Two Out of Taipei
06 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
We’re here in our new home of Jinan China. The past few months have been filled with travel and friends. Becky and Nemes, Jessica’s Grand Rapids friends came to visit in Taipei and we traveled all around. We went to Taichung or more accurately Waipu I think. It’s the home town of my friend Bonnie Yao and she invited us all down for a barbecue and to stay the night. We rode the bus with Bonnie from Taipei and went to this new bus station that we’d never seen before but was brilliant, large and clean and efficient. Bonnie made me try to tell the clerk what kind of tickets we needed in mandarin and I failed almost immediately and she bailed me out. Good ol Bonnie. I really miss her but she’s buying a webcam and microphone so we should be able to Skype soon. Her barbecue was great. Jessica and I burned the sausages though and Bonnie’s grandma had to come over and scrape off the cancerous bits. We grilled huge green peppers and mushrooms and pork and Bonnie’s dad bought us Heinekin. I even got to try some of Grandma Yao’s home brewed rice wine. It was deliciously strong. Then we went to the local night market which resembled a small town carnival with ring tosses and lots of other games. One thing of note there was the papaya milk that Bonnie made us try. Exquisite. If anytime you are at the Waipu night market, get the papaya milk.
Afterword, we took a train to Kenting, swam and drank beers on the beach. I had a few too many and made quite a fool of myself, one of which ways was speaking horrible slurred Chinese to almost anyone who passed me by.
Next, Hualien, where we had an awesome hot pot meal and rode scooters up and down Toroko Gorge. It was a blast.
My parents came when we got back to Taipei and with them we went off to Penghu Island. I tiny island, only about 13 kilometers across. We rented a car from our B&B and drove around the entire island and the gas meter never went below Full. The highlights of Penghu were eating cactus ice cream underneath a 300 year old Banyan tree, riding bicycles to the beach, seeing the whale cave, and just enjoying being on vacation. It’s strange living on a tropical island and taking a vacation on a smaller more tropical island. Penghu was very flat too, which was also strange because Taiwan is so mountainous and I’m used to that scenery and then to not see any mountains for a few weeks is a small shock. It’s kind of like traveling from Michigan where you can only usually see a couple of miles due to the hills and trees to South Dakota where one can see 50 to 100 miles on a long stretch of rode. When I went to South Dakota to work with Habitat for Humanity I met a man who said he got claustrophobic coming to the Midwest for that very reason. But, back to Penghu, we went on a boat tour which was really fun. It took us South a couple of dozen nautical miles It was great to see my parents after not really seeing them for so long. I really missed them.
Then, it was a mad dash to clean out the apartment and make everything look somewhat presentable to H.W. our landlord so we could get our deposit back. We had a lot of furniture that had to go and only a few days to sell it. Which meant we weren’t able to sell it, so we shipped it all down to Bonnie’s parents. She wanted to use the couch
Then we flew off to China (and started a new blog). It was weird leaving Taiwan. It felt like leaving home.
The best way to hike – in water.
11 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
Jessica’s been wanting to river trace, which is just hiking or tracing the route of a river, for a while now and yesterday we finally did it after a lengthy departure in which I was in a bad bad mood and seemed to exist to frustrate Jessica. But she weathered the Josh storm and we went and bought special river tracing shoes (kind of like scuba diving booties but with felt bottoms which help to grip the rocks) and I’m glad we did because they were awesome. I could jump onto slippery rocks and not slip. A couple of times I almost fell but never did. I felt like an amphibian. I don’t know why but I love jumping around on rocks in the water. When I was a kid my parents went to look at some property where they have their house now and I just naturally gravitated down toward the little creek and jumped in and played in the mud for a while. River tracing made me feel kind of at home.
