My wife wanted a day off this Sunday, meaning a chance to stay in and catch up on her sleep. My daughter, on the other hand, wanted to go outside, preferably to a park with a playground. I, however, did not fancy being surrounded on a park bench by a sea of Taiwanese parents and their offspring, some of whom would no doubt have some trouble coming to grips with the "foreign" child in their midst. So when I suggested taking the train to see some dinosaurs in Taichung (T'aichung) 台中, I was quite relieved that Amber responded enthusiastically to the suggestion. And that is how we found ourselves on the 11:37am local train out of Fengyuan 豊原, which was on time, for once:
After getting off at Taichung Station, we headed for the Visitor Information Center, located inside the station. For years, I've been grumbling about the inept efforts at providing tourist information in Taiwan, especially in comparison to Japan, where such information centers are in plentiful supply. When I first moved to Taichung (an undisclosed number) of years ago, the closest tourist information office was a very long walk from the train station. In fact, I used to go there on a scooter to pick up brochures and maps. Then it moved even further away, to an area of government buildings off of Linsen Road, which couldn't have been any more inconvenient for new arrivals and visitors to the city. So it's great to see there is finally an information counter in the train station, with English-speaking staff to boot. Well done...except for the fact the woman in the office didn't make it clear (OK, maybe I failed to clarify) on which side of the street Amber and I should wait to catch a bus for our destination, the National Museum of Natural Science 国立自然科学博物館. We caught the right bus (the No. 88), but in the wrong direction, and had to get off at the stop across from the Chungyou Department Store in order to catch another No. 88 bus going the right way.
バスを待っている
Not only was this my daughter's first bus ride in Taichung, it was mine as well. For Taichung Bus Company buses at least, those passengers (like us) who don't already have an IC/prepaid card simply pick up a card upon boarding, have it read by a scanner, and then, upon reaching their destination, scan the card a second time and pay the fare showing on the screen. In our case, it was NT20 (￥60 or 60 cents). After a lunch of chicken rice, pickled cucumbers and miso soup 味噌汁 (where I overheard two Western gentlemen and a Taiwanese woman wondering about the origin of the word "cosplay" コスプレ; I resisted the urge), we entered the science museum.
Amber can use chopsticks better than some adult Westerners!
Once inside the museum, we headed straight for the main attraction, the dinosaur exhibit. On display are some life-size skeletons and animatronic models. The latter, however, especially the moving Tyrannosaurus parent-child pair, proved to be a little intimidating to my 2-year 10 month-old child, who didn't want to get too close. She didn't mind the stationary kind at all, though.
Amber is still too young to appreciate what museums are trying to do. She enjoyed touching all the buttons, dials and knobs, but at her age, the point(s) behind the displays is not of any importance. Which was a good thing for me, because most of the writing at the National Museum of Natural Science is in Chinese, and I would not have been able to explain the more detailed exhibits to her. For Amber, it was enough just to marvel at the models and pictures of animals she's already familiar with. She also tried her hand at taking some photographs, which resulted in this unintended artistic shot of a large beetle:
Amber was starting to get tired (read cranky), so we left the museum and crossed the street to an ice cream shop. I let Amber choose, and she settled on mocha, much to our mutual satisfaction:
おいしいモカアイスクリームを食べている
After an obligatory stop at Mister Donut, we caught a bus back to Taichung Station. For some reason, the fare was NT2 higher for the return - same company, same route, but a different number bus (106) if that had anything to do with it.
（上）アンバーはバスの中でミスドのポイントカードを見ている；（下）1917年に建てられた台中駅ビル
The gods of punctuality were once again looking down favorably upon us, for our train was on time. And so it was back to Fengyuan, where my wife, suitably rested, met us at the station and drove us home. A father-daughter outing on a nice day, and with a reduced carbon footprint to boot (no pun intended). Not a bad Sunday, I'd say.
This is what happens when trying to take a picture from a moving train in diminishing sunlight, using the landscape photo function on a digital camera, but forgetting to turn off the flash. Amber isn't the only unintentional avant-garde photographer in the family.
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