18 March 2014
Multiple modes of transport
As mentioned on the previous page, today involved multiple modes of transport to go from Osaka to Taichung in Taiwan.
I wont bore myself by recounting the intricate details, the photos are boring enough.
I will however mention that the fast train from Osaka to the airport in the sea is infuriating, I could have walked faster, we stopped multiple times in the middle of nowhere.
It made it in the scheduled time of 75 minutes, but seriously it goes on a freight line and must wait for freight trains, its slower than the slowest of all local trains stopping all stations.
My non Malaysia airlines Boeing 777 flight was fine, very spacious 9 across seating in economy, I turned down the food. The flight was 3 hours, longer than I thought due to a timezone change between Japan and Taiwan.
Immediately upon arriving in Taiwan, apart from the new airport terminal, you notice people are a lot happier looking, smiling, messing about, joking with each other, even the airport officials.
Japan is polite to a fault, people dare not be seen to be doing anything other than their specific job. Unless you go from one to the other suddenly its a hard thing to describe.
Taichung itself, is unexplored as my hotel is right by the station, the hotel is awesome but I will talk about that later.
What I did see is smog, but a very interesting looking city area. I know very little about this city comparatively speaking.
I had remaining yen to burn. Starbucks is expensive, so it won out over the various local brands. Top tip, dont enter the departure area of Osaka Kansai airport too early! Its much more interesting before customs.
This is literally all there is after customs, and even this is only fleeting, as you are put into a shuttle truck train thing on guided tyres to a long corridor with public toilets.
Heres my plane. Im scanning for ACARS signals.
The Cathay Pacific lounge is still about as impressive as Karrathas Qantas lounge, only less food. They had cups with packets of noodles and a water boiler.
On my 4th visit to Taoyuan airport near Taipei, and they have finished the new terminal building! I wandered about to buy a sim card and find an ATM, its very nice, huge food court. I will be back early when I leave in 9 days to fully explore.
Yes I am that much of an airport nerd.
Next we go on a bus to the high speed rail. The entire aisle is filled with peoples bags. In the event of fire, everyone dies.
Its me on the high speed rail, in a non black t-shirt, a rarity. This rail unlike Osaka really is high speed, it goes to 305kmph and stays there until the next station.
The view of Taichung in the distance from the station is smog filled. I still have another train to catch!
The regular station seems to be a museum of sorts to Taiwanese railway. I will probably spend more time looking at that later also, because I also like trains, and planes, and automobiles.
The station for the regular train was old and confusing. The LED signs dont work, it seems to be an old platform reopened while they rebuild the new one.
After about 10 minutes this blue train came, I got on it. Had no idea if it was going where I wanted. Luckily I can read Taizhong central station in Chinese and knew thats the third stop. The inside of this train is very nice and modern with tv's giving lots of info.
And this is the view once I have arrived downtown. My hotel is about 50 metres behind me, a convenient underpass takes me from the station entry to the hotel front door.
The hotel is the City Inn Plus, and for $45 a night you get a modern big room, free minibar (soft drinks, chocolate), ridiculously fast internet, free breakfast, theres a lounge with a barista, and free on demand movies of which there are thousands. I suspect its a NAS and someones bittorrent collection.