Leofoo Village Amusement Park AKA Fun Puking Racist Broken Rides

I woke up early Tuesday morning and it was pouring, so I was pretty sure our plans to go the Leofoo amusement park would have to be canceled. I was gutted! But by 10am the sky started to clear, the sun came out and Nareesa and I jumped on the high speed rail to Hsinchu- about 90KM south of Taipei. When we got to Hsinchu we took an expensive taxi ($550NT!) to the amusement park, past a long strip of betel nut stores and desolate-looking slums. I've read that Hsinchu has the wealthiest population of any city in Taiwan, so we must not have been driving through the main part of the city because it was a pretty sorry sight. I'm sure we'll be back to Hsinchu, though, because en route to Leofoo we saw a road sign for the "Little Ding Dong Science Pakr". Sounds amazing!


When we got to Leofoo the first thing I noticed was that every single ticket booth was closed and no one was around. After wandering around a bit we found a worker at the second set of gates who pointed us towards a guest services office to purchase our tickets. At $890NT ($27CAN) the admission wasn't toooooo expensive but it was pricey for Taiwan, and when we approached our first ride- a very cool looking roller coaster called the "Screaming Condor"- and a sign said it would be closed all day we started to question the value of the admission price. Over the course of the day we found 3 different big rides were closed, among other things that weren't operating. The park wasn't very busy, so I wonder if they just don't run the big rides on weekdays as a way to save money?


A sign in the "Wild West" area of the park, which also featured a merged Halloween/Christmas theme. For example, there were snowmen with pumpkin faces... joint-holidays were possibly another money-saving concept.


The first ride we went on was this lazy river-type ride which, according to the signage, featured "fluent water". Before we got on the ride we were given a poncho that someone had left behind and we tried to cover ourselves up with it, but we still got soaked! This was a fun ride.


As soon as you leave the ride there's a store selling dry jeans and other clothes. We tried drying ourselves off with coin-operated hair dryers, but if you like there is also coin "laungy" available on-site.


Budweiser-sponsored tilt-a-whirl!!


The next ride we went on was the "Pagoda" which takes you to the top of the ride and then suddenly releases you and you drop quickly to the bottom. Try not to scream on this thing, I dare you! Even though they were only operating 1 of the 4 carts on the ride there was still no line, so they let us go twice.


Looking up!


The "Lost World" ride and the Flume in the background. Flume was open, Lost World was not!


Our next stop was the Arabian Kingdom, probably the most impressively landscaped section of the park. There were some rip offs of Disney's blue genie, a carousel, and the "Ring of Fire" which you can see above. It was kind of like a roller coaster that just looped around in circles... I refused to ride it, but Nareesa enjoyed it.


We went on a ride where we sat in a jeep and got jerked around on a track full of cheap left-over haunted house props. I got to drive the jeep- I knew my license would come in handy! Also, while we were waiting in line we made friends with some smart ass kids who pointed at my "big bird" and asked Nareesa if she was from Africa. We were the only non-Asians at the park and we turned a lot of heads. I don't think Hsinchu-folk are as used to seeing foreigners as Taipei-folk. It felt kind of weird because people in Taipei don't generally pay us too much attention. Nareesa spent most of the day getting pointed at and overhearing "hei se de" (black color). So wrong!


Mmmmm.... turkey ice cream.


Speaking of obnoxious kids, while we were waiting in line to get on a ride these two brats butted in front of us and laughed so hard at their accomplishment. It was a ride where you pedaled yourself around a track above some monkey exhibits. We were given the bike behind the bratty kids, and we pedaled super fast and bumped them good! I promise they were having fun with it too- they kept looking back to see how close we were getting and laughing. Unfortunately for them, they didn't realize that they were messing with petty foreigners!


