We had a nice breakfast at Rosestone with our host, Jenny, and Phil. Our host then gave us a tour of the place and we saw courtyards, plants, and antiques I had not seen in my earlier wanderings. We learned more about the history of the family and the building and the difficulties of keeping that very large place in good shape.
Our host drove us to the train station and we managed to get onto the previously full 10:45 train. This wasn’t a high speed train but it was a new train that, as Phil had explained to me, could lean on the turns and therefore go faster than the old standard train.
The standard train service in Taiwan is very reasonably priced, trains run frequently between the cities and the stations are convenient for most people. There are now true high speed trains on the west side of the island but those stations are, except for Taipei, a 20-30 minute ride outside the cities.
When we arrived in Taipei we proceeded to Shilin, the section of Taipei that we’ll be staying in for a few days. We walked a bit until our room was ready and quickly saw that Shilin is very different than the downtown area that we were stayed in earlier. Shilin is much wealthier, and is full of thriving small businesses, COFFEE SHOPS, and high tech companies. I hate to use the word but here goes—it’s vibrant.
As we strolled down a Shilin street we saw a lot of the small businesses, including the 7-11 had burning incense and offerings in front of the stores. Sally asked someone about the offerings and they said it was for the Earth god, who had a temple in the neighborhood. As soon as she heard there was a temple nearby, we had to walk the neighborhood streets until we found it about five blocks away.
A building had been built around the original temple building but after we walked through a busy group of people working on offerings, we found the original temple in the back . After viewing the Earth god and the other deities we sat down behind a five year old and watched a very elaborate puppet show with prerecorded music and special lighting. We noticed two more temples on the short walk back to our hotel.
We eventually got back to the hotel, rested for a bit and then headed for the Shihlin night market which is a block away from the hotel. We needed to eat so we walked into the big warehouse-like building that containes the equivalent of half the food carts from the Minnesota State Fair. We wandered through this maze of unfamiliar food and chose…nothing. Sally was working very hard to decipher the names of things but the names often didn’t tell you what a food was and I was just confused.
Finally we agreed to try chou dofu (stinky tofu), a big favorite in Taiwan and the People’s Republic. Stinky tofu is heavily fermented which gives it a different texture and it’s characteristic smell. We chose fried chou dofu which was wimpier than the chou dofu with goose liver soup done in ma la Szechuan style. It wasn’t bad.
We followed that with the local favorite, the deep fried little cookie inside a big cookie and finished with some sticky rice with meat filling. The total cost was probably about three dollars a person.
We then discovered the true size of the night market. We started walking down the major street running next to this food building and found a long street, really a large alley, lined with clothing stores and crammed with vendor carts. We pushed through the mass of thousands of teenagers for a while and the alley kept going and going and going. The market is really huge. We bought a couple of nice t-shirts for $160 NT ($5) and went back to the hotel.
We were in a really posh “free upgrade” room on this night. The room had (I’m not kidding) a second room with a pond fringed by fake rocks. I speculated that they wanted us to say “Wow, what a great room. I’d like to stay in here for another $1,000NT a night.” We did not tell the desk we wanted to do that.
BTW, there is a debate on Trip Advisor about whether this is a “love hotel” used by young Taiwanese couples. After some observation I think the answer is yes. Maybe the complimentary condom in every room is a tipoff.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wednesday April 28 - Taroko Gorge
Hualien
We arrived in Hualien about eight o’clock on Tuesday night. Sally bought train tickets for the return trip to Taipei on Thursday (which is good since the trains were selling out) and we got in a cab and told him where we needed to go.
The cab driver did what I now understand as the standard procedure when you a cab driver doesn’t know where they need to go. He got us in the cab, headed into traffic and started calling around to see who could direct him to the unknown location. He knew the general direction and headed toward the ocean and then south. And drove and drove. At one point he didn’t want to go any further so he pulled into the space between the our lanes and oncoming traffic and stopped and talked on the phone. This went on a bit longer than I would have liked but eventually we stated driving again and found the B & B.
