today, right after breakfast we went across the street to the tourist information center. we asked some questions about getting to alishan, a national scenic area, where we planned to stay a few days for hiking and escaping the loud and busy cities. but after some sceptic looks from the lady and a few phone calls later we were informed that there is no train from chiayi, the last big city before entering the alishan area, to the center of the alishan area, because of - you might have already guessed it - the typhoon. oh, we hate it so much! but... the lady said there will be one bus to alishan, leaving from chiayi at 14:10. great, we thought and booked a double room in a hostel in alishan right away, as the lady at the tourist center offered to do that for us. so we took the bus to shuili where we planned to get on the chi-chi train. we thought this would be some special train with open wagon with an old steam driven locomotive. the name would be so perfect for what we had imagined. but it was... none like that. the chichi train is a local train just like any other, only that it is full with tourists, so when the train, going for the opposite direction we wanted to go, had arrived, it was packed full. like trains in taipeh during the rush hour. uuuh, what a horror. additionally, the station master waved us, that there is a telephon call for us (we imagined he was told to find two non-asian guys somewhere in the station - and during our nine days, we barely left any non-asian people, most of them in taipeh city). i assumed this meant nothing good. and in fact, it was the lady from the tourist center in shuishe, telling us that even the bus at 14:10 was cancelled because of last weeks typhoon. bloody typhoon. oh, we hate it so much and even more! ok, so change of plan. no alishan for us. instead we decided to go to tainan, another big and loud city - hehe. luckily when we boarded the chichi train, it was not that full, but still that full, that we did not get a seat. so we started the ride standing with our luggage, not seeing much of the landscapes passing by. after about 30 minutes, we managed to get two seats. while we were discussing our next steps, we met elle, who sat next to us, helping us out, and giving us a few hints on what we might do. it turned out elle took the same train as we did, because she was also heading south, but going much further south than we did. she also helped us to get two more tickets in ershui - that's where the chichi train ends - from chiayi to tainan (lucky us, because it's getting harder and harder to find english speaking people in stations). so, a few hours later we arrived in tainan, got a hostel that was very close to the train station, and started a small tour through tainan, which is famous for its temples and shrines. we managed to see the kailung temple, tiantan temple, the sacrificial rites martial temple and the guangong temple. on our walk through the streets we found a guy who was making lollies[50-56] from hot and liquid candy mass. the nice thing about it: you can name the animal he will create for you. a mother requested a bear and a monkey for her daughter. being hungry, we found some japanese restaurant[57-62], where we ordered fish soup, sashimi, grilled, and deep fried fish. needless to say that it was awesome. track: day 09