Day 5: What One Shouldn't Do in Xinbeitou...

~18th March 2014~

Welcome to Xinbeitou~!

The golden arch of Xinbeitou, the blend in of old and new. An old style arch which stood stall surrounded by more modern designed apartments. I prefer this place rather than where we were staying in Xinsheng North Road, the red-light district of Taipei, I would call it so whether you agree with me or not. A day in Xinbeitou is definitely not enough what more, we had only a few hours in hand and we have another destination after Xinbeitou on the same day itself.

Little monsters...

Something to ponder upon with our Malaysian education system. I have seen school kids and even high school students at various places of interest during schooling hours, in their school uniforms with their school teachers. There weren't many school trips back here. I have been to Kuala Lumpur with the whole class accompanied by two teachers when I was 16. Over in Taiwan, I think they believed in a balanced education, where work and play come hand-in-hand. All work and no play make those kids turned into dull, boring and unimaginative and completely not creative youngsters. Are we producing geniuses? No, we're not. We're not even producing good competitive quality students. The complaints about PT3 were baseless. If the students have studied properly and used their brains and seen more instead of just doing more paperwork, they would have learnt better and better able to cope in the change of examination style. Whose fault? Teachers fault? Education department's fault? Teachers' fault? Actually, all were at fault~! Students do not even know the basic that they should know. They know not of what has been taught. Either they have been sleeping or the teachers are not doing a good job. The change is a good one, a change that will make the students put on their thinking caps. But the learning environment of just getting stuck to the books with so little information, ought to be revised. The children in Taiwan and China and also in other parts of the world, no doubt they were spending their school hours at the amusement park, I guessed they learnt more than our students. I say,"Release the kids out to learn through observation~!" If you think our teenagers are hooligans and could not be controlled, then I will let you know that all over the world whether American kids, Australians kids, Chinese kids and Taiwanese kids, they are all the same... all little tykes.

The dog lover...

Yo, mama~! A dog in a pram? Okay... in a blanket conclusion, some dogs live a better life than humans. I bet that dog must have air-conditioned room for hot summer nights and also processed imported dog food which cost than human food. I love dogs but I would never take my dog out in a pram, walking around town or maybe because Malaysia doesn't allow dogs in most public places, so I do not have such habits. Hmmmm.... I only put my doggie in the bicycle basket and cycled around the badminton court in front of the house. But my doggie slept on the bed with me with his own pillow and plush toys. My doggie did have a few items to his name. He has his own treasures. 

Where to go in Xinbeitou?

You will come across this sign. Everything is just within walking distance. We did walk through Beitou Park but again, no photos can be found of that place. I just remembered a few old men sitting there and not much to see. We were trying to walk as fast as possible. Looking back now, I kinda regret not going to the Plum Garden. I've never seen a plum tree before. I need to see it for once at least. Well, in another country then. 

Free leg-dipping in hot spring drain...

Now... now... the main purpose one wanted to be in Xinbeitou is to get the hot spring bath experience. The stingy mentality should be removed once you're on a holiday. I do not encourage excessive splurging like buying a branded bag that will cost you a five-figure amount or to eat a bowl of some weird animal that will cost you a big tear in your pocket and give you stomachache, heartache and headache after that. Spend wisely but not to the extent of saving NT$200 (RM20) for a hot spring bath experience. Along the way to the Death Valley, we saw so many people going down to the river, looks more like a monsoon drain to me, and got themselves busy soaking their legs in the hot water. I read in some blogs where people did that and we were tempted to join in the crowd, but something held us back against doing so. So, we walked on and felt the tugging of going down to the big drain where some parts look like it has mini waterfalls to have our free leg-dipping experience.

Hot spring water from the source....

We walked along the five-feet way. The smell of sulphur seemed to linger in the air along the way. The source of hot spring should be quite near, but there was another smell which I was quite familiar with. The smell of dirty drains but where did that come from?

The fellow contributors to the river...

Oh, my~! Then we saw the drainage pipes from hotels and houses. Waste water of sorts all went into that big drain which looked like a river. Oh, my~! Oh, boy~! Thank you Lord for stopping us from going down there for a free leg-dipping session. My skin is rather sensitive. I have filter system fixed to my shower as my skin will itch all over, it's a good indicator to tell that the water is not clean. If we were to leg-dip in that water I wouldn't know what would happen to my skin. Thank God, my stinginess thriftiness  was not present at the wrong time.

Read it if you are able to...

According to Pinky and mi mama, that sign was a reminder to the public not to play in the water. Those going into the monsoon drain were Chinese-speaking people, they were Chinese from China. Shouldn't they be able to read the sign with no hiccups at all? If I were to be down there, you couldn't blame me. I read none of the words on the pole except for the word '水' - water. Whatever I studied in the first few months of my kindergarten years, I could remember. Anything after that was a complete blank. I would take that sign as encouragement to get into the water as it was free. 

Uncle very eager to leg-dip in water...

After reading the sign, three people walked past us and went straight down the staircase leading into the drain. We were thinking, what on earth were they doing? Pinky even read that sign aloud, they should be able to understand simple Chinese even if three of them were as illiterate as I am. The white-haired uncle started removing his shoes and socks and the young man, should be his son, followed suit. The lady was smarter, actually she has to hold his coat. You wear so smartly and you crawled into the drain. What does that say?

Uncle completely satisfied~!!

Oh, uncle~!! Eeewwwwwwww.... that's water from the hot spring mixed with toilet water and water from the sink and who knows what else. Eeeewwwwwww.... reminder to others: Please do not jump into anything that looks enticing. Look for the contributions of sources. Gosh.... 

Public hot spring bath...

You want an experience and you want it cheap, go to the open air hot spring bath and take a dip for a few minutes with strangers in your bathing suit or your birthday suit. You will never know who take a leak in the water. You can't dip for long, your time limit should be 30 minutes if I'm not mistaken. Check it out in other places. Not only Xinbeitou has hot spring baths, the whole of Taiwan, they have it. If not just go to Japan, okay... That's all. The one and only thing not to do in Xinbeitou... hehehe.... Enjoy yourself there. After going through all the photos, it jogs back sweet memories with my international travel buddy and it's mi mama's first time traveling.