The East Coast is a great idea but...

2-1-13  Fri.

      This is the second entry in the journal today. The first was written in the laptop on the roof garden this morning. I wrote an e-mail to Robert a short while ago and he replied right away; what a good friend! I told him about my bronchitis the past few weeks and he suggested I go to the east coast for clean air this is what I wrote back:

 

Hi Robert: The east coast is a great idea, if I could get there. The road from Ilan to Hua-Lien was damaged by rain and mud slides a while ago and they just got around to fixing it, just in time for the Lunar New Year. People can hardly get a train ticket to go there. Of course the road through Taroko Gorge is still out since the earthquake of 1999. To get to Tai-Dong would take a long time by car via Kaohsiung. Car rental is $70us a day and I would do it but, again, not during the holiday. I thought of going up Ali Shan but the railroad there is still out, too, and the place is swamped with Chinese tourists. I just bought a new pack of face masks and rode up the Han River to the Feng-Hou bike trail across the old train bridge and tunnel to the Horse Park. That was how I spent the day, sitting on an old wooden grand stand at an abandoned race track next to three grazing horses with the Taiwan railroad whizzing by to my left. It was sunny and the grass was green. I could see the mountains through the mist (smog?) so it wasn't bad at all.