Taiwan Trip, Day 8

I woke up the next morning energized and ready for one last day of sightseeing. I had a quick convenience store breakfast and then headed on over to tourist center in front of the train station, where I caught my bus with no problems. There were a variety of different people on the bus, many of whom were foreigners. However, there were only a few other Caucasians, and I think they were European.

I ended up meeting a few really cool people, including two mainlander Chinese guys who were living in Japan and somehow got a visa for Taiwan. I also met an entire family of second generation Taiwanese—again, they were all talking to each other in Chinese and then some of them started talking to me in California-girl English! There were a number of girls about my age and we chatted a bit—I guess they have a family reunion in Taiwan every year, with some people living in various spots in America and some still in Taiwan. The tour guide put them in charge of me because he didn’t really speak English at all—just kind of grunted and pointed. He didn’t want me to miss the bus, so he would tell them to tell me the important information. They were all really nice, and I particularly enjoyed talking to the cute Chinese boys!

The bus tour was actually really enjoyable—just kind of laid back and easy-going. We would arrive at each spot, disembark, and the bus driver would tell us when the bus would leave. We could look around each spot by ourselves and at our leisure—we weren’t following some girl in a uniform with a flag. There were some Chinese language information videos and announcements, I believe, but I just ignored them for the most part.

Our first stop was the Visitors Center, for a brief look around. This is at the entrance to the park, but the looming cliffs in the background begin to look very impressive already. I took a bunch of pictures outside, enjoying the clean, fresh air, and then had a look around the visitor’s center. It was a nicely put together little place, with a variety of exhibits and information about the gorge. Next, we stopped at a little park that had some nice views—I particularly like the brutal honesty of this particular sign.



It was quite accurate, too.



The flowers were beautiful there—in particular, poinsettias were growing everywhere, in big bushes, and the leaves were a deep, beautiful red. I don’t think I had ever before seen a poinsettia growing wild in a natural setting before, so it was really interesting. I had no idea how big they could get!



Our next stop was the Atayal Cutural Center—which was basically just a visitor’s center and brief monument for a particular aboriginal tribe that lived/lives in the area. There was an interesting exhibit about the crafts native to the area, and even some old ladies doing weaving and basket making inside. Again, there was a beautiful view, so that was nice. We then piled back into a bus and headed to another location to do a short walk. I can’t remember what it was called, but it was a nice enough walk—probably just half an hour or so, but some nice views of a river and some interesting marble rock formations.



Our bus picked us up on the other side of the walk, and after working up a nice appetite on the hike, we headed to lunch.

Lunch was included in the price and it was a buffet at the Grand Formosa Hotel, which is in the middle of the park.



There is also a Catholic hostel of some sort nearby. It was definitely worth the price! I was actually quite impressed—I didn`t expect much, since the cost of the tour was really quite low, but the buffet had a lot of different foods—Western, Chinese, and even some dishes inspired by the various aboriginal tribes, and using ingredients grown in the Taroko Gorge park. As well, there were a wide variety of appetizers, drinks, and desserts. I sat with the cute Chinese boys and the American-Taiwanese girls and had a good time. After stuffing ourselves at the buffet, we headed out again, this time some of the more lovely sites.

Our first stop was the Eternal Spring Shrine, a lovely sight nestled in the mountains above the river.



Although it looks quite mystical and old, I believe it is actually a fairly modern shrine in honor of all the workers who died constructing a highway across Taiwan. It looks very far away, but it was actually a fairly short walk--the shrine is actually very small. The mountains are also all much more impressive in real life...

Our last stop was an especially scenic spot known as "Swallow Gorge and Tunnel of Nine Turns." Our bus dropped us off again and we walked through the gorge and the aforementioned tunnel. It was really quite extraordinary and none of my pictures, unfortunately, do it any justice at all.







We then piled back in the bus and headed back to the city. We made an obligatory stop at a marble store--some very impressive stuff, huge statues, etc., but out of my price range and a bit of a hard sell (clearly dependent on tour buses.)