Next, we took a choo choo train through a "safari". The most interesting thing about this safari was that, although all the other animals we caged, the ostriches were free to roam around the grounds. Ostriches aren't that friendly so the majority of them stood next to the train hissing at the people as they passed. One bunch of bratty kids jumped around and hissed back at an ostrich and I was pretty sure they were going to get pecked in the head, but unfortunately that didn't happen.


Giraffes!


A white tiger!


Outside of the safari, there were signs advertising camel rides for $50NT. How awesome- I wanna ride a camel. So, I went to pay my $50NT and GUESS WHAT- the camel ride was closed. Even though I could see the camels right there, just begging to get ridden. So, we walked back through the park and spotted a big plastic camel for me to hop on instead. As I was climbing on this plastic camel I realized that it was a coin-operated ride and -GUESS WHAT- it was out of order.


The "Dynamic Motion Theater", where us and 4 other people walked into a dimly-lit room and the crappiest, dirtiest stuffed tiger animatronic dropped from the ceiling and began giving a speech in Chinese. We laughed and then walked out. There was only an hour left and there were some rides we still wanted to try.


After 4pm, the park got quite awesome. The kids that had been there all day left (they were all from the same school field trip) and there was no one else around. We walked onto any ride we wanted and we rode it as many times as we liked. First we went on the above horsey ride, which went around a lame track incredibly slowly.


Then we went on the flume, which they had to turn back on just for us. It was a really good flume ride! After this, we went on the Pagoda (the ride that drops you from a tall height) twice, then we went on the "Undersea Adventure" which violently spins you upside down while they play "The Tide Is High" over and over again, then we went on a roller coaster twice and then another roller coaster (which had seats which spin 360 degrees as you go around the track). We went on that one three times. By then, it was time to leave the park and get a taxi back to the train station.


Shortly after getting in the cab I started to feel the effects of riding all those roller coasters in such a short period of time! As soon as we got to the train station I had to run to the bathroom, and I'll spare you the details of what transpired, but let's just say I didn't reappear for another 20 minutes. I spent the next half hour sipping ginger ale and eating plain crackers. I'm so old.

Springer's final thought:
Leofoo Village amusement park was fun, but really only because we made it fun. The number of rides that were closed was unacceptable, especially since they still charged the full admission price. Would I recommend spending a day there? Sure! I would imagine that on most weekdays there is no one there and you'd get the park to yourself. It was fun, but I'd probably only go if I were already in the Hsinchu area. And if you're over the age of 12, I recommend bringing a few Gravol tablets with you :)

A Million People Watching A Million Fireworks

Saturday night we were invited to watch a fireworks show with some of the Chinese teachers at our school, and about twenty of their favorite students. The first weekend we were in Taiwan, Mel and I tried to find a fireworks show at Dadeocheng Wharf and never found it. Saturday's fireworks were held at the same spot, so with the Chinese teachers leading the way we were at least guaranteed to see the show! We met at the school and took a public bus to Sanchong to watch the show. When the bus arrived it was already packed, but let me tell you that buses in Taiwan are like clown cars at the circus- there's no limit to the number of people that can somehow crowd in.


When we got to Sanchong I couldn't believe how many people were there. I don't know what was more impressive: the fireworks or the population.


Without a helicopter there's really no way to properly photograph the sheer number of people gathered on the wharf, but imagine the number of people in the above picture times infinity and you'd be pretty close.


We don't actually teach any of the students that went with us, so they didn't really talk to us very much... although they did seem to enjoy taking loads of pictures of us from afar. And one boy cornered me to show me how he could light his hand on fire with a lighter. Anyway, they gave us some comfortable newspapers to sit on and pretty sparklers to play with.


It was one students' birthday so we sang "Happy Birthday" and then the kids tried to light his hair on fire with their sparklers until their teacher told them to stop.


This was probably the best fireworks display I've ever seen. Maybe Disney was better, but probably not. The whole thing was set to music (I heard some Sting at one point between blasts), they shut down a bridge and set fireworks off of that, and then the show continued from the middle of the water. At one point a plane looked like it was flying right through the show and all I could think was that I hope the pilot was keeping his cool! At least I'm sure they had a great view of the show.