Our first impressions were not very positive. The room was musty, there weren’t any sheets (just a comforter and the mattress cover), and the bathroom was in bad shape. The first night we decided it was a camping experience.
But the place grew on us because our host was very kind and friendly, the breakfasts were very good and we met Jenny and Phil, the only other guests there who we wound up hiking with through Taroko Gorge on Wednesday.
Just a bit more about Rosestone Inn. Look on their website to see the grounds. It’s a beautiful traditional Taiwanese house with a spectacular collection of plants, paintings, carvings, etc. Unfortunately our host was in the process of running the B&B, raising her two granddaughters, and trying to keep up the buildings and grounds. That was way too much for her to handle (her husband didn’t help) and I accepted that was not a nice hotel but a very unique place in Taiwan with rooms for a few guests.
Trip to Taroko Gorge National Park
When we went to breakfast on Wednesday morning we met Phil and Jenny, a young couple from Broolyn. Jenny was born in Taiwan and is bilingual and Phil, like me, is not real lingual in Chinese. They told us how they tried to explore Taroko Gorge on their own the day before until they ran into several mishaps, like Phil’s backpack being hit by a falling rock as they walked along the road. They said they were going to look for a taxi to tour them through the Gorge.
We told them we had a driver and they were welcome to join us. Shortly afterward Tiffany Zhang, our driver came in. A brisk negotiation began that was mainly carried on between Tiffany and our B&B hosts who told her she charged too much, she should take the two new passengers for free. Poor Tiffany. Tiffany and the rest of us continued the negotiation after we left Rosestone and found some pricing that everyone liked.
The star of the day was Taroko Gorge. I’ve been to Yosemite and the Grand Canyon and I can say that Taroko ranks easily with those places. Basically Taroko Gorge has a fast river running through a marble canyon where the mountains on either side reach 3500 meters. The national park also contains beautiful tributaries rivers like the Shakadong River, a fast moving stream with blue tinted waters framed by twisted limestone formations. There are also several green peaks that we saw looming over us in the mist that are the highest in East Asia.
The group turned out to be very compatible. We really like Phil, Jenny and Tiffany and there was friendly, animated conversation all day. Tiffany figured out early that we wanted to hike so she took us to four hikes during the day. The park was not busy so our walks were usually just Sally, Jenny, Phil and I wandering at our own pace and discovering new things around every turn.
We finished with the walk down the heart of the gorge, the famous Nine Tunnels trail. It was so stunning that you almost forgot there were hundreds of other people walking with you (and often bumping into you and asking you to take pictures, etc.). We did a lot of people watching on that walk as well as Gorge goggleing.
I’ll post pix. Any description that I write would be worthless.
If you’ve ever seen a classical Chinese painting of mountains there’s always a big green mountain with wisps of mists hanging around the top. That’s exactly what it looked like that day because of the frequent periods of light sprinkles and then clearing. Sometimes you could see a mountain, with a higher mountain behind it and then a higher mountain behind that one. Tiffany said it was perfect weather to visit the Gorge.
The gorge is stunningly beautiful but also very dangerous. A young woman was killed a month ago when a rock fell on her head in an area where many people walk and Tiffany had a decent size rock fall and damage her car (which luckily she wasn’t in). Many of the guardrails and warning signs were dented by falling rocks and you could see some huge rocks that had fallen onto what used to be the road. And as I said before, Phil was hit by a small rock the day before we went so this happened all the time. Tiffany got us hard hats and asked us to wear them on some of the walks and we followed the many warning signs as we went. It was sobering to think that if an earthquake happened while we were in the Gorge (there are a lot of earthquakes in Taiwan), we would be lucky to escape injury.
We finished the day wandering through Hualien looking for dinner. We had turned down an invitation to go to a hot springs an hour away with Tiffany, Phil, Jenny and Tiffany’s husband.