Back in Hualien, I said a sad goodbye to the Chinese boys and headed out to look for dinner again, with an equal lack of success. I was also running out of money by this point--something which would be haunting the remaining days of my trip. So I ended up at an internet cafe (very cheap in Taiwan) and ate some junk food.

As it happened, that night was New Year's Eve. I was too far from the city to go out and do any celebrating, and I had no money in any case. I thought about going back to Taipei a day early, since I would have had time, but I had already paid for the hotel, and, as I said, no money--and no way of getting more. So I sat in my rather sad hotel room--that nonetheless got English language movie channels, so cheers for that--and listened to the sound of firecrackers and people celebrating the New Year's. It was a little lonely but not necessarily in a bad way. I fell asleep early again that night.

Taiwan Trip, Day 7

I woke up, once again bright and early the next morning and headed to the train station to catch the train to my next destination. I stopped only to pick up some juice and a bagel from the little window at a cafe that also doubled as a hair salon. The bagels were tasty. I caught the train with no trouble this time. I was bound for a city called Hualien, which was not particularly known for being interesting in and of itself, but which was the easiest stopping off point for a place called Taroko Gorge, one of the premier sightseeing destinations in Taiwan. Basically, Taroko Gorge is a 19 kilometer long canyon composed mostly of granite and marble. The marble gives the cliffs a particularly beautiful look, and the scenery is said to be impressive. I wanted to visit, but I had no car, so decided to do a day trip out of Hualien, rather than staying within the park itself.

It was a fairly long journey from Tainan to Hualien. I took the train, as before. Although the train was nice enough and the scenery was beautiful—steep, verdant tropical looking mountains pushed up against a shining blue sea—the train was a little annoying, because people were louder than on a Japanese train, and the train itself was making a weird whining noise—I began to wonder if it was in my head and I was going deaf or something, but luckily it was really the noise of the train! The journey itself was really quite long, and took most of the day—about 7 hours. I think I had to change trains at Kaohsiung, but don’t quote me on that. By the time I arrived at Hualien, it was late afternoon and I was quite tired. I also had started to realize the problem that would haunt the rest of my trip—I was running out of money, and had no other way to get it. Because of this, I wanted to minimize expenditures. I stayed in a super cheap hotel, near the station—which is quite far from downtown Hualien. Because of this, I hardly saw any of the city—I would have had to take a taxi there, or walked a long way in the dark. The hotel I stayed at was pleasant enough, although like most of the others it was run down and had an inexplicable hole in the wall. It also had a window, though, and a TV with some English language channels.

After getting settled, I went to find out how I could visit Taroko Gorge. Because of lack of transport and lack of time, I decided to go on a bus tour—something I also never do! It turned out to be quite nice, however. I did the basic bus tour put on by the tourist information service—it was just across the street from my hotel. I paid the nice English speaking man there my $10 fee and then went looking for a place to eat. I had very little luck, sadly, and ended up eating at a Taiwanese version of MosBurger... pathetic! Oh well. After that I went back to the hotel to sleep—the tour was leaving early the next day; I think about 8:00.

Taiwan Trip, Day 6

Tainan was a nice town. I spent most of this day just walking around, visiting temples and the backstreets. It was a lot smaller and more rural than Taipei, and seemed really easy going. I definitely got some attention, but not in a bad way. People would occasionally shout out `Hello` to me, and so on, but were not creepy about it. There were no aggressive vendors or anything like that—the joy of going to a non-touristy country!

There were other tourists, but they all seemed to be Chinese (either Taiwanese or—once—mainlanders!) There were also quite a few Japanese tourists. I did notice the traffic seemed to get even worse once you were out of Taipei. The traffic in Taiwan is definitely 3rd-world-ish—people pay very little attention to things like pedestrians or traffic lights. You just have to start walking out in the street and hope your wits can save you. In the end, I survived just fine, although I had a few nasty moments.