We had to find this village called Cheng gong not to far south of Taipei on the way to Wulai. I thought it might be hard to find so I voted for us to just take a taxi out there thinking the taxi driver would know exactly what we were talking about. Well, he didn’t of course. I think it’s the only time we haven’t been able to somehow communicate or destination to a taxi driver. He spoke no English so we used our limited Chinese which was kind of fun and kind of ineffective. We ended up driving around Xindian for about 15 minutes because he thought we were looking for a street name cheng gong there. When he realized that was not the case we went back the MRT station and long story (calls to tourist information centers) short we just got out paid him 130 nt for not taking us anywhere and took the bus. The bus was crowded and we couldn’t understand the stop names very well. We’d thought we missed it and were just going to get out and randomly intersect the river and just hike around when the bus driver immediately called “Cheng Gong.” It was easy from there, a little rainy but these nice guys getting drunk at the bus stop gave us an umbrella. They said, “bye bye” to us when we came back about four hours later to go back to town too. River tracing was great. We just took our time walking around, stopped a few times to swim in some of the deeper pools and at one point I found a 15 or so foot ledge to jump off of into the water.
Today we went back up the tianmu trail which is right near our apartment for a hike and we saw these macaques. It was a happy moment because we’ve been hoping to see some kind of primate in the wild since we’ve been in Taiwan and in all of the places we’ve hiked we haven’t seen any sign of them. I was thinking we probably just wouldn’t see any and it was a real bummer but now we have and it is anit-bummer. It is awesome.
Bai sha wan (White Sand Beach)
04 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
We’ve a little over a month left in Taiwan so Jessica and I have been ramping up our excursions in both intensity and distance in our attempts to suck the marrow out of the isle Formosa. Last weekend we went to Kenting a great little town and park/coastline at the southern tip of Taiwan. I’ve been there once before with my scuba diving class but it was the first time for Jessica and I together. It was great. We bought snacks and beer at 7-11, got a taxi to the beach and there we stayed with our sun screen and our sunglasses and our rented beach umbrella for hours. Occasionally we would pop in the water and have fun fighting the massive waves until too much salt got in our eyes and forced us back out to take naps under our umbrella and to drink a few beers.
We didn’t know where to camp so we asked the umbrella salesman and she just pointed all around us. She was a determined lady. I think she asked us 5 or 6 times before we said yes. 300 nt and so worth it. The sun was brutal. We did see a sign that said no camping on the beach later. My plan was to wait and watch what other people did as there were probably hundreds of people on the beach at one point. Some of them must be camping somewhere. But they all cleared out almost instinctually around dusk. We were left pretty much alone and set up camp right at the tree line, still in the sand. It was incredibly hot and cramped in our little tent, precisely why the people sold it who sold it to us. Around three in the morning a few people were lighting off fireworks and wooping which woke us up and I felt a sweaty mess and climbed out and laid on the sand. Sleeping right on the sand of a clear skied beach is something everyone should do. Sand is the best mattress. I didn’t feel stiff at all in the morning at all and I felt this satisfaction at waking up to the ocean waves. I woke up next to the ocean for god’s sakes.
The best part about Bai sha beach is the beach bar which was only a few hundred feet from where we put our tent. We went there for some more beer and maybe a little food. The beer was cheap, 50nt per can, and this electronic music played while some kind of Asian music awards were playing on T.V. We shared a veggie noodle dish It was all open and outside, with an open air bar and picnic tables. People were grilling and a bunch of guys were drinking liquor behind us and playing drinking games. They eventually had the waitress give us a couple beers. When we looked back at them they were looking at us with their thumbs up, saying, “Meiguoren! Pijou!,” which means, Americans! Beer!, Just a great time. I kept thinking about state park beaches in the U.S. and if they had bars on them how awesome it would be. Maybe there are a lot of beach bars in the U.S. in Florida or California but in Michigan, on the great lakes, I can’t think of any I’ve ever seen. Maybe that’s my calling in life. Jessica and I have been fantasizing about opening a bookstore/bar on Lake Michigan. We’re confident it will happen.
