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!