"Not all who Wander are Lost."

This is a picture that I have seen many times on Pinterest. Today, I took Pinterest's advice. I got lost. It just wasn't as wonderful as the picture would lead you to believe, at least, at first. 

Today, my family was going to be busy, so I made plans to visit the National Palace Museum again,  (see "My Cabbages"), this time all on my own. I told them my plan, and they told me which bus to take to get there, and my cousin kindly wrote down the name of my stop in Chinese characters on a piece of paper for me so that I could show the bus driver. It was a nice gesture, and one that would have proved useful, if I hadn't neglected to actually take the piece of paper with me. This wouldn't have been too terrible, except that I also had no idea what the name of the stop was, so I couldn't just listen for it on the route. So, it was in this way that I left the apartment this morning at around 9:30. 

My day started out just peachy. I stopped by the Welcome on the corner and bought a pastry and a milk tea for breakfast, which I ate leisurely on my way to the bus stop. I only had to wait five minutes for my bus, which is unusual for that particular line, as it doesn't run as frequently as the others. But this is where it started to get a little hairy. I almost missed the bus. My bus was pulled up behind another one, and partially hidden from view. I just happened to notice a woman get up from her seat at the bus stop and dash towards the bus. When I realized that she was running towards the bus that I needed to take, I had to run to catch the bus myself. So, thinking that I had narrowly escaped the clutches of bad luck, I sank into the next available seat and relaxed, because I thought that I had to ride the bus for a while before getting to my stop. 

A few stops down the road, I started to realize that I didn't know exactly where I was supposed to get off. I reassured myself by thinking that since I knew what street my stop was just off of, I could simply watch for that street and then take the next stop after that. Unfortunately, I didn't account for the extremely confusing layout and notation of Taipei's streets. I still had no idea what street we were on when I spotted a sign for the National Palace Museum on one of the bus' stops. Just when I thought to myself, "Hey, maybe I should get off here." The bus started to pull away. It was beginning to dawn on me that I had just missed my stop, but I shook it off, thinking that I could just get off at the NEXT stop and walk back. It was at this moment that we drove through a tunnel. I swear, this was the longest time that I have been on any bus without it making a stop since I have been here. I could hear my hopes of walking back to the previous station dying a slow and miserable death as we drove on. When the bus finally made another stop and I found out where we were, I decided that I would have a better chance of getting to the museum by staying on the bus. We were a long ways away from the museum. So, I rode the bus for another several stops, thinking that maybe the bus would circle around and get close to the museum again, or, worst case scenario, I could wait until the bus made its way back to the beginning of its route and take the MRT to the museum. Just when I was starting to think that I was in worst case scenario territory, I caught a glimpse of some MRT tracks. This time the bus' next stop was within a block of the tracks, so I was able to finally leave the bus.

I had managed to ride the bus all the way to East Taipei, in the technology district, near Taipei 101.

Hyper-modern architecture 

One of the benefits of being lost, is that I got to see these buildings

I have no idea why this says NASA

Giant Ferris Wheel (like the London Eye) near Taipei 101

The architecture in this district is amazing 

 The MRT was on a completely different line than those near my uncle's apartment, but it did have a map that wasn't solely written in Chinese characters. I figured out that I was a few stops away from Dazhi, which I remembered was cited on the National Museum's website. I thought that I remembered the website saying that the museum was right beside the Dazhi station, so I hopped on the train to Dazhi rejoicing in my sudden stroke of luck. 

What I found when I got to Dazhi was not the palace museum, but rather more confusing streets. "Not to worry," I told myself, "the National Palace Museum should be noted on a map around here somewhere." I regret to inform you all, that no, it is not on the map that was hanging up inside of the station. Again, I decided to walk in the general direction of the museum, and hope to find another, more helpful, bit of signage. Once out on the streets again, I found a bus stop with a sign for the National Palace museum, but the map was incredibly unclear as to the direction that the museum was in. As a result, I didn't know if the bus that I got on was going in the right direction or not. In light of this new turn of events, I decided to ask someone on the street if they could point me in the right direction, so that I could catch a bus and finally make it to the museum. 

I asked two girls who looked to be around my age, figuring that they were more likely to speak some English than anyone older. They were very friendly, but they ended up telling me to go back to the MRT and take it all the way back to the other line to get there. This would have taken me to the museum, but in a long circuitous route. So, again, I asked for directions to the museum, this time at the information desk in the MRT station. The man told me to take the bus, but again, I didn't know which direction. I decided to try walking down the street that the bus' route followed, and on the map at the next bus station if I had gotten closer or farther from my destination. By this time it was noon, and I was starting to consider just returning home if I couldn't discern anything from the map, when I heard a car horn honk behind me. Startled, I looked around, and lo and behold, there was my dear new friend Doris from ORTV,(see "All the World's a Stage," and "Keelung Hills, That's Where I Want to Be"), driving down the street. She pulled over and asked me where I was going. I told her about my bus situation, and asked if she or any of the other two people in the car with her, knew which direction the museum was in. None of them knew. But, Doris told me that she would get me to the museum. She talked to three of her employees, and asked them if they wanted to take a "field trip" to the museum with me. They agreed. Doris gave us money, and told us to buy lunch, then take a taxi to the museum that way we couldn't get lost. 

It was great. I finally made it to the museum, and the three employees who came with me were incredibly nice. All three of them are editors for the magazine, and they all hail from the U.S. Each one of them has lived here in Taiwan for at least a year, and their Chinese is excellent. One of them even majored in East Asian studies in college, so she got a lot more out of the museum than the rest of us. I was very impressed with all three of them, and unbelievably thankful to Doris for her generosity. What had started to become a disaster, turned into a great day. Thanks to one fantastic coincidence. I am glad to say, that I have seen all of the first building of the National Museum, and I can move on to another tourist hot spot. 

After the museum, I took a taxi back to the apartment, and let me just take a moment to appreciate Taipei's wonderful transportation system. I have taken every mode of transportation available in one day, and I spent less money doing it than I normally spend driving my own car in the states. Even the taxi's here are cheap. I rode for about twenty minutes in the taxi back to Tianmu, and it cost less than $8 U.S. And despite getting incredibly lost on the other modes of transportation, they are still clean, convenient, and cost effective. 

Tomorrow, my uncle plans to take me to ORTV, so that I can thank Doris again. I will tell you all about that adventure tomorrow.  Go get wonderfully lost on your own excursions, you never know what, or who, you might find along the way.

*DISCLAIMER* For those of you who plan to get wonderfully lost, I was never lost enough that I couldn't find my way back to the apartment. At all times, I knew how to retrace my steps and bail out of my adventure. I was never in any real danger. I also had a cell phone with me, and people knew where I was headed. Make sure that when you go out, you have a contingency plan on the back burner for if things get out of control. Remember that for any kind of impromptu adventure of this sort, restrictions apply, and results may vary. Make safety your number one priority.