While we were away there was a large protest in Taipei over the ECFA (economic cooperation framework agreement) and how it might change the economics and therefore politics between China and Taiwan. The DPP (democratic progressive party) claims that it will give China an advantage:
from The Taipei Times-
“An ECFA will limit us to China’s market and we will be unable to compete there because of their lower labor costs,” Chou said. “We want to sell made-in-Taiwan products around the whole world, not just in China.”
While The Kuomintang party is in favor of the deal. I’m not very knowledgeable about Taiwan’s politics but I do know that a lot of people here see economics as the latest attempt by China to exert control over Taiwan.
We’re gearing up to move to China in about 6 weeks or so. A lot of people have been wondering why we’re doing it because as one Israeli guy, who we bought a mattress from and who then gave us a free sushi roller, named Amir said, “Taiwan’s better, no.” And yes, Taiwan is great. It’s amazing. Everything is convenient and comfortable here. But then again I was pretty comfortable back in Grand Rapids, Michigan too. So, I guess, I just want to see what mainland China is like and maybe gain a better understanding of the world. Rick Steves can sum it up best. There is no google there though, so anyone who wants to e-mail me it will have to be at:
penniesforfree@yahoo.com
Hopefully this blog won’t be blocked. Perhaps I should shut my yapper about Mainland/Taiwan relations and it will be. And hopefully China will let’s its currency increase in value the second we arrive making us rich.
Zai jian,
Josh
Check out Jessica’s blog or my facebook to see a few picks of the wuliao jian trail/rock climb we hiked this past weekend. We had to scale vertical rock cliffs with ropes throughout almost the entire 4 hour hike. It was insanity. Plus we saw a huge snake. As I was climbing down I looked left and a fat gray scaly head was looking back at me only about three feet away. It was about six feet long and as thick as my arm. I instinctually scrambled back up the mountain cliff I was climbing down, of course it had to be on one of the more vertical parts of the trail that I encounter a jungle predator, and thank god it was leery of me and slithered back they way it came. Jessica and I then watched it slither down the trail in the direction we had to go for about 15 minutes. Cautiously we followed and didn’t see anymore sign of it. In trying to identify it later, I’m fairy sure it wasn’t poisonous but it was still scary.
How we did not celebrate Dragon Boat Festival.
16 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment
Yes foiled four times. I had that feeling of kind of wanting to check the Dragon Boat Festival out and Hess had already planned for me to go with Koala class, my class, to see the boats in Taipei but we got rained out on a Thursday and a Monday. It’s been raining an annoying amount of time; “for like five years,” as my coworker and beach goer Joe put it. So, no school sponsored trip, but that’s okay. I’m an independent person. I can use the internet. I’ll go on the weekend. And then the weekend came and it rained double but I read Steinbeck and fell asleep on the couch to the sound of the storm. A great day anyway.
Today, the official day of Dragon Boat Festival and one of the only weekdays Hess grants us off. We thought we’d go to Yilan and check out the races but didn’t know any times of anything and thought we probably missed them. I knew there would be a festival in Keelung near the train station so we headed there. It was a slow train ride but not too long. On the way we discovered in our Taipei Day Trips book this temple called The Fairy Cave which, of course, we had to go to and a cool park at high elevation with a great view. And since, obviously, there was no festival when we arrived, off to the fairy cave we went. 
The Fairy cave is the coolest temple I’ve seen in Taiwan, big, beautiful sculpture everywhere and tunnely. The park after was beautiful too, even if we were stuck in a traffic jam in a taxi with a driver who seems like a lovely man but had deeply red stained teeth from chewing lots of betle nut. It didn’t bother me too much but that cabby loved to smile. The park offered a nice walk down a large cliff back into town.
Sorry no smiling taxi driver pictures.
Back at home we made nachos and relaxed. Happy Dragon Boat Festival.
