Bonding at a Hot Spring
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2011
1
4
5
Trip End
Jan 17, 2011
Wulai, Taiwan
Saturday, January 8, 2011
- Jan. 8th, Day 6, Xindian misdirections and Wulai hot springs
Ultimately it would be amazing, but until then, it was quite an interesting experience. The destination? Wulai, which from what we were told, is town that features a good sized aboriginal population, which equals me being excited. Wulai is actually on the verge of being located on Taiwan's east coast/mountainous region, which (my I've used that word quite a bit) we were taught in studies is where a good chunk of the aboriginal population lives. Clear? Crystal.
It's also where there are some pretty darn good and famous hot springs. Relaxation in a town basically. MY GREAT GOSH I LOVE THAT CONCEPT.
Ok, but to get to Wulai required a pretty intense trip for a bunch of Americans who stereotypically don't speak anything besides English (ok, that's a lie - we had two people that spoke French, one spoke Urdu, another Polish, one Arabic, and a guaranteed two others that spoke Spanish - pretty multicultural if you ask me). We took the MRT to the end of the GREEN LINE, which ends in Xindian. After we hit Xindian, we then needed to jump on a bus. Of course, seeing as how none of us spoke Mandarin/Taiwanese, you would think this would be difficult.
Apparently not - nope, apparently all that was needed was a bunch of obviously not Taiwanese individuals talking about Wulai. A nice passing person told us what bus to jump on and we trusted him enough to JUST DO IT.
And great Heaven was that a bus ride. Somebody forgot to mention that we were entering the mountain territory (that and us good studious college students just completely blanked on our geography temporarily), so the bus ride was exciting to say the least. I'm pretty sure we were great entertainment for the other bus riders... especially the kid we almost we flung into as we held on for dear life. Funny story actually...
So a bus implies there is a bus driver, right? Well, it was pretty obvious that he and the kid were having a field day with our terror (all the "bai ren" back and forth kind of gave it away). Don't worry - we took it in good stride and even laughed along every time we heard "bai ren" - kind of like it was a cue to laugh. The good humor kind of died temporarily (our horror skyrocketed though) once a group member happened to hit the emergency alarm and the doors flung open right as we were turning on a pretty sharp turn. All ended as friends, though. The kid even waved as he jumped off at his bus stop.
It also turns out that Wulai was the end of the road for the bus... good thing it was our destination point! We exited, began the climb slightly uphill, and entered the market area. Thus began the search for the famous hot spring. Today must have been our groups day for destined embarrassment because we had another interesting event take place - walking down the equivalent of "lovers lane" as a group. It made total sense after being repeatedly told that all the hot springs only served two people at a time. Wow.
We eventually found our hot spring, and talk about an experience. The "baths" were separated by gender, so the boys had their own experiences compared to us three girls. I think their story was perhaps the more amusing one, but hey, what do I know? The women in the hot spring with us were actually very nice, very helpful, and our attendant didn't lead us astray into the boiling water spring first. I think we got the better end of the deal.
Plus, majority of the other occupants didn't speak English (which apparently was an opposite in the guys room), so we got away with some pretty cranky curses as we got used to the water. On the bright side, with the limited Japanese that another girl and I knew, we were able to have a pretty simple, yet decent, conversation.
So I got my hot spring visit, did something I would perhaps have never done had I been in the States where I would for sure see someone again, I traveled toward the East, and I met some aboriginals. I'd say it was a success.