We arrived in Hualien about eight o’clock on Tuesday night. Sally bought train tickets for the return trip to Taipei on Thursday (which is good since the trains were selling out) and we got in a cab and told him where we needed to go.
The cab driver did what I now understand as the standard procedure when you a cab driver doesn’t know where they need to go. He got us in the cab, headed into traffic and started calling around to see who could direct him to the unknown location. He knew the general direction and headed toward the ocean and then south. And drove and drove. At one point he didn’t want to go any further so he pulled into the space between the our lanes and oncoming traffic and stopped and talked on the phone. This went on a bit longer than I would have liked but eventually we stated driving again and found the B & B.
Our first impressions were not very positive. The room was musty, there weren’t any sheets (just a comforter and the mattress cover), and the bathroom was in bad shape. The first night we decided it was a camping experience.
But the place grew on us because our host was very kind and friendly, the breakfasts were very good and we met Jenny and Phil, the only other guests there who we wound up hiking with through Taroko Gorge on Wednesday.
Just a bit more about Rosestone Inn. Look on their website to see the grounds. It’s a beautiful traditional Taiwanese house with a spectacular collection of plants, paintings, carvings, etc. Unfortunately our host was in the process of running the B&B, raising her two granddaughters, and trying to keep up the buildings and grounds. That was way too much for her to handle (her husband didn’t help) and I accepted that was not a nice hotel but a very unique place in Taiwan with rooms for a few guests.
Trip to Taroko Gorge National Park
When we went to breakfast on Wednesday morning we met Phil and Jenny, a young couple from Broolyn. Jenny was born in Taiwan and is bilingual and Phil, like me, is not real lingual in Chinese. They told us how they tried to explore Taroko Gorge on their own the day before until they ran into several mishaps, like Phil’s backpack being hit by a falling rock as they walked along the road. They said they were going to look for a taxi to tour them through the Gorge.
We told them we had a driver and they were welcome to join us. Shortly afterward Tiffany Zhang, our driver came in. A brisk negotiation began that was mainly carried on between Tiffany and our B&B hosts who told her she charged too much, she should take the two new passengers for free. Poor Tiffany. Tiffany and the rest of us continued the negotiation after we left Rosestone and found some pricing that everyone liked.
The star of the day was Taroko Gorge. I’ve been to Yosemite and the Grand Canyon and I can say that Taroko ranks easily with those places. Basically Taroko Gorge has a fast river running through a marble canyon where the mountains on either side reach 3500 meters. The national park also contains beautiful tributaries rivers like the Shakadong River, a fast moving stream with blue tinted waters framed by twisted limestone formations. There are also several green peaks that we saw looming over us in the mist that are the highest in East Asia.
The group turned out to be very compatible. We really like Phil, Jenny and Tiffany and there was friendly, animated conversation all day. Tiffany figured out early that we wanted to hike so she took us to four hikes during the day. The park was not busy so our walks were usually just Sally, Jenny, Phil and I wandering at our own pace and discovering new things around every turn.
We finished with the walk down the heart of the gorge, the famous Nine Tunnels trail. It was so stunning that you almost forgot there were hundreds of other people walking with you (and often bumping into you and asking you to take pictures, etc.). We did a lot of people watching on that walk as well as Gorge goggleing.
I’ll post pix. Any description that I write would be worthless.
If you’ve ever seen a classical Chinese painting of mountains there’s always a big green mountain with wisps of mists hanging around the top. That’s exactly what it looked like that day because of the frequent periods of light sprinkles and then clearing. Sometimes you could see a mountain, with a higher mountain behind it and then a higher mountain behind that one. Tiffany said it was perfect weather to visit the Gorge.
