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.