Taichung

This time a short non-pic note. Following some nice contact (via Internet), I went to Taichung (read Taichong, Taidzong) to meet somebody for a LE (language exchange). The city is 80km south of Hsinchu, more space there, and the pace of life seems to be slower. See http://taiwan.wcn.com.tw/en/taichung/ for some general info.

I went there for the 1st time just after the massive rains, and I tried train, for the 1st time here. After such rain in Europe there'd be no trains. Here it was just late, 20min. Later in TV I saw the railroad was flooded between Taipei and Hsinchu, completely.
But BUS is much better solution in Taiwan. Lots of them go in every direction in any city. This is also only half price of the train.

To activate myself by internet in search for friends here showed to be a good idea. People are so wokacholic here that I do not see another way. Pubs in the city I do not find attractive for going there alone, although some are nice places. But I prefer to go with some company ;-).

In meantime I learned - the best possible method ;-) - some Chinese... i recommend http://dictionary.reference.com/translate/text.html , you can copy whole short text in Chinese (classical) and obtain some result from which you will be able to understand the general meaning of the text.