The gorge is stunningly beautiful but also very dangerous. A young woman was killed a month ago when a rock fell on her head in an area where many people walk and Tiffany had a decent size rock fall and damage her car (which luckily she wasn’t in). Many of the guardrails and warning signs were dented by falling rocks and you could see some huge rocks that had fallen onto what used to be the road. And as I said before, Phil was hit by a small rock the day before we went so this happened all the time. Tiffany got us hard hats and asked us to wear them on some of the walks and we followed the many warning signs as we went. It was sobering to think that if an earthquake happened while we were in the Gorge (there are a lot of earthquakes in Taiwan), we would be lucky to escape injury.
We finished the day wandering through Hualien looking for dinner. We had turned down an invitation to go to a hot springs an hour away with Tiffany, Phil, Jenny and Tiffany’s husband.
Tuesday April 27
In the morning we took the subway to NE Taipei to see the Boan Temple, the diety in charge of medicine, and to visit a very famous Confucian temple. We knew that a festival was going on to celebrate Boan’s birthday but I expected the festival events to consist of some lectures and demonstrations.
We had only walked a few blocks from the subway station toward the temples when we saw a parade of men marching with a number of life-size figures representing deities, large woven signs, and small temple like constructions. We followed this group up an alley until they stopped at the next street because another parade from a Boan temple was already coming down that street. We followed the new group until they were stopped by more temple groups parked in the street. We walked down the street past the stalled marchers until we saw the Boan Temple, a very large, beautiful structure on one side of the street and a smaller, still ornate building on the other side of the street.
There was a reviewing stand on the side opposite the larger building and crowds on both sides of the street. When we arrived at the main parade area a very long dragon manipulated by five or six people was dancing in front of the reviewing stand while lines of marchers waiting for their turn stretched down all the streets leading up to temple.
We walked into the temple, which was set up the same as Longshan Temple with offering and incense inside the doors and the main worship areas in the center and the back. The temple was very crowded, full of people either worshipping, resting before or after marching in the parade, or assembling objects that were to be carried in the parade. It was also full of photographers which answered our question about the appropriateness of taking pictures.
We walked around a bit and then Sally got the standard bag of supplies for worship, and made a donation to the temple. I went to the area by the front door and got my own supplies and began the process of figuring out what to do with them. Inside the bag were incense (I knew what to do with that), a bag of corn chips, two candles, two packages of paper (paper money) and something small I decided was candy or food for an offering.
I was standing there looking at my incense and not sure where to light it when an older woman touched my arm and explained (in Chinese) what I needed to do. I suppose I continued to look dumbfounded so she kindly pointed directly at the burner set out for this purpose. I thanked her and headed over there.
In the main hall there was a group of worshippers on their knees at the front of the temple chanting a powerful, oddly familiar tune. Outside the hall there was a stream of people saying their prayers and moving on The hall was filled, like the other temples I has seen with five or six beautiful, large statues of the central deities, often with guardians nearest the front and additional smaller statues placed closer to the door.The chanting women were kneeling near the front in three rows. I placed my incense and moved on to the lesser, but still important deities in the smaller rooms behind the main hall.
I completed the circuit of the deities and met Sally. We wandered around the complex for a while (they had a new building in back) and then walked to the front of the temple and watched the parade from inside the door. There were people preventing onlookers from blocking the doorways, presumably so the prayers of the paraders would reach Boan.
At one point I found a place to stand in the courtyard in the middle of all the activity. As the incense wafted over me I listened to the sounds of chanting, animated talking, praying, and the noisy parade in the background and watched the careful assembly of ornate sedan chairs that sumptuously dressed statues would ride in. These were moments of perfect peace.
We lit our candles, dedicating them to our parents and children and I pulled my paper money out of the bag and pondered what to do with it. I did know that the point was to burn the money so it would cross over into the world of the dead and be available for my dead relatives. I was holding the money and looking around for the fire when a guy my age squeezed my elbow and explained to me, in Chinese, what I needed to do. When he saw how dumb I was he said “over there’ in English and pointed at, I thought, the front of the building I was in. Sally and I started walking in that direction but we were stopped by the crowd from going any further.