I was planning on staying in Tainan for just one night, and then heading further south, maybe to Kaohsiung, but I decided I was too tired and wanted to stay one more night, and then take off for my next destination the day after. I tried to book another night at the hotel I had stayed at the night before, but they were fully booked. So I lugged my stuff over to another hotel, also recommended in the Lonely Planet book. It was also quite close to the station, and had a clear air of very faded grandeur to it. It had clearly once been a much fancier hotel, but now the rugs were worn, the paint was peeling, and it was all a bit shabby. Still, my room was really large and only cost about $20, including an en-suite shower that worked just fine. No holes in the wall this time, and a big window! So I was happy with that, in the end.

Tainan has been heavily promoted as Taiwan’s version of Kyoto—a historical city as opposed to a commercial, bustling modern city like Taipei or Tokyo. Tainan does have quite a few old temples and districts, but it is nothing compared to Kyoto. Still, I enjoyed it. Because Tainan has invested quite heavily in tourism, the city is very well sign posted in English, with periodical maps and informational signs along the main tourist ways. It was easy to find my way. They also had good maps available at the tourist stations.

That morning, the weather was sunny and pleasant. It was very warm, enough so that I wore only a T-shirt. My first stop was at a place called the Chikan Towers. I wasn’t planning to go there per se, but it looked nice from the outside. It was nice on the inside too—just a kind of quiet spot. It was apparently a fort built by the Dutch, in the 17th century—the Dutch briefly tried to colonize Tainan—and was used as an administrative area. It was also used as an army hospital by the Japanese, apparently. Now it is mainly just a tourist site and kind of functions as a temple. You can climb all around the fort—there are numerous buildings, including an old school house. The decorations are beautiful and colorful as always.



For me, though, the garden was definitely the highlight. It was calm and peaceful and full of tropical flowers. There was a crazy old tree that looked like a banyan tree.

http://picasaweb.google.com/EFSelf/TaiwanTrip?authkey=Gv1sRgCOGTrv7yhr_FQQ#5307779476397985442

Various kinds of sculptures—including one hilarious bronze sculpture of foreigners, as seen by the Chinese—are scattered around the garden. In front of the fort, there are 9 turtle statues accompanying 9 steles with inscriptions—they date from the Qing dynasty, and are a well known landmark of Tainan. It was nice.



I walked around the area a bit, checking out the stores and restaurants and eventually found a restaurant I had read about in Lonely Planet. They only served one thing, so I figured it would OK even if no one spoke English (and no one did.) The food was a kind of sticky, glutinous rice with some meat inside, wrapped in a banana leaf. It was not the most delicious thing I have ever eaten, but it was certainly authentic (a hole in the wall kind of place) and apparently quite famous. I enjoyed it.

After that, I was off to another temple, this one a Confucian Temple, and one of the best known in Tainan. It is also one of the older buildings in Taiwan, dating from the 17th century, although it has been moved and re-constructed a few times.



Again, it was a peaceful, calm place, with large gardens and a lot of trees for shade. The buildings were pretty on the outside, but less impressive inside. Still, it was interesting visiting a Confucian Temple—I had never been to one before, but only Buddhist or Shinto temples. In Confucianism, there is no god to worship, per se, so instead it is the sayings of Confucius that are enshrined in the buildings. The temple once functioned as a Confucian school, training new scholars for government work. The colors were vibrant but more understated than at the typical Buddhist temples.

I wandered through the temple and took a few pictures. In front of the main temple, a musical group of some kind was playing what sounded like traditional Chinese music, and I sat and watched for a time. At one point, a very elderly man from the crowd came up and did a number. He wasn’t exactly the greatest singer ever, but it was certainly interesting.

After leaving the temple, I wandered around the back and saw the famous shaved ice store mentioned in my guidebook. The line was huge, though, and I was not particularly interested, so I didn’t get any ice. I wandered down another alley and found a stand selling some kind of sweetened juice made of a huge squash of some kind—it looked like a gigantic zucchini. They had a few outside to demonstrate, including an interesting statue! The juice was quite tasty, very cool and refreshing, and flavored with what tasted like brown sugar.



Near the juice stand, I found another temple. It was small and in an interesting residential area. In most respects, it was a typical temple, but was very interesting. I especially liked the red flashing LCD lights on top of the temple… I’m guessing it was not that old, but it was certainly very interesting!



