Hello Manilla.

I'm declaring the first day a do over, because I have forgotten how to travel outside of a Chinese country. First, I arrived at 3:30am. The flight was only about 2 hours, and I managed to sleep for about an hour of it. I thought it was silly to waste money on a hotel the first night, so I slept in the airport. Surprisingly well, on a concrete window sill. Normally I'd think this was weird, that people could see a sleeping guy in the window when coming to the airport. But it was the only sill NOT occupied by some weary traveler. If anything, it'd be more weird not to.

With maybe 2 hours more sleep, I set out at 7am. I got approached by a flood of taxi drivers outside the airport. Love it! I went for the bus and connected to the metro. Manila's metro is crazy. It's like the stations are flowing rivers of people, and you have to find the correct stream. It you don't, god help you. Shoulder to shoulder shuffling is the name of the game. I had no destination in mind, so I thought it would be funny to start in Chinatown.

Chinatown is not lively at 8am, so I want to go back. But it gave me my first taste of Manila - more on that later. Also, none of the ATMs would accept my card. It was fine at first, but then that turned to worry. I only had about $80 US that I converted from Taiwan to Pesos. Eventually, much later that evening, I found an ATM that worked with my American card, not Taiwanese. That's a bit annoying, and I'll have to solve that before my trip to Thailand.

So after exploring Chinatown I went to the Intramuros, or old walled city. A group of girls asked me to take their picture. It turns out they're from Guangzhou. I spoke to them in Chinese, which was a surprise. We went around the city together, looking at some old ruins and churches. Seriously, why do I meet up with Chinese tourists whenever I travel?

I stopped in a park, and running on fumes, decided to take a nap in the shade. I woke up maybe 30 minutes later and a girl in rags was standing in front of me. Quite startled, I sat up, and it turns out there were about 7 "slum kids", for lack of a better word, around. They started giggling and poking me saying "Money, money!" I went into full-on defense mode. I grabbed my bag, and raised my fist - if I had to push down a kid I would. But instead the groundskeeper ran up, yelled something and they scattered.

Continuing along, I went through a very large park, and went into the National Museum. This place was kind of depressing, because only about half the exhibits were open. And the ones that were seemed kind of half assed? I don't know how to describe it, but it seems a lot of the country is half assing things. I hesitate to make a comparison to North Korea, because, well, let's get real - nothing's that bad. But instead of a ticket, I got a scrap of paper with some scribbles on it. I'm not saying it doesn't work, or is inconvenient, but... I dunno. Anyway I had lunch at Jolibee, which is basically McDonald's. The story, as I heard it from someone at the hostel is, some guy originally opened a McDonalds. Then McDonald's changed their franchise rules, and the guy didn't want to pay. So he said "I'm going to make my own McDonald's. And our combos will come with ice cream!" So he rebranded, and now they're on every corner in Manila. I got a combo, with ice cream, for $2 US. The taste was alright. Pretty generic fast food to be honest, but I'm glad I had the experience.

After that it was onto the hostel to check in. Easy enough process, and on the way I passed a lot of street food. Some deep fried skewer caught my attention, and I asked what is it and how much. It was chicken. For 5 pesos. 40 pesos is 1 US. Each skewer had about 4 chicken nuggets on them. After 3 and a 20 peso corn, I was stuffed and less than a dollar poorer.

Back in the hostel, I had a few beers with some foreigners also travelling through. Its a nice hostel, albeit simple. I have a lot of thoughts about Manila, but that may be its own entry. For now, good night!

I got up early to pop down to Yilan for the day. I had planned on going on Saturday evening, staying in a hostel there, and having plenty of time the next day to see the sights. Looking on the internet though, there were really no sights to be seen. A few things, but nothing that looked like it would take all day. And my intuition was correct. I took one of the swanky buses there, which have wifi and power outlets on them. Something I did not know is that they have monitors in the seats like in overseas flights. With movies, games, you name it. In short, what I'm saying is that these buses are more high tech than what Boeing or Airbus are making. Get your shit together, guys.

I got to Yilan around 9:30, and went into the tourist information center by the train station to see what else was on offer. It was a small building, with an old woman working there, and a young girl standing around. I think this was her first day on the job, because the woman was showing her where things are. She was excited to see a foreigner, and told the young girl to go practice her English. She was PAINFULLY shy, and could really only muster a couple of words to me. I told her in Chinese she could speak that if she preferred, but she was still incredibly embarrassed. She went a few paces away to act nonchalant while the annoyed old lady told me what I should do in town. I hope she didn't get in trouble.