This guy was watching us,apparently, and when we were stopped by the crowd he came over and said “this way” in English and gave the Taiwanese version of “come on” which is a hand palm down with flexing fingers. I followed him to the open door on the opposite side of the temple and he said “building across street.” Oh, I said, that’s where we burn it. He looked pleased that I finally caught on. In English he asked where I was from and I told him the US. He smiled and left.
We were the only Westerners in the place the whole time we were there. Mostly people ignored us (except for my two helpful strangers) although I’m pretty sure I had at least three or four pictures taken of me when I was holding incense. Westerners are so odd!
At this point we crossed the street during a lull in the parade and found the burner for offerings, an industrial sized fireplace in a silo attached to the smaller temple building. I burned all my loot just in case my father could use the cash to buy a good position in the afterlife. Note: I do these worship activities out of respect for the people that do believe in them and because they do no harm to anyone.
We turned and watched the parade from the sidewalk for a while. It was a lot of fun but really, really loud. Every contingent from a city or temple had a musical group of several people playing a traditional nasal sounding flute which was amplified until it was VERY loud. Also, people set off strings of very high powered firecrackers at random times in the street right in front of us. I don’t think I have any permanent hearing loss because I lost so much hearing when I was a Postal Worker.
We decided at that point to go find the Confucius Temple since we had a train to catch in the afternoon and we were running out of time. We walked south for a while but didn’t find the temple. We did find hundreds more marchers headed for the Boan Temple, marching or driving down all the major streets in this part of town.
I’m writing this on the train to Hualien. The train goes up through the mountainous Northeast and then down the East coast of Taiwan. I finally got to see the mountains that cover most of Taiwan. It’s overcast but the green peaks loom in the gloom. So far we’ve passed through a number of small town and two small cities. I’ve seen my first rice paddies and now I’m looking at some very pretty cliffs on the ocean. Nice ride.
We had only walked a few blocks from the subway station toward the temples when we saw a parade of men marching with a number of life-size figures representing deities, large woven signs, and small temple like constructions. We followed this group up an alley until they stopped at the next street because another parade from a Boan temple was already coming down that street. We followed the new group until they were stopped by more temple groups parked in the street. We walked down the street past the stalled marchers until we saw the Boan Temple, a very large, beautiful structure on one side of the street and a smaller, still ornate building on the other side of the street.
There was a reviewing stand on the side opposite the larger building and crowds on both sides of the street. When we arrived at the main parade area a very long dragon manipulated by five or six people was dancing in front of the reviewing stand while lines of marchers waiting for their turn stretched down all the streets leading up to temple.
We walked into the temple, which was set up the same as Longshan Temple with offering and incense inside the doors and the main worship areas in the center and the back. The temple was very crowded, full of people either worshipping, resting before or after marching in the parade, or assembling objects that were to be carried in the parade. It was also full of photographers which answered our question about the appropriateness of taking pictures.
We walked around a bit and then Sally got the standard bag of supplies for worship, and made a donation to the temple. I went to the area by the front door and got my own supplies and began the process of figuring out what to do with them. Inside the bag were incense (I knew what to do with that), a bag of corn chips, two candles, two packages of paper (paper money) and something small I decided was candy or food for an offering.
I was standing there looking at my incense and not sure where to light it when an older woman touched my arm and explained (in Chinese) what I needed to do. I suppose I continued to look dumbfounded so she kindly pointed directly at the burner set out for this purpose. I thanked her and headed over there.
In the main hall there was a group of worshippers on their knees at the front of the temple chanting a powerful, oddly familiar tune. Outside the hall there was a stream of people saying their prayers and moving on The hall was filled, like the other temples I has seen with five or six beautiful, large statues of the central deities, often with guardians nearest the front and additional smaller statues placed closer to the door.The chanting women were kneeling near the front in three rows. I placed my incense and moved on to the lesser, but still important deities in the smaller rooms behind the main hall.
