Trains are so 19th Century

I got back from Green Island at 6 o'clock this morning. I left Green Island at 4:30 yesterday afternoon. This means (for those without an abacus handy) that, due the vagaries of Taiwan's transportation system, a journey which should have rated a mere "unpleasant" 6 hours ended up at a "grueling" 14 hours on Reed's Arbitrary Complainometer, rivaled only by the "hellish" received by my fourteen hour Chinese bus ride.

Aside from the return trip, Green Island was pretty amazing. Our hotel was run by an old, Taiwanese alcoholic who would only refer to himself as "laoda" or "The Big Boss" and bought me beer whenever we stopped someplace. But only me. The other 6 people in our party got kind of stiffed there. Anyway, my friends and I came to the conclusion that laoda is, in reality, the boss of Green Island's 2,000 cowering inhabitants, and our beliefs were reaffirmed when he randomly pulled over on the way to the harbor, walked up to a store owner and demanded 2,000 dollars, as well as a pack of cigarettes, which were given to him without complaint, but plenty of groveling.

Aside from protection rackets, Green Island has one of 3 salt water hot springs in the world, which cost 8 dollars to use all day. I spent from 9 o'clock until midnight jumping from cold pool to hot pool, driving frightened Taiwanese college students before me with equal measures of boisterousness and body hair.

Friday morning I rented a scooter made a complete loop around the island with Kristina, which took about 45 minutes. Finally, Big Boss drove us to the harbor, bought me one last beer, and wished us well on the Ferry of Seasickness.