That was about it for my day, and I headed back to the hotel for one more night, stopping only to buy a ticket to my next destination.

Taiwan Trip, Day 5

Seeing the sunrise in one of the big touristy things to do at Alishan—there’s a special place to view it and you can take another small train to a peak called Jhushan, every morning, in the dark, and then wait for sunrise. This was what I did. The place was absolutely ridiculously packed! There were a huge number of tourists there—all crowded around the main viewing platform. I couldn’t even get a spot on the rail! I got a decent spot on a little staircase though, and waited for sunrise.



The sunrise was very beautiful, and it was fun to wait for it with all the other Taiwanese people—there was a cool sense of anticipation.



However, in the end, it was just a normal sunrise. The view was glorious, but the sea of clouds was not present this morning. I suppose in a way it was just as well, because we got a beautiful view all the way down the mountain, over the forests and tea plantations.

After the sunrise finished rising, a man came up and started selling his dried fruits and nuts. He put on quite the show, and it was very entertaining. I sampled some random tropical looking dried fruits and then headed back down the path. Rather than taking the train, I wanted to walk.



The walk was pleasant and surprisingly almost deserted—in fact, I almost got lost because there was no one else there! I went down through the forests, took a brief detour for another nice viewing spot, and ended up by another train station I didn’t know the name of. I eventually found my way back to the main village and returned to my hotel.

I inquired at the desk and found that, to my joy, the nice boy from the hotel had gotten me a ticket! I triumphantly paid my bill, packed up my bags, and headed to the train station.



The train itself was quite the adventure! It is really tiny—the train is just two seats across, with one on each window and an aisle down the middle, so everyone has a window seat. The ticket has a hilarious map on it, as you can see. Yes, that is the train`s route. It takes 4 and a half hours—2 hours more than the bus—because the traintracks have such a complicated and strange pathway. At one point, the train actually goes backwards, like it is doing a 3 point turn, in order to get around a particularly sharp curve.



The views were very impressive, and I enjoyed the strange little train a lot.



When I arrived back Chiayi, I bought a ticket onward to Tainan. Unfortunately, I said the name of the town wrong and the man selling tickets sold me a ticket to a similarly named, but far away town. Luckily, I realized this before I got on the train, but unluckily, I missed the train. Near Chiayi station, there was a tourist information booth and the people inside spoke English. I told the lady my tragic tale and she very kindly escorted me to the ticket counter and negotiated for a proper ticket. Unfortunately, there were no seats left for that train, so I had to get a standing-only ticket, but I still appreciated what she did so much! She was yet another very kind Taiwanese person who went out of their way to help me. On the train, I leaned against the wall and read my book until we arrived in Tainan. I didn’t have a reservation here either, so I went to the hotel Lonely Planet recommended, and they had a room for me, luckily enough! The room was a bit gross and had a weird hole in the wall and no windows (!) but hey, it wasn’t that bad! It was en-suite and very cheap, anyways, and I didn’t see any bugs. I explored the shopping area of the town a bit, and then went to sleep.

Taiwan Trip, Day 4

I checked out of my hotel early the next day and headed to the main train station in town, which I had luckily seen the day before, while looking for some dinner. I was a little concerned about the tickets, because I had not been able to buy them in advance. Luckily, it was no problem. I just told the man where I wanted to go, and he sold me a ticket right there. The train I wanted had plenty of seats left.

I was very impressed with the train. It was not quite like trains in Japan—a little older, a little dingier—but there was plenty of feet room and it was very comfortable. The view out the window was lovely, too—I got a window seat. At some stations, people would come to the station and sell bentos. Unlike the olden days, they didn’t come up the windows of the trains—I don’t think they open, anyway—but it was still cool, how they had special regional dishes for various stations (they have this tradition in Japan as well.)

For this first night out of Seoul, I was headed to Alishan, a reputedly very beautiful mountain to the south of Seoul. I planned to stay just one night there. Alishan is famous for being a `cloud mountain.` It is so high up that you can look down on a sea of clouds from the peak. They also grow very well regarded tea on the slopes of the mountain. It is a national park, and very well-touristed!