I completed the circuit of the deities and met Sally. We wandered around the complex for a while (they had a new building in back) and then walked to the front of the temple and watched the parade from inside the door. There were people preventing onlookers from blocking the doorways, presumably so the prayers of the paraders would reach Boan.
At one point I found a place to stand in the courtyard in the middle of all the activity. As the incense wafted over me I listened to the sounds of chanting, animated talking, praying, and the noisy parade in the background and watched the careful assembly of ornate sedan chairs that sumptuously dressed statues would ride in. These were moments of perfect peace.
We lit our candles, dedicating them to our parents and children and I pulled my paper money out of the bag and pondered what to do with it. I did know that the point was to burn the money so it would cross over into the world of the dead and be available for my dead relatives. I was holding the money and looking around for the fire when a guy my age squeezed my elbow and explained to me, in Chinese, what I needed to do. When he saw how dumb I was he said “over there’ in English and pointed at, I thought, the front of the building I was in. Sally and I started walking in that direction but we were stopped by the crowd from going any further.
This guy was watching us,apparently, and when we were stopped by the crowd he came over and said “this way” in English and gave the Taiwanese version of “come on” which is a hand palm down with flexing fingers. I followed him to the open door on the opposite side of the temple and he said “building across street.” Oh, I said, that’s where we burn it. He looked pleased that I finally caught on. In English he asked where I was from and I told him the US. He smiled and left.
We were the only Westerners in the place the whole time we were there. Mostly people ignored us (except for my two helpful strangers) although I’m pretty sure I had at least three or four pictures taken of me when I was holding incense. Westerners are so odd!
At this point we crossed the street during a lull in the parade and found the burner for offerings, an industrial sized fireplace in a silo attached to the smaller temple building. I burned all my loot just in case my father could use the cash to buy a good position in the afterlife. Note: I do these worship activities out of respect for the people that do believe in them and because they do no harm to anyone.
We turned and watched the parade from the sidewalk for a while. It was a lot of fun but really, really loud. Every contingent from a city or temple had a musical group of several people playing a traditional nasal sounding flute which was amplified until it was VERY loud. Also, people set off strings of very high powered firecrackers at random times in the street right in front of us. I don’t think I have any permanent hearing loss because I lost so much hearing when I was a Postal Worker.
We decided at that point to go find the Confucius Temple since we had a train to catch in the afternoon and we were running out of time. We walked south for a while but didn’t find the temple. We did find hundreds more marchers headed for the Boan Temple, marching or driving down all the major streets in this part of town.
I’m writing this on the train to Hualien. The train goes up through the mountainous Northeast and then down the East coast of Taiwan. I finally got to see the mountains that cover most of Taiwan. It’s overcast but the green peaks loom in the gloom. So far we’ve passed through a number of small town and two small cities. I’ve seen my first rice paddies and now I’m looking at some very pretty cliffs on the ocean. Nice ride.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Tuesday
It's raining, which is to be expected this time of year in Taiwan. We're going to the northern part of the city to see the famous Confucious temple and the Boan Temple. There's a big festival at the Boan Temple so it should be interesting.
We're going to come back to the hotel and head to the train station. I don't expect connectivity at the next hotel in Hualien but I'll write some entries to post later.
Talked to the kids via Skype video call. Almost like being there!
We're going to come back to the hotel and head to the train station. I don't expect connectivity at the next hotel in Hualien but I'll write some entries to post later.
Talked to the kids via Skype video call. Almost like being there!
Monday April 26
We got a relatively early start today after not enough sleep. The hotel breakfast buffet included strong coffee and a mix of Chinese, Korean and unidentified foods, some of which I tried. Different but good.
We walked about fifteen minutes to our subway stop and took the train to Longshan Temple. The subway is cheap, fast, and very clean and it covers quite a bit of the city.
