October 23, 2024

Not a very exciting day today.  It was mizzling all day. This word (mizzle) I learnt last time I was in the U.K. (the Lake District) it is a cross between misty and drizzling rain. Not quite enough to get you wet but damp enough to feel uncomfortable.

In fact the day started off so exciting I thought I would show you a photo of the electrical outlets in the hotel room. These are designed so that you can plug any style of plug into the socket. From Australia to the U.K. your electrical plugs will fit into these sockets, no adapters required.

We needed to get a SIM card for Ralf’s phone so that he can connect to Data and get us from place to place. We thought it would be easy, but, most stores do not open until 10:00 or 11:00.  We were both awake early at 6:00 ish. After I posted yesterday’s blog, we decided to have breakfast and venture on the quest for a SIM. We do have wi-fi in the room and Ralf found us a very un-Taiwanese breakfast – McDonalds. It was only 200 metres away, although the big yellow arches were not displayed outside. A very subtle sign on the door indicated we were in the right place. We stayed there until 10:00 and then headed out to get a Sim card, we walked miles, 9.5 kms. We thought we could get one from any phone store, but it had to have Taiwan Mobile on the outside. The first store we went into the lady had limited English but wrote down in Chinese characters where the stores were and told us she thought they opened at 11:30.

We noticed that one of the stores was open at 11:00 and we went in, this assistant told us that we had to get it from the Taiwan Telecommunications store, and directed us down the street about 200 metres. We walked much further than 200 metres and no Taiwan Telecommunications building. We headed back up the street towards the first store spotting a few interesting temples along the way.

Eventually we asked two young men and showed them the piece of paper. They pointed us to a phone shop, two stores down from where we were standing.

We were helped by a very helpful young woman, filling in all the forms and passport information, taking an extra mugshot of Ralf, she got a little confused about Ralf’s date of birth. Ralf had to sign his name, exactly how it is in the passport – Winter Ralf Johann, it took him three attempts. First was his normal signature, second he signed it Ralf Johann Winter and finally he got it right. Winter Ralf Johann. Eventually we got it all sorted and Ralf was happy. She also showed us how to tether the two phones so that I can piggy-back on Ralf’s phone for wi-fi. When everything was done she asked us where we “played” together.  We were a little confused and shocked that she would ask such a personal question. Then realized because we are wearing our matching yellow cycling jackets she thought we were in a team. We told her that we were cycling around Taiwan.

We found our way back to the hotel and planned our route out of here. We do have another day here tomorrow just to get us acclimatized and then we will be on the road. We will put the bikes together tomorrow and check them out. We have a warmshowers on Friday night and a hostel booked for Saturday.

Although there are a lot of scooters on the road, it is not as crazy as Vietnam.  I think we will survive the traffic.

We did spend some time in the shopping mall across the road and decided to have Pizza for dinner. I had a Taiwanese beer “For Women” our waiter told us. Blugh it was a fruit beer, Ralf had a Belgian Beer. The pizza was good.

Fading a little now, an early night is in store.