I arrived in Chiayi around lunch time. Chiayi is the main town from which to depart for the mountain. You have two options to get up to the top of the Alishan range—bus or train. The train is an ancient, narrow-gauge train that slowly, slowly winds its way up through the mountains. I heard it was really scenic, and wanted to take it. Unfortunately, there was no way to make reservations in English in advance, so I immediately went to go buy a ticket when I got there. Alas, they were all sold-out—for the entire day! Standing room tickets were possible, but it is a 3 and a half hour journey and it is not like anyone is going to be getting off along the way, so I declined. Instead, I bought a ticket for a bus—figuring I could always try to get the railway on the way back down. Tickets from Alishan back to Chiayi are not sold in advance, so everyone has an equal chance.

I had a while before the bus left, so I decided to go change some of my yen into dollars. Unfortunately, the bank I went into would not change the money. I was quite upset at that point and went and cried in a corner. I thought I was being subtle but two clerks from the bank saw me, gave me water and tissues, and pointed me to a bank where I could change my money. They were so kind it makes me tear up even now thinking of them! I went to the other bank (which was just next door!) and changed my money.

The bus was very comfortable and the ride was shorter than the train ride would have been (only 2 1/2 hours.) I was seated next to a pleasant Asian man who I at first assumed was Taiwanese, but he turned out to be an American citizen of Taiwanese descent, visiting the old country with his kids. We had a nice little chat and his kids (who were probably in their 20s or late teens) looked awkward and sullen. Now I know how those people my mother talked to must have felt, heh!



We made one stop along the way, near one of the many tea plantations. It was very interesting to see the strange looking rows of bumpy tea bushes growing on the slopes there.

When we got to Alishan, I was a little worried because I had not made any hotel reservations. The nice Taiwanese man offered to give me his cell phone number and try to help me out if I had any problems, but his daughter looked like she thought I was trying to hustle him or something and I said I would be fine. And I was! I quickly headed towards the hotel area of Alishan, described in Lonely Planet, and went to a hotel that I recognized from the guide. I don’t remember the name of the hotel, unfortunately, but it was one of the recommended budget hotels. I had no problems getting a room, and was quickly checked in.

There was an extremely nice and rather cute Taiwanese boy there who was working for the hotel. He showed me around the town and flirted a bit. Then I asked at the front desk about the tickets for the morning—I had heard that some hotels would get them for you, because they went on sale at 8 AM, when many tourists were watching the sunset. They agreed to try to get me the morning tickets.

The room was quite nice—a bit more expensive than the other hotels I had stayed in in Taiwan, but also nicer. The bed was comfortable and the bathroom was spotless.



After that, I went out for a look around the town. It was interesting—it is up in literally the middle of nowhere, but just this one spot is a huge tourist draw—one of the biggest in Taiwan. For this reason, there are quite a few chains that have taken up residence there. For example, there are a 7-11 and a Starbucks! It has to be one of the more remote Starbucks in the world. I was glad of the coffee when I got up early for the sunset, though! I walked down the road towards the bus stop, where there was a viewing spot. From there, you were able to see the valley sloping down. I had a great view of the famous `sea of clouds.` I looked around a bit, and then soon after that the sun began to set. The weather was cooler, and I felt a bit chilly—although really quite warm, overall, considering that it was December and I was on top of a mountain! There was certainly no snow or anything like that.



Anyways, the sunset was absolutely gorgeous and I think I really got lucky with that. I got some amazing pictures. Eventually, it started getting dark and I had to return to town. I had dinner at a nice, cheap little place with a kind-of sort-of English menu. The food wasn`t great, but at least it seemed to be authentically Taiwanese, not McDonald`s! There were many Taiwanese tourists there, and I got some stares since I was by far the only foreigner (or at least, the only obvious foreigner—may have been some American-Chinese there.) After that, I returned to bed and went to sleep early—I had to be up early the next day to catch the sunrise!