Longshan Temple is a Buddist/Taoist temple that was build in the 1800s. The major diety of the temple is Guanyin, the goddess of Compassion, but there are a number of other dieties represented. In the entire pantheon of asian deities, Guanyin in my favorite since Compassion is, I think, a critical quality in how we relate to others. Compassion for others is missing more and more in the American political discussion.
While the temple is ornate and the statues of Guanyin and the other gods are all beautiful, the most striking thing to me was how busy the temple is. During the hour that we were there, a steady stream of people came in and presented incense to the gods, worked on divining their fortunes, or kneeled and read Bhuddist prayers. The temple-goers were of all ages and probably most of them were not Buddists or Taoists.
We got some incense and I said a few words to Guanyin about the lack of compassion in the world and I put some incense in both of the two huge bronze containers in front of Guanyin. I also presented incense to Mazu(who protects people on the sea), the deities that protect women in childbirth and the moon god (I think).
We then wandered around that part of town for a while looking for the Dizang Wat Temple where people petitioned the diety in charge of Hell. They ask not to be sent to Hell or at least not to be sent there for too long. When we found it, the temple looked like a garage from the outside as described in the guide book. It only had a few room but there was very cool and scary looking statues in there. We were the only people around so we didn't stay long.
There were a lot of alleys full of stalls selling nearly everything and we wandered through two or three. One of them was the herb alley which was packed with things I did not recognize. Other alleys had stalls and storefronts selling everything from clothes with Chinglish on them to live or freshly butchered animals. I got some veggie dumplings in one of those alleys that I thought were very good.
We walked north and saw the Qingshui temple, small but very pretty with very ornate carvings. We walked west toward the river and saw the Qingshan temple which was a beautiful building with three levels of prayer areas.
We looped back through a partially open night market and went to the new train station. We bought tickets there to travel to Hualien tomorrow on the Limited Express. There's a high speed train too but it doesn't seem like an extra hour is all that important when you have two weeks.
The main danger we face isn't heat (it was warm but not hot) or street crime, it's motor scooters. I think everyone in this city has one an they drive them on the streets, on the alleys, and on the sidewalks where they park them in large numbers. You have to always watch for them or you'll get hit. BTW, contrary to published reports, car drivers appear to be pretty good drivers.
After crashing for a while we went on an unsuccessful hunt for a restaurant that we saw in a guide book. We wound up eating at a similar buffet where the food looked very fresh but was kind of bland. While we were walking back we found some interesting other restaurants to try and an interesting outdoor art piece using laser light at the Museum of Comtemporary Art.
Time for sleep!
We walked about fifteen minutes to our subway stop and took the train to Longshan Temple. The subway is cheap, fast, and very clean and it covers quite a bit of the city.
Longshan Temple is a Buddist/Taoist temple that was build in the 1800s. The major diety of the temple is Guanyin, the goddess of Compassion, but there are a number of other dieties represented. In the entire pantheon of asian deities, Guanyin in my favorite since Compassion is, I think, a critical quality in how we relate to others. Compassion for others is missing more and more in the American political discussion.
While the temple is ornate and the statues of Guanyin and the other gods are all beautiful, the most striking thing to me was how busy the temple is. During the hour that we were there, a steady stream of people came in and presented incense to the gods, worked on divining their fortunes, or kneeled and read Bhuddist prayers. The temple-goers were of all ages and probably most of them were not Buddists or Taoists.
We got some incense and I said a few words to Guanyin about the lack of compassion in the world and I put some incense in both of the two huge bronze containers in front of Guanyin. I also presented incense to Mazu(who protects people on the sea), the deities that protect women in childbirth and the moon god (I think).
We then wandered around that part of town for a while looking for the Dizang Wat Temple where people petitioned the diety in charge of Hell. They ask not to be sent to Hell or at least not to be sent there for too long. When we found it, the temple looked like a garage from the outside as described in the guide book. It only had a few room but there was very cool and scary looking statues in there. We were the only people around so we didn't stay long.
