.

So I've been going nonstop since last Sunday, sometimes staying up as late as four AM and getting up as early as five AM (not on the same day, thankfully). It's not uncommon for me to go with only about four hours of sleep at a time though. Yesterday was a big day on about four hours of sleep, and I didn't get to bed until almost 2am.

Today, I was supposed to go to Hualien, a small city on the east coast, where I could visit one more amusement park in the morning, and spend the rest of the day exploring Taroko Gorge. But I decided that I'd rather save that for another trip, when I could sped more time on the coast and devote a full day to the Gorge.

I left the alarm off.

And I slept.

And I slept.

And then I slept some more.

About 12 hours later I forced myself out of bed and saw that it was already 2PM!

Wow! The day was basically over before it began. But with the evening available, I had to figure out what to do.

I was still on a mission for Taiwanese baseball cards, since only one team issue had been found. And I wanted to do a little shopping for some fun, unique items, plus some gifts. And hopefully I could fit some culture in there with a museum. To finish my day, I wanted to dine at another theme restaurant.

I'll tell you now, culture ended up being tossed out the window. It was too late in the afternoon to make it to any museums or such with enough time to enjoy it. I had read about a jail-themed restaurant not far from my hostel, but it turns out that it locked up its last patron years ago. And my initial baseball card store lead fell through.

I spent an hour or so browsing shops under Taiwan's main station, buying only some gifts to bring back to work. But an enquiry at the visitor center brought about more hope in baseball cards. I was headed back north.

I don't know what this shop was called or how she found it, but success was finally had! In one of the last places in the store I was able to look, I found a binder of a bunch of cards including many cards from Taiwan! Most were $5 each (about 15 cents US). I haven't really checked to see how many unique sets I have, since dating them will be a big chore and many subsets are included in main sets. I also grabbed a couple autographs and some insert cards. All told, I spent a big chunk of change in there, but I am happy about it! Those of you who read my baseball card blog will get details when I get back to Japan.

That store pretty much wrapped up my day. I might check for another theme restaurant (I hear there's a hospital bar where they serve shots in syringes) or just crash for tomorrow's final sightseeing frenzy.

As I was heading to the subway platform at one of the stations, I saw a strange piece of art thing. There's a cooked egg on the wall and some chick-headed woman. You can tell she's wearing panties because their outline is very visible. And water pours out from the chick head-neck area to kind of flow down the body. I didn't stop to read the text, which I'm sorry about now. Strangeness.

Until next time...