Anyway, I had few ideas for things to do, and I did have their travel brochure to look at if I wanted. I first went to the former magistrate's house, built during the Japanese occupation in Japanese style. I just walked in, took off my shoes, and looked around. It's a pretty building, but not overly exciting. On my way out I saw a few people buying tickets. At the booth I walked right past on my way in. And nobody said anything? So I apologized, bought a ticket, and then just walked out because I was already done.

The other thing I wanted to see was the Yilan Distillery. It turns out, this was one of the most awesome museums ever. First of all, they had a gallery of interesting drinking glasses. Then a bunch of kids on some sort of school trip came in. (because in Asia, schools take trips to distilleries?) The old guy working there called all the kids over, and did some silly slight of hand tricks with a coin. When he made the coin "disappear", he said he had thrown it through the floor. The kids were shocked I say, shocked! There were gasps, and a hush fell over the crowd. Then one of the kids broke the silence by saying "騙人!" (Liar!) The guy's no David Copperfield, and it was easy to follow the coin trick. Though I honestly have no idea how he did this rubber band trick. He wrapped a rubber band around his finger like 4 times, even had kids pull on it... then he blew and it just fell off. Crazy.


Right so onto the museum proper. It had some old bottles and such, some history, and the process of making alcohol. What I enjoyed though, was the "Wall of Liquor Questions". It was a series of panels you could flip over to get an answer to questions like "What are wine corks made of?" and "How did the cocktail get its name?" It was actually really cool. Some of the more interesting questions included "Why can't I maintain my erection after I drink?" and "What uses does beer have, besides drinking?" I especially liked the "Drinkers Hall of Fame" and the "Eight Drunken Styles". The whole museum was gold, so I'm going to throw up a lot of pictures now.

"Why can't I maintain my erection after I drink?"

"What uses does beer have, besides drinking?"

"How did the cocktail get its name?"

Which style are you?

On my way out I took a walk through the middle of town. I really like the layout of Yilan. There's a ring that's like the "main road", with all the McDonalds, Carrefour, modern retail things. Then in the middle of that ring, is a giant street market spanning blocks. I wandered for maybe 2 hours, criss-crossing alleys looking at all sorts of weird things. Scattered throughout this maze of roads, there were a few pretty temples as well. I still like Taipei and Kenting, but living in Yilan really wouldn't be so bad either.


Looking online, I saw there was an old police station not too far away that you could visit. Sounded interesting, so off I went. A little off the beaten path, but only about 20 minutes walk. I found the address, and sure enough it was a police station. I went in and looked around, when some cop came up to me. He asked what I was doing. I said I was here to tour the place. He gave me a look that is like "Wtf are you talking about?", and I knew something was up. I told him the internet said you could visit, and he said you most definitely cannot. I laughed and apologized, but he was a good sport about it. We talked for about 5 minutes about life in Taipei, and he practiced his English.

And that was about it for Yilan. I stopped in a noodle shop for some lunch (nothing spectacular), and then a rice shop for another snack. They were super busy, and at one point the boss yelled angrily "Hey, have you gotten that foreigners order yet?" I laughed when he said it, and he replied "Shit, he can understand me." Anyway their rice was so-so. I cut through a park to take the bus back to Taipei, but there was a train leaving in 5 minutes, so I thought I could take that. It's also the only kind of train I haven't taken yet, a kind of "middle-speed" train. Taking all the train types of Taiwan is probably the lamest personal achievement ever, but, anyway. Nothing special about the middle-speed train, I assure you. About halfway back I felt a tap on my shoulder, and some white guy asking me if this train goes back to Taipei. I said yes, and he sat down to have a chat. His name is Andy, and is a kiwi here to do windsurfing for a month. Apparently, the beaches near Yilan are superb for that sort of thing. He didn't look like a wind surfer, in his mid 50s by the look of him. But hey, more power to him. He's led a pretty amazing life, and has been to a boatload of countries. He gave me some suggestions for Thailand, and I gave him some for Taiwan. We were going different ways after Taipei Main, but I hope he has a great time while he's here. So, arbitrary Taiwan checklist, complete! This was my last excursion in the country. I can't believe it, but tomorrow evening I'm heading to the Philippines for a bit to do... I have no idea. The weather forecast looks great, aside from the crippling heat. God, I thought it couldn't get any hotter than Taiwan.