It lasted for a half hour and looked really expensive. Everyone knows how hard it is to get a decent picture of fireworks so please enjoy the brief video above.


After walking back to the bus stop through crowds that would have put the L.A. Riots to shame we bailed on the bus idea and piled 5 to a taxi once again to get home. We all went for some shaved ice at the night market by our apartment... surely this is the warmest November of my life. It's been over 30 with the humidex most of the week so all you want to do at the end of the day is eat a big bowl of ice. Afterwards, Melodie and Mark tried something new... a lady at a cart hands you a bowl, which you fill with as many veggies or noodles as possible. If you don't fill the bowl enough she will take a huge handful of what looked to be grass and pile it on top. You then choose your meat and she stir fries it for you, throws it in a take-out box with some rice and off you go for $3 CAN. Still no Arby's-vending street carts to report on, but I'll keep you updated.

A Dinosaur Restaurant Birthday Party

We couldn't get reservations at the Airplane-themed restaurant last night, so we decided to go back to the dinosaur restaurant, Jurassic, that we visited last month. Since the menu is WEIRD we decided to go to Burger King first and just have drinks at the restaurant.


This didn't stop Nareesa from ordering a snack of cuttlefish MOUTHS!! It was just a plate full of little round MOUTHS. I didn't try this dish, but she and Mark were adamant that it tasted pretty good.


I don't know how they decided on mouths as a snack, especially when delicious fish chins were also available to order.

The last time we were at Jurassic there was a woman singing with live MIDI-keyboard accompaniment and she must have sang "Happy Birthday" to about forty different tables. She was performing again last night, so we advised the male keyboardist (who had the most amazing perm, btw) that it was Christine's birthday. Actually, I believe Christine advised him that it was her own birthday, but either way she wound up being serenaded a little while later. Please note that it was not actually her birthday. They started out with a traditional rendition of "Happy Birthday" (catch the tail-end of the performance in the video above).


Then they moved on to a sped-up version of "Happy Birthday" and randomly passed the mic to Mel to finish the last verse. She put a lot of soul into that verse, I promise you.


At the end of the night we all huddled around the calculator to determine who owed what for which deep fried mouths. It never works out evenly so the birthday girl spent the next two hours demanding "23" from me. That's 60 cents. I promise, I'm good for it!


The other teachers live in the school dorms and have to be home by 10pm every night, but regardless, around 11:30 we marched into the Longshan Temple night market and ordered some shaved ice and ice cream wraps. Rebels! The five of us piled into a taxi (which is always cute) and headed back to ol' Sinjhuang. When Mel and I got off the elevator to our floor our neighbors were waiting to surprise us with a new mattress for our bed. Unwilling to blow hundreds of dollars on a mattress, we've slept on an air mattress since we moved here! So, we carried the mattress in, observed that it was rock-hard like all Asian mattresses, covered it in foam padding and blankets, and went right to sleep. Hard as it is, it still beats an air mattress.

So the best part of this night? For the first time ever, I didn't lose my wallet after leaving the Jurassic Restaurant. Success!

The Hello Kitty Cafe

After a day of hiking, Nareesa and I deserved a fancy dessert and let me tell you that there is no fancier dessert being served in Taipei than at the Hello Kitty Sweets cafe.


At first we were a bit put off by the prices, which started at over $10CAN for what looked in the pictures to be a pretty small amount of food. However, our waitress explained that the dessert also included a drink and a jello course so, given the quality of everything, I actually left thinking that the price was pretty fair. There is also a $300NT ($10 CAN) minimum purchase so although neither of us were really hungry we couldn't just share a dessert as we had planned.. we each had to order our own. Hello Kitty shook us down!


