On what I walk to see...

"Objects do not have any intrinsic meaning- that meaning is conferred on them by us- and that different people, and the same person at different times, may confer different meanings on the same object." (Hammersley, 1989, p. 135)

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

A very long 雪山隧道 (Hsuehshan Tunnel) trip

雪山隧道 (Hsuehshan Tunnel) is the longest road tunnel in Taiwan, second longest in Asia and fifth longest in the world (though it was once upon a time the longest road tunnel in Asia).  The length of the East-bound tunnel (Toucheng bound) is 12,917 m with the theoretical speed limit within the tunnel between 60 and 90 km/hr.  It is on National Highway No. 5 or the Chiang Wei-shui Memorial Freeway (蔣渭水高速公路).  

For the trip we took to get to Toucheng on April 4th, 2013, we entered the tunnel at 11:44 AM and exited it at 12:04 AM as a result of the Tomb Sweeping Day rush.  It took us 20 minutes to move through the 12,917 m tunnel... meaning at the speed of, on average, less than 38+- km/hr... though a lot of times, we were under 1 km/hr. Were they to issue tickets on cars moving between 50 km/hr... the government surely would have gotten mucho rich that day... lol

According to my dad, who has taken this route many a time, this was the slowest trip he had every taken through the tunnel.  So... some kind of record-breaking... I guess?  8-O lol

However slow a trip might be... and however the jamming traffic might have gotten us annoyed.  I did get to see the light at the end of the tunnel...

 4/4/2013

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