Getting There
Anita was picking absently at her face and I was clutching my head in my hands and beginning to rock back and forth when we both realized that we hadn’t been out of Taipei for the last three months.
“Let’s go,” said Anita, grasping her LV bag as if it was the only thing that could stop her spinning off into the ether.
“Where?” I asked.
“Somewhere,” she said. “Just somewhere.”
“How about the High Speed Rail? We could take it to Tainan,” I improvised.
She reluctantly put down the bag and started to search through that Sunday’s tome-like edition of Apple Daily. I considered flicking through the Taipei Times, but as it was only three and a half pages long, I’d already committed most of it to memory.
“No,” she said an hour or so later. “No, we can’t go. The ticket discount ended yesterday.”
I know her too well to ask how much the discount was worth – it didn’t really matter whether it was 1 NT or 1000, the concept of paying full price in the vicinity of any kind of price reduction is as foreign to her as…well. As foreign to her as me. Which is pretty damn foreign.
“But,” she continued, “there’s a bus!”
“To Tainan?”
“No – to Yilan. But it’s very frequent.”
“Right then.”
I quickly checked Yilan in my Lonely Planet. It rated four sentences, all of which implied that even as somewhere to stop off in on your way to somewhere more worthy, it was sadly lacking.
“Ooooh, I don’t know about Yilan,” I said. “Four sentences.”
She gave a sniff and her hand hovered alarmingly close to a burgeoning redness between her eyebrows.
“On the other hand,” I managed, “I lived in Hartlepool for eighteen years and that doesn’t have any sentences.”
We caught the bus outside Taipei 101, which being the world’s tallest building you might think I had been up. But you’d be wrong, you presumptive fool – it was like my Grandma’s house in that respect. When she lived twenty miles away, we would visit every weekend , but when she moved just down the road from us we basically abandoned her and left her to die. There’s just not as much motivation when something’s so close.
The coach was rather comfortable, with soft, reclinable seats and enough suspension to convince you that they’ve finally got round to fixing all those potholes. Mind you, nobody brings round a small cake at half time and there are no personal televisions with HBO and a naughty channel, so it’s not quite as good as the coach to Kenting. Mind you, who really wants two hours alternately wondering how many more times you’ll have to spend parts of your life watching ‘Miss Congeniality’ and whether that’s a man’s or a woman’s arse bobbing up and down and is it okay to feel horny anyway?
The scenery flashing past felt new and exciting, but then we hadn’t seen any good scenery for at least twelve weeks, so it’s possible it was just a few hills and a tree. Presently, we entered a tunnel, reputed to be one of the longest in Asia, and I steeled myself for a long, monotonous trundle through grey nothingness. For some reason, though, I couldn’t help thinking about the Sylvester Stallone movie ‘Daylight’, and so found the whole tunnel experience rather more exciting than it perhaps should have been.
“That was quick,” I said to Anita as we emerged into the sunlight, before remembering that I had moved to another seat to get more legroom, and she was now busy listening to my i-pod - as usual. I’ve frequently broached the subject of buying another i-pod, to which she always answers:
“But I’m the only one who ever listens to it!”
I haven’t bothered to explain that this is because she always takes it off me before I’ve even had the chance to turn it on. This is for various reasons, but if you’re married you already understand, and if you’re not, then it really doesn’t matter.