My trio of desserts: a glazed sesame cookie filled with whipped cream, fruit and a chocolate ribbon, the richest tasting chocolate tart, and some more fruit served with icing sugar and a pink chocolate Hello Kitty head.


Nareesa's plate didn't come with a Hello Kitty head so she had to call the waitress over. "OH, where is Kitty?" the waitress exclaimed as she ran off with the plate. When she returned to the table with a Hello Kitty chocolate now in place she smiled and said, "Kitty come back". The service was awesome. Please note the detail: there was even a kitty in the foam of my coffee.


Nareesa's chocolate mousse dessert with fruit and green tea powdered sugar spelling out "Hello Kitty" on her plate.


While the women dressed in pink served the food we could see the men (at one point there were 4) whipping up the amazing desserts in the kitchen.


By the time the jello course came out I was practically in a diabetic coma. This was the sweetest food I have ever eaten and I don't really have too much of a sweet tooth. In fact the food was so sweet that, in comparison, the jello almost tasted salty to me. I didn't eat another thing for the rest of the night.


I saved kitty's head and half my chocolate tart to share with Mel, so as a result I got to carry the world's manliest take-out box all the way home. THE SHAME!

Accidentally Climbing Mount Ergeshan

So, I'm still not sure what happened yesterday, where we went or what the plan ever was, but here's the story of my day.


I have Tuesdays off now! Woot! BFF Nareesa is off after 11am on Tuesdays so we have decided to make Tuesdays a regular sightseeing day. We decided we would travel to the Maokong area, which is a major tea growing district with a couple of hiking trails to explore and some temples to see. NOW, any faithful reader of this blog should be aware that almost everytime I go hiking I get seriously lost. Yesterday was no exception, kind reader. There were 2 trails to choose from: one led to a fancy looking temple and one was called the "tea pickers hiking trail". Since "tea pickers" makes me think of nose pickers we tried to find the temple. Twice. The first time we wound up in some sort of suburban condominium-filled area and the second time we thought we were on the right track and wound up in some hick village with the trail ending at a family crypt.


So we decided to go with the nose picker trail. I mean the tea picker trail. At this point we had already been walking for about an hour, but at least we knew there was a bus that would take us to the tea picker trail. So, we hopped on the bus and when we saw signs for the trail we got off and started our climb. I had read online that the big temple I wrote about earlier had 1200 steps leading to it. So, when our climb started out hiking up about a million damn steps we thought- GREAT- this is going to take us to the temple. After a bit of climbing we looked at the view and could clearly see the worlds biggest temple in the distance... on a different mountain. Still... we figured there had to be something to see on this trail so we went on.

After hiking those damn stairs for around an hour and passing by some family crypts, koi ponds, and enjoying some nice views of Taipei we looked up to see a clearing at the top of the stairs. And as our burning legs took us to the top we could see that the clearing led to a road and a BUS drove by! The same bus we'd gotten off at the bottom of all of those stairs!!!! There were tears. Still, after crossing the road we could see that the trail continued onward and according to the sign we were not too far from a temple. Not THE temple but a temple. After all that walking, we wanted a pay off of some sort, so we kept going. We came to another clearing at Maokong Station. This is where a gondola service used to run but it's been closed for a year now after a typhoon caused a lot of damage to the line. There was no temple in sight, so we continued up another trail straight ahead.


Within a few minutes we could tell that this trail was obviously a bit more... rustic than the last. It was also around this time that we were chased by three rabid dogs up a section of the trail. Nareesa could feel their breath on her legs. It was not good, but we continued. We were going to see the damn temple! Then the trail turned into a million moss-covered (AKA slippery as hell) stone stairs into the sky. Route markers on the path showed that we were almost to the top so we kept going. At this point it was around 4:40 and it gets dark here around 5:15 so my eye was on my watch.