Taiwan Trip, Day 3

The next day I got up extra early, feeling excited. I was planning to finally visit the National Palace Museum, one of the main reasons I had gone to Taiwan in the first place. Because I am a huge museum geek, I figured I would probably spend most of my day there, and I didn’t really plan anything else for that day.



I took the subway to Shilin station and then took a cheap bus in order to get to the museum. It was easy and inexpensive. The museum itself is quite impressive looking, in a kind of faux Chinese style, and painted green. A lot of people were taking pictures outside of the building. If you faced away from the building, you could see some huge somewhat dingy looking buildings—apartment blocks? I wonder what they were.

After that, I went into the museum and did my art history geek thing. Almost inevitably, it was a bit of a let down. They did have some amazing things there, however—one of their star items is a cabbage made of jade, and also a piece of stone made to look like a slab of meat. Those were really interesting—they date from the Qing dynasty (which stretched from the 17th century to the 20th century. They are kind of like curiosities—the craftsmanship was still amazing, however. The other collections were excellent too, of course, but less memorable. I did end up having a bit of a disappointment. I was really looking forward to seeing the museums collection of paintings—in particular, they own Fan Kuan’s Tang-era `Travelers Among Mountains and Streams` and a number of other extraordinary early period paintings. But unfortunately, the whole section was closed for remodeling! I was really disappointed. I wanted to come back later—it would be opened by the time I returned to Taiwan, the day before leaving. But I was not able to go back, and that was a shame.

However, I did go to the gift shop and spend a lot of money! I got a cute key strap in the shape of a cabbage, salt and pepper shakers in the shape of bronze Shang bells, and a few books about the collection, which were quite inexpensive. I stopped at a nice little café in the museum and had some good dessert. Then I headed back home to the hostel. I was planning to leave Taipei the next day, and needed to make my final plans.

Taiwan Trip, Day 2

My second day in Taiwan I woke up bright and early (kind of) but unfortunately I almost immediately realized I felt really crappy. Some kind of stomach bug maybe? I hadn't even eaten very much yet at that point, so I don't know why. At any rate, I sat on the couch in the living room and felt sorry for myself for a few hours. Eventually I did start feeling better, and I decided that I didn't want to waste my whole day! It was probably around 11 or 12 that I finally ventured out of the house. I was planning on going to the National Palace Museum, but I wanted to spend an entire day there! So, in the end, I ended up just doing some random stuff. It was a really fun day!

I started the day out with a nice meal at a little coffee shop/cafe place near my hotel. Just a sandwich, I believe it was. I decided to go to Chiang Kai-Shek's memorial hall, first of all. I just wanted to have a look, since it was quite famous and impressive looking. I took the subway again--it really does work so well! The weather was very nice, as you can see, and just a little bit chilly.



There were a number of big fancy buildings near the memorial hall--a theater and a strange gate thing. It was a fairly impressive work of public architecture. I believe you can usually go inside it but it was closed when I was there--they were remodeling the inside, I think, to make it less rah-rah Chiang Kai-Shek. Turns out he was kind of a dick. They renamed it the "National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall" apparently. But I didn't get to see the museum which is apparently inside the building. The surrounding gardens are also quite nice, and I enjoyed a quick walk.

That visit did not really occupy much of the day, however, so I took the subway to the end of the line and then managed to find a bus (by pointing inquiringly at the entry in my guide book and looking hopefully at various bus dudes) to the place I wanted to go--which was a place called Yeliou. According to Lonely Planet, it was a nice place by the sea with interesting rock sculptures, and I really wanted to see the sea! Ironically, although I know live on an island, I almost never see the sea--much less than when I lived in Oregon. I got placed right smack center in the middle of Japan--pretty much as far as you can get from the sea in this country!

So I headed out on the bus. It was me and not a whole lot of other people, and I felt vaguely uneasy, but it was an adventure. I do so love adventures! The highlight of the bus trip was passing by this place--it's an abandoned resort and even from the road, you can tell it was something crazy. I had seen the pictures on the internet before I went to Taiwan, but had no idea where they were from. Seeing it suddenly from the beach was a strangely exciting feeling--I almost demanded the bus driver stop and let me go look! But there was no bus stop near the resort and we continued on to my destination instead.



