Trying to get to Pingxi

This place was recommended to me by my dear Taiwanese friends, then someone from the hostel said that they highly recommended it.

First stop Goabao this mantou sandwich that I think might be my new staple food. I had a wonderful veggie and scallop soup today! There are so many different kinds of fillings but most of it is pork based. While we were sitting in there, I found the guy very accommodating with explaining the menu to us.

Off to Taipei main station to get on the TRA railways, it's seems pretty cheap to get to Pingxi buy it looks like it will be a little more costly. (Since we have took a transfer) I'm going to have to keep asking how to get there just to double heck out route.

I was under the impression that there was an hour long direct train there but alas there is not. It seems simple for the locals I am sure but this is our first time so it is a bit confusing. The easycard got us through the ticket gate after being approached by an older gentleman that thought being a bit crass was being helpful. He was right about the train we were suppose to catch, though his demeanor made me think otherwise. I think he likes to help foreigners. The ticket lady inside pulled out her local train schedule and said that we had to wait an hour. Then quickly after a short Chinese man tried to guess if we were Japanese it Korean. (I get this a lot here) He informed us that we would have to make a transfer and pay again. Hmm.

The train showed up after 45 minutes and I am very quickly starting to feel like we are losing precious day light. When we get on the train I realize that it is a much lower grade to the train that stopped previously. I should have taken a picture of both. The reserved seat cars were where we boarded.

I suggested we just sit down until someone told us we couldn't sit regret anymore like when I rode the KTX in Korea. Shuffled quickly to the area between doors and the cars. I wanted to sit down and then someone pointed out the sign that says no sitting, this is going to be a long hour to Pingxi, there has to be a better way. I just think we missed the orientation class, 'how to travel in Taiwan efficiently'

We made it to the transfer station called Ruifang (44NT) and picked up our day ticket for the Pingxi line (64NT) which isn't bad at all. Then the rain started to come down, I hoping that we could out run the rain but alas that doesn't seem to be the case. Now we can just refund our tickets and turn around. So we powered on....

The rainy train station.