And then it happened- we got to the top! Were we rewarded with a temple? No. Was there a beautiful view? Nooooooo. At the top there was 4 signs showing us which ways we could go to continue our hike. Yay! None of the other trails even had mossy stone steps to offer... they were just dirt and roots and who knew how long they were, so we decided we had to go back the way we came. It was a slick, slow descent let me tell you.


When we came to the area before where the mean dogs were we took an irrigation trail around a tea farm to avoid them and get back to the road! The picture above is where we made our classy exit.


The trail came out at the old gondola station that I mentioned earlier. And what did I notice around the corner from the station? A TEMPLE!!! The temple was right there the whole time and we didn't notice it. In fact, we hiked right past it up those mossy stone steps. Those dogs weren't trying to scare us, they were trying to warn us! And guess what? The temple sucked. There's a nicer temple next door to my apartment.

While we were waiting for a bus back to the MRT we saw a map of the area. Apparantly, we had hiked Mount Ergeshan. Cool. And also, we had missed out on this totally awesome tourist attraction:


A pothole!


Since it was a famous tea picking area and there were tea houses everywhere, we decided to reward ourselves with a cup of tea. Neither of us like tea in the least but it seemed like the thing to do. But, when we were handed the menu and we noticed that the cheapest tea was over $10 CAN plus a $60NT drunk charge we marched right out of there and went to our bus stop.


Tired and still amused and bewildered by our day on the MRT.


We treated ourselves to some well-earned supper at TGI Fridays. It was absolutely amazing food, especially after the workout we had. But the real treat happened when we got dessert... at the Hello Kitty Cafe! But that fantastickness deserves a post of its' own, so watch for that update coming soon!

An H1N1 Update

Monday morning at 9am I am greeted at the door to my classroom by a student wearing a mask.

Student: "Teacher! My class.... 5 people H1N1"

I walk into the class and see 20 boys, all wearing masks and all coughing.

We're going to die.

Halloween On The Beach

On Saturday, Mel, BFF Nareesa, and I went to Baishawan beach for the day. The weather was nice... around 30 degrees with the humidex considered, though it was a little windy. We had to move our towels down to the wet, packed sand so we wouldn't get hit by all the stray grains of sand. Unfortunately, right after we arrived an announcement was made in both Chinese and English that "due to the conditionment of the water, the beach was closed". Conditionment=there were waves. Oh well, nobody seemed to leave the water so we stripped down and got in too. We got whistled at, but they let us carry on as long as we didn't go in past our knees. So we sat down and floated in the warm waves. Ahhhhhh, October.


I'd been to this beach by myself once before, so I was excited to show Mel my favorite part of the area, which is the hiking trails along the coast. So, after enjoying the beach for a few hours we headed out for our hike, and found ourselves relaxing in the sun and eating doritos on a giant volcanic rock on the coast.


A view of beach from the trail.


Sunset!


The scariest part of our Halloween evening came when we were leaving and I saw a guy with a cart selling something at 2 for $30NT. The signage was all in Chinese, so we had no idea what he was selling, so and I gave Nareesa $30NT and dared her to go ask him for 2 of whatever he was selling. She marched back proudly with a purchase worthy of thisiswhyyourfat.com... a hot dog inside of another hot dog! I don't even like hot dogs but I tried it and I can tell you that this was truly gross.


On the bus ride home I got in trouble by the bus driver who was screaming at the top of his lungs that I didn't pay when I got on the bus. I had swiped my card but it must not have worked and he was FREAKING OUT. Of course, I had no idea what he was saying, or that it was about me until a lady on the bus translated for me. Sorry! So, on the way home we stopped at Longshan Temple market (the snake alley place) and got some pho from a toothless lady's cart and it was so much more awesome than pho from a cart ever should be.


Today we went to see the Michael Jackson movie, "This Is It" and otherwise just had a generally relaxing day. Michael Jackson has been a huge influence on this blog over the years, in fact we actually reported on his death first HERE over 3 years ago. Anyway, I can't believe it's almost Monday! Shamon-day!