Thursday 24 October, 2024

Another quick breakfast at McD, it is only 200 metres from the hotel. That is our excuse anyway.  We had booked into a hostel for Saturday night and realized they do not provide towels.  We didn’t bring our camping towels, I never liked them. However, we did decide we needed new lightweight towels. After breakfast we headed out to Green Card Outdoor store. With the data on the phone, we were able to get their quickly. However, when we were passing the Jing Fu Temple, we decided to take a quick look inside.  We asked at the desk if there is anything we shouldn’t do. The lady said we could take photos and enjoy the temple.

This was built in 1745 and expanded in 1813. It was built for worshippers of Kai Chang Sheng Wang. We spent about an hour looking at the amazing architecture.

There were quite a few worshippers while we were there, burning incense sticks and buying “money” to burn in the outside oven.

About an hour later we were on the way to outdoor shop.

We found the outdoor shop and bought two lightweight towels. The owner of the store was very helpful and gave us a 10% discount for first time shoppers. On our way back we spotted a market area. The Nahmen Market was awesome. We both love seeing these markets and wandering up and down the aisles. A fella spoke to us in very good English and indicated that he had kimchi. We chatted to him for a while, he had studied in Winnipeg for four years and was pleased to speak to us. He was surprised we had found the market. We were the only non-Asian people there.

Another rainy day. However most of the sidewalks are covered, they are definitely not accessible for people with physical disabilities.  The material used on the sidewalk outside of the shops varies from tile to concrete and vinyl. It looks as though the shop owner picks the material, he/she likes and installs it. There are steps that are steep or just high enough for you to not notice but trip up. Then of course there is the motorbike parking. It is interesting to walk anywhere here.

We headed back to the hotel to put our bikes together. That is when disaster struck. My bike had been damaged. Well, the wheel at least. The spindle which goes through the front wheel was snapped. Ralf stopped putting the bikes together and we headed to the Giant Bike shop to see if they had a spindle.  Fortunately, he had a spindle, it is slightly different from the one that was damaged. The one I had was a quick release specific to these Montague bikes. The new spindle fits and I don’t intend on taking the front wheel of until we pack the bikes to go home. Important to note, always remove the spindles from the wheel so that it doesn’t get damaged.

The bikes are put together and tomorrow we head out to Hsinchu.