There were a lot of alleys full of stalls selling nearly everything and we wandered through two or three. One of them was the herb alley which was packed with things I did not recognize. Other alleys had stalls and storefronts selling everything from clothes with Chinglish on them to live or freshly butchered animals. I got some veggie dumplings in one of those alleys that I thought were very good.
We walked north and saw the Qingshui temple, small but very pretty with very ornate carvings. We walked west toward the river and saw the Qingshan temple which was a beautiful building with three levels of prayer areas.
We looped back through a partially open night market and went to the new train station. We bought tickets there to travel to Hualien tomorrow on the Limited Express. There's a high speed train too but it doesn't seem like an extra hour is all that important when you have two weeks.
The main danger we face isn't heat (it was warm but not hot) or street crime, it's motor scooters. I think everyone in this city has one an they drive them on the streets, on the alleys, and on the sidewalks where they park them in large numbers. You have to always watch for them or you'll get hit. BTW, contrary to published reports, car drivers appear to be pretty good drivers.
After crashing for a while we went on an unsuccessful hunt for a restaurant that we saw in a guide book. We wound up eating at a similar buffet where the food looked very fresh but was kind of bland. While we were walking back we found some interesting other restaurants to try and an interesting outdoor art piece using laser light at the Museum of Comtemporary Art.
Time for sleep!
First Day, What Earthquake?
We're back at the hotel after spending the morning in the historic district. More about that later.
First though, I just read that there was an earthquake under the ocean close to Taiwan and buildings swayed in Taipei for 20 seconds. Huh? We didn't feel anything or see anything odd during the morning.
More later.
First though, I just read that there was an earthquake under the ocean close to Taiwan and buildings swayed in Taipei for 20 seconds. Huh? We didn't feel anything or see anything odd during the morning.
More later.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
We're Here!
After two flights totalling fourteen hours, two meals and two snacks, five or six movies (I only watched Crazy Heart and Blind Spot), a bus ride and a cab ride, we're relaxing in our room at the surprisingly stylish Ambience hotel in central Taipei. It's midnight and we're fried but I'm going to venture out to the 7 Eleven to get some bottled water (none in the room).
Sally is very excited about finally getting here and her Chinese has already been highly praised by the people at the hotel desk.
More tomorrow.
Wait...an immediate update. In the two blocks between here and the 7 Eleven I passed a number of restaurants and some businesses that were all open and full of rowdy, happy people. There's a crew working on the street in front of the hotel and lots of traffic on the street. It's midnight on Sunday night! I love it.
BTW, no problems at the 7 Eleven. I got a giant spring water for $30NT which is $1 US.
Sally is very excited about finally getting here and her Chinese has already been highly praised by the people at the hotel desk.
More tomorrow.
Wait...an immediate update. In the two blocks between here and the 7 Eleven I passed a number of restaurants and some businesses that were all open and full of rowdy, happy people. There's a crew working on the street in front of the hotel and lots of traffic on the street. It's midnight on Sunday night! I love it.
BTW, no problems at the 7 Eleven. I got a giant spring water for $30NT which is $1 US.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
One Week to Go
One week from now we'll be in the air over the Pacific. Seven days to get ready.
We're buying all kinds of stuff. We're buying little things like travel wallets, luggage tags, and foldable carry-on bags. We're buying t-shirts and lightweight pants to deal with the 90+ degree heat in Taiwan and umbrellas for the expected rain. We even bought another Taiwan guide book (Rough Guide) since it was there at the AAA and we got it almost for free. We're refilling prescriptions and I finished taking my Typhoid vaccine pills.
And I set up this blog. I'll be blogging as much as possible and posting pix if the bandwidth allows.
Stay tuned.
And I set up this blog. I'll be blogging as much as possible and posting pix if the bandwidth allows.
Stay tuned.
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