When we finally got there, I was more than a little baffled. There were no signs or anything to show me the way, but I figured I would just see what happened. I started walking and soon realized Yeliou was a tiny little fishing town! There were boats and drying fish and squids all over the place. There was a pretty looking temple on a hill and a building of some kind with an inexplicable mural. People stared at me a little bit, but not in an angry or threatening way. I stopped for a brief lunch of onigiri at a convenience store (they had almost as much coverage in Taiwan as they do in Japan) and unexpectedly stumbled upon some random foreigners on motorbikes. They sketched me out a little bit, though, so I quickly continued on my way, and found the "Scenic Area" with no problem. It was near some kind of aquarium, but it didn't look very welcoming, so I just went with the Scenic Area. It was filled with tourists, which was reassuring.



The "Scenic Area" basically consisted of a long spit of land with a number of different rock formations. They were really strange looking, and it was more than worth the price, especially if you had been starved for the sea. There were fossils in the rocks,



and strange stubby-looking knobs of stone in weird formations,



and big perfecty round holes in the ground. Down in the sea there was an interesting formation that, according to the Taiwanese, looked like blocks of tofu.



The place was well presented though. It was obviously touristy and for a profit, and they just let you climb everywhere you wanted, pretty much. However, there were no big ugly concrete blocks anywhere and the man-made bits, like stairs and a lovely stone bridge, were very tastefully done.



Tourists were swarming around the most famous and popular rock formations--they all had names like the Queen's Head or Bee Hive, or Fairy's Shoe. However, the coastline continued out in a long penninsula, if you wanted to go for a walk, and I, being in the end my mother's daughter, did. You could walk all the way around the headline and get some really stunning views. Plus, as a bonus, there was almost no one there--all the tourists stayed on the lower part of the penninsula! The view was lovely.



I stayed there until it started getting dark, browsing around the gift shop a bit, and then caught the bus back to Taipei. Luckily, I was with another group--a small family of Japanese tourists were waiting for me, otherwise I might have gotten a bit nervous, because it took quite a long time for the bus to show up. But I wasn't worried. I returned to my hotel and got a private room, instead of the rather unpleasant dorm I had been put into. I "borrowed" a futon from the other bunch and made my mattress a bit softer.

Taiwan Trip, Day 1

Last year I decided to go to Taiwan for Christmas. I have always been interested in China, but was too afraid of the actual mainland China to go there by myself. I wanted somewhere relatively nearby and inexpensive, and Taiwan fit the bill. In addition, the National Palace Museum in Taipei has an extraordinary collection of Chinese art, most of it "liberated" from the Communists and the vast majority of Chinese people by the fleeing Kuomintan government. Regardless of my feelings about that, the Taiwanese have done an excellent job is preserving it and no doubt protecting it from the ravages of the Cultural Revolution. I really wanted to visit the museum. Thus I bought my tickets for Taiwan and resolved to spend my Christmas and New Year's enjoying myself and doing weird new things instead of feeling homesick and sorry for myself.

I was really impressed by Taiwan! It is not exactly a popular destination, many people doing layovers if anything, but I think it is severely under-rated. It is inexpensive, but definitely a first-world country--it is fairly exotic and still unused to foreigners, especially in the south, but completely safe and with a fair number of very helpful English speakers. The places I went were beautiful, and the people unfailingly kind and helpful to a single female traveler.

With all that in mind, I set off for Taiwan. I arrived fairly late and took the bus into town. I decided to stay at the World Scholar House, an inexpensive hostel that had generally received positive reviews. It was on the top floor of a back street in Taipei. While the hostel was generally a nice place, it was unfortunately a bad time for the hostel, I think. I'm pretty sure the beds had bedbugs (they were soon after fumigated) and the bathrooms were dirty. I heard that the owner had made the always unfortunate decision of leaving the hostel in the hands of a long-term guest while she went on vacation somewhere and he had let it go to shit. Whether this was true or not, I could not in all fairness recommend this hostel. Also, the beds were really hard and it was full of mosquitoes. It may have improved since, however. The location was fairly nice and there was a Starbucks and a number of nice coffee shops nearby. A number of the people staying there are long-termers--English teachers and what not. Generally people are very friendly and there is a nice lounge area to meet people in, so it is definitely not all bad!

The first thing I noticed was just how hot it was in Taiwan. It was quite a bit more hot and humid than I had expected, considering it was winter time. The first day was especially warm. I felt just fine in only a t-shirt. Unfortunately, it also started to rain that day and much of the day was spent under an umbrella. I still had fun, though!

I woke up and headed to a Starbucks. This was the start of my sweet sweet romance with Starbucks coffee—believe it or not, I had never before really tried coffee from Starbucks. But at this one, a peppermint latte looked extremely delicious and I had to try it out. That was it—I was addicted! I was also pleasantly surprised by the girl who worked at the counter, as her English was excellent.

My destination for my first day in Taiwan was the Wanhua area, one of the more traditional parts of Taipei. Although there is very little in the way of ancient buildings or whatnot in Taiwan, some of the city still retains a distinctively rustic feeling. This was definitely true of the enjoyable Wanhua area. In order to get there, I took the excellent metro system. It is extremely cheap, very reliable, and clean. The way you pay is pretty cool. When you buy a ticket, you get a little plastic coin thing. When you enter the gates, you just run it over the sensor, like a SUICA card or something in Japan. When you exit, you deposit it in the gate and it lets you out. Just like in Japan, the amount that the ticket costs depends on how far you travel. If you make a mistake about how much your journey will cost, you can pay extra before you leave the station.



My first stop was the well-known Longshan Temple. It is dedicated to the goddess of mercy—Kannon in Japan, Avalokiteshvara in Sanskrit, and Guanyin in Chinese. I bought an adorable key-strap clay figure of Guanyin… so cute and so sacrilegious! I love it! My first impression of Longshan was of bright color and chaos. It is a big cliché, but it was really so different from a Japanese temple! The sheer magnitude of the decorations was amazing. People were everywhere, making offerings, telling their fortunes, praying, and so on.



Longshan definitely has a lot of character, and the carvings are wonderfully ornate and colorful. I really enjoyed it, and spent a lot of time looking around.



After that, I wandered around the Wanhua area a little bit. Things were dirtier and older looking than Japan—that was undeniable—but it was so full of life and character that walking around was a lot of fun.



I peeked down a tiny lane full of fortune tellers and went to an underground market full of souvenir shops. I looked at various religious souvenirs and bought some paper art depicting a Chinese folk god. I looked with lust at some of the incredibly delicious looking cakes in the shops surrounding the temple area. I walked down an indoors covered market that was full of vegetables, strange herbs, and chicken feet. It sometimes smelled terrible and was not very appetizing, but it was fascinating. I also wandered down the `Snake Alley,` but didn’t see any snakes, and wasn’t that excited by it. I think it was the wrong time of day for excitement at Snake Alley. I visited another random temple along the side of the streets and found some cheap clothing stores in back alleys. There was an awesome little restaurant full of old men that was located in a shack under what looked like a banyan tree—it was growing over the shack until it was a part of it. Very cool stuff.



I even saw another temple wedged into a bunch of gray apartment blocks.

Unfortunately, this was also the day that I discovered something that was to haunt the rest of my Taiwanese trip—I am a big wussy. Many Taiwanese restaurants have no English language menus, and many of them are just some tables on the sidewalk with unfriendly looking proprietors. I ended up having lunch at Yoshinoya! Yes, they have them in Taiwan. It was tasty, but basically just Japanese food. Ah well. Again, the clerk at Yoshinoya was both cute and brave—he also attempted to speak in English. Which is just as well, since I do not know a single word of Mandarin or Taiwanese.

I thought that was enough for my first day, and went back to the youth hostel. I had several conversations with a pleasant enough bunch of English teachers and other various long term people.