Taiwan Day 3, Or "Are we really going to get in that car?"

Day three began with the sadness of leaving the sordidly sketchy hotel, and the happiness that we weren't staying there that night with the Valentine's Day Rates: Increased, displayed, and available by the hour.
We watched a lion dance on the way to breakfast, which we ate al fresco (breakfast, not the lions). It was just like Europe! Except I ate curry and had a really hard time ordering orange juice. I ended up with some sort of green tea. Tainan is the oldest city in Taiwan, rife with ancient temples, which we spent the morning locating:

Next Tainan stop, The Chihkan Tower: It was a Dutch fort in the colonial days (1620s). The Taiwanese called it "Tower of Savages" and "Tower of the Red-Haired Barbarians". I sense some contempt for the Dutch settlers. A stone rendition of the Dutch surrendering in 1661 to Koxinga, a Ming Dynasty general: After a nine-month siege, the Dutch were forced to sign a treaty with Koxinga leave the island forever. "Koxinga" is a European bastardization of "Guo Xing Ye" which means "Lord with the Royal Surname." Trying to figure out if "Carpenter" is royal. Inside the Tower resides the god of literature: He stands on a huge mythical dragon and kicks the Big Dipper. Many students were there praying to him for good grades. Wish I'd known about that in college. Around this time, I heard people speaking Cantonese--musical relief to my ears--and immediately invited myself into conversation with the HK family.
We took a train to Xinying, a city we had no interest in seeing, but there were buses from there to the mud springs--a main attraction of Taiwan. Unfortunately, when we arrived in Xinying, we discovered that the next bus out would leave in 1.5 hours. By then and the time it would take to get there, it would be too late to do anything. Oh, but what luck! A cab driver said he would drive us there immediately for about $8US. Ok then. All was well until the cab stopped in an alley, the driver told us to get out and the man who had approached us before told us to get in his car. We obliged, as good hostages do. It was a small gray Toyota (probably on the re-call list), with lace around the windows and a gun on the floor of the backseat. When Lindsey asked Gaelle if she was concerned about the gun, she said, "No, it's not even real." She was right...but still, who has a fake gun in their car? I kept trying to ask our friendly driver what his name was, but he never knew I was talking to him. In about 45 minutes, we arrived in Guangzihling, a city with many springs. He dropped us off at a particular spring and gave us his number so that we could call him for a ride back into the city. We looked down into the spring and--wait for this Christmas Miracle--we see Hugh and Susan, our Canadian neighbors from the shady hotel in Tainan! Hugh, circa 65 years old, yelled up at us, "We got in for the kid price, 350!" Duly noted. At the entrance gate, we saw the prices: 350 (about $4US) and 500. The guy at the gate asked us which price we'd like to pay.
--What's the difference?
--350 for kids. 500 for adults.
--Well, we're adults, but we're friends with that guy who got in for 350.
--Oh! He's your friend! 350 is fine. Go in. Go in.
We spent about 2 hours sitting in extremely hot water and clay, splashing an annoying kid in the cold pool, and attempting to communicate. No one spoke any Canto, but one grandma called me over to talk to her granddaughter in English. We said many profound things to each other when she wasn't hiding her terrified face from me. Grandma beamed throughout, though she understood none of it. It reminded me of my own grandma who stood by proudly when I "talked Chinese" with the guy at King's Wok in South Dakota.
We showered off the clay and called the guy with the grey Toyota. He drove us to the Lake of Fire and Ice. It was dark, so we couldn't see much of a lake, but here's the main attraction:
It's a rock, flowing with water and perpetually on fire. Water and fire do not typically coexist. There's some sort of geological explanation for it and I'm sure there's also a deep metaphorical connection I should make here about humanity and harmony, but we heard the Toyota honking at us (we told him we'd be 5 minutes). We hurriedly finished our famous Taiwanese sausages on a stick, and rode back to Xinying. There, we caught another train down to Kaoshiung (location of the earthquake a couple days ago). Walked a bit to find a place to stay then went out to the night market.


It was similar to HK night markets, but with more food and a better sense of pedestrian traffic lanes. We ate mysterious things and I found the famous "pineapple biscuits" someone in the office requested. So ends Day Three...yes, that was all in one day. Don't relax yet, the excitement of Day 4 is yet to come.