Taroko Gorge
19 Apr 2010 Leave a Comment
Jessica and I went to Taroko Gorge on the weekend. Originally, it was to be Green Island as we’ve been wanting to go camping. But it was too hard to figure out the details of booking a Ferry at the right time and getting a campsite at the last minute, much to our fortune. Plan B, turned out to be an A plus. Taroko is incredible, a huge chasm we were lucky enough to be able to drive through on a scooter, whipping around the cliff highway like the wind, having the entire panorama of an almost spiritual scenery at a moments turn of the neck. I almost believe we’re genetically designed to react with reverence in such sights of sheer rock faces and formations of such mass and natural beauty.
On the scooter:
I would say we were lucky to get one as neither Jessica nor I are licensed, but everyone (especially tourists) drives without a liscense here, especially in the Gorge where the best way to view and travel to trails is on scooter. The hostel attendant, at the Formosan backpackers hostel we stayed in in the town of Hualien, gave us directions to a scooter rental place called “Pony.” We never found Pony but she gave us the card of another rental place with an unsuccessful search too but it did place us at the spot in the road we needed to be as a man came out of a shop, asked if we needed help, and then became our advocate on renting a scooter. He told us, “very dangerous, not like in America.” I guess motorbikes aren’t dangerous in America.
I took his warning seriously but have had the fortune of growing up in the middle of Michigan so I new my way around any kind of minibike, motorcycle thing you could throw in front of me. And, these scooters are seriously idiot proof, they have electric starters, and are automatics. All one has to do is gas and brake. We filled it up for a hundred twenty NT ($4 U.S.), which was all the gas we needed for the entire weekend and were off. Getting used to the traffic was the hardest part but it’s pretty intuitive once you get a feel for it. There’s bike and scooter lanes and most people watch out for everyone else with the expectation that you watch out for them. There’s hardly any road rage as people pulling out in front of one another is common and expected. You just stop and wait.
-Taroko
We didn’t do as much hiking as we wanted because, we think, most trails were closed due to the damage caused by the previous typhoon. There were signs everywhere warning of falling rocks. We even saw a “watch out for venomous snakes” sign. Needless to say there’s no better way of putting a person on alert than nailing in a “watch out for venomous snakes” sign. We hung out in a gazebo atop a peninsula rock cliff for a bit and walked part way up to a Buddhist temple to a Guanyin statue that was pretty and nice but mostly we just drove through soaking it up.
Sun Moon Lake, Swimming, Sunburn
10 Apr 2010 Leave a Comment
Well I’m still here in Taipei. There’s still two of us. I’m just not blogging much. So much has happened in the past few months too. It’s too much to blog about in detail. I’ll try to recap. Last weekend was tomb sweeping weekend, really, for people to go and honor dead relatives by cleaning their graves, which are little round bricked tombs on the sides of mountains. They’ve got to be some of the most beautiful grave yards in the world. They also offer food to the dead and then make feasts out of it. But, since we don’t know any dead people in Taiwan, we had a three day weekend. Jessica’s mom Ellen and her friend Beth were visiting so we all had the chance to take an excursion down country to see Sun Moon Lake. There’s no swimming in Sun Moon Lake, which was really frustrating, except on one day a year when there is a race across. It’s a good thing our hotel had a pool even if it was only three feet deep. We had a boat tour that took us to an island and at first we thought we had an hour to poke around but then the fella who was our captain of sorts who nabbed us off the streets with the lure of only charging us as children, a promise he fulfilled and saved us probably ten U.S. dollars, eventually said we had ten minutes so we walked up a trail, listened to some musicians set up at the entrance to the island and then got back on the boat. We did stop at another little area with more musicians for about thirty five minutes. Oh, we went to a brewery in Puli too. The best part was a drunk simulator that consisted of psychedelic wallpaper and a slightly slanted floor and at the entrance was a notice to anyone with a heart condition not to enter. We were tempted to stay inside and tell everyone who entered, “I love you man.”
The next day we visited a Buddhist monastery, called Cheng Tai Chun, (I think) near Puli, the town we stayed the night in, with tons of statues of Bodhisattvas and Buddhas. It was really big. I actually forgot my camