Okay, so I don't really know how it is, how it happened, or why, but, going by the number of pictures here, I think I worked the camera more on this one particular train ride than I ever have had of any other.
Not that I have taken a lot of train rides.
But taking pictures and writing the blog whilst on a train journey watching the scenery whizz by is something I have always wanted to do but have never had the opportunity.
No doubt train rides are a commonplace thing elsewhere and many a person has been familiar with this mode of travel, but I live in a city-state 42 by 21 sq km and a subway is not a train.
So there I was, this morning, at the seats of Taipei Main Station watching people buy bento boxes from the nearby convenience store and waiting to get down to the platform for the 1131 train to Zuoying, Kaohsiung.
One thing about train systems, and especially train systems in Taiwan, are their punctuality.
The train pulled out at 1131 right on the dot.
And it did not stop until Banqiao station about an hour's ride away.
As much as I'd always thought that the train began from Taipei, it in fact does not.
Instead it begins from Nangang somewhere (I think) further up north before coming down to Taipei. From Taipei one gets to choose between the express HSR train, or the alternate HSR train which makes more stops along the Western coast of Taiwan and which is good to take if you're not rushed for time and want to see the towns of Miaoli, Yunlin, Changhua, Taichung, Chiayi and Tainan.
Being time-pressed to get to Kaohsiung, I went on the express one, stopping only, if I'm not wrong, at Taichung station before heading southwards to Kaohsiung.
I wish I knew which scenery belonged to where.
But I don't.
I don't know if the buildings here belong to Banqiao or otherwise.
Although I suppose they might be, because these pictures were taken not long after I left Taipei.
From Banqiao onwards the view changes significantly after that.
It's a little hard to describe, but let's say it becomes a mix of scenery and agricultural.
It's not a view where you get romantic uninterrupted views of the countryside where you see the country's natural beauty stretch far off into the horizon.
Neither is it a view where you get to see people living up close right on the tracks (as some countries do).
But between the frequent moments where the high speed train whizzes through the mountains in the tunnels there are buildings for agriculture, buildings for industry, and buildings for accommodation.
To be honest the very urbanized me took great joy in seeing the farms.
So the farmers themselves might chuckle and laugh at this rather romanticized view, but oy, coming from where I come from, in a place where any heartfelt efforts at growing vegetables, egg manufacturing or even fish farming have been subject to the pursuit of agritech systems, seeing how farmers here blend the agritech and industry to the soul of 'working the land' is reassuring.
I'm not sure if within the industry these farms are considered big, or small, but each building situated on each plot of land seemed to be just the right size.
It made you feel as if each farm was (still) family owned, like how they might have begun as a small family farm with adults and children working in the fields, but then over the years had gradually begun to structure their agricultural processes, established systems in processing, went out to procure distributors and sales and customers to form a ready cycle of demand and supply, and eventually expanded their processes to balance the needs of consumers in the country and beyond.
I wish I had been able to take more pictures, or at least to have a wiser understanding what it was I had been taking.
But I have zero knowledge of agricultural, agricultural processes and all the terminology it takes to be in such an industry.
I only know how to appreciate the final product when it's on the shelf.
Which is why I found the scenery much more familiar when the train pulled into Taichung. Here there were roads, there were high-storied buildings, there were cars and street lights and billboards and shops and driving lanes.
What's interesting is that I never used to appreciate the power of urban scenery, and what it meant, until when I came onto the train today and realized just what urban development and city living in a country meant.
After all the fields and low-rise buildings, seeing the cityscape of Taichung appear in the distance was really like a bolt out of the blue.
And no wonder that the name of this developed city means 'middle of Taiwan' (or so I think) because as the train pulled out of the station, the scenery gradually changed back to the agricultural again.
There was however a bit of a slight difference, I felt, except that I can't really tell what it is.
Maybe the fields were more organized, more spread out, more structured.
Maybe there were hints of more industrialization amidst all the agriculture.
I can't really tell.
But these above were the views.
And then there were these below.
It's very subtle, the difference, and not noticeable at first glance, but the more I look at these pictures, the more one gets the drift that it is there. This part of Taiwan has, after all, been a place of industry, and hence, development, for a very long time. And what with The Port of Kaohsiung being the busiest port in the country, is it no wonder that one gets the feel that there're more industrialization, and along with that, more development- infrastructure or otherwise.
Larger factory floors, increased machinery, perhaps.
I don't know.
But that's how the views continued- less and less green, more and more roads, more and more heavy industry- with structures that I hadn't seen at all throughout the two-hour plus train journey until now, a couple of minutes just outside Kaohsiung.
