It should have been easy - three stops on the MRT, 5 minute walk, phone the hostel for guidance.... Piece of cake right?
But I walked in the wrong direction first (10 minut gone) then my phone decided not to work. Remember I'm deep in darkest Taipei here. Overqhelming mixture of huge modern buildings, cluttered Chinese style small shops and alleys and...oh so much traffic
And it really is dark. So I duck into the nearest western-looking restaurant in the dim hope that they know my hostel. They don't. Its the Samba Place. The cook is a tall, busy, black man. Very black. He's also very friendly and makes the call on his phone
OK so far, but he sneaks no Chinese. He hands the phone to me. Surprised to find my Chinese is up to the task; although the staff person is totally unable to describe her location. I have the address, but the lanes converge in a star shape and the hostel has no sign. Its also on the fourth floor. The cooks wife shows up. She's Taiwanese. She carries a gorgeous little frizzie-jaired mixture girl. Cook's wife takes the phone and gets the location, but by that the little one is half a block away. I grab my bag and we head off in pursuit. We hey to a convenience store and she describes me so the hostel can send someone down to collect me.
There's good news. The hostel is jhuge, new, and has everything I need
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