Often in China, they offer cheap tours to entice potential customers. In order to make money, these tours often encourage guests to purchase products from select shops. As such, even though our numbers were slow, we still made a singular stop at a Taiwan pearl powder retailer in Kaohsiung: Haibao. Seated in a small room, we were regaled with the properties of pearl dust and were even encouraged to try a little. To me, the power could have been anything from flour to cocaine. For a very brief moment, I was tempted to snort it up my nose. Instead, I tentatively licked the tiny portion that the retailer had given me to taste.
After numerous entreaties and copious amounts of extras being thrown into the mix, my mother purchased a hefty sum of peal dust as well as a pill made from soft-shell turtles called terrapin.These were said to assist with arthritis along with a myriad of other miracles.
Having bought our fair share of goods, we piled back into the van for a long drive to our next destination: feeding time with Paradise of Deer. Entering the enclosure, my new Canadian friend and I sidled up close to several cute and adorable specimens. Most seemed ambivalent of the human presence, though many others shied away when we reached out to stroke them. Once armed with carrots and a few green leaves, however, the deer flocked to us, eager for any morsel of food.
Unlike my previous disastrous attempt to feed the deer in Nara, Japan, the deer in Taiwan were much more docile. I saw no schoolgirls fleeing in terror while desperately throwing deer cakes behind them.
I can’t say for how humane the deer were kept, though. The enclosure was quite small and several of the more wild ones were kept safely behind a metal fence. Mostly to prevent us humans from being bitten.
On our way over, our tour guide also gave us some information on the native Formosan Sika deer. In particular, Jason advised us that China actually traded pandas for a pair of them. Whereas pandas are often loaned to the zoos of other countries, Taiwan enjoyed a fair exchange when it came to these delightful beasts.
Once the novelty wore off, we were back on the road. We stopped briefly at the ruins of an old wall that had been built by Japan. One that had proper crenellations. It was impressive. And we were able to scale up to the top and walk along it. There was even an old tank seated in a nearby park. Of course, I took several photos.
Two hours later we arrived at our hotel - one which contained a stone bath to allow guests a taste of what it is like to soak in a hot spring. As such, the bathing suits my mother brought were a little useless as we could enjoy a hot spring in the privacy of our rooms rather than venturing out into a public bath.
For this blogger, though, I was wrapped up in the news of a recent string of rejections from a job application. Without a laptop, I was still able to use the free Wi-Fi at the places we stayed at to check my emails on my phone. I know I’ve never been good at writing such things and selling myself, but I’m starting to feel a little desperate for a stable position that can keep me fed and support my hobbies.
Of course, if there are any travel magazines or companies that desire someone to write up anything travel-related, hit me up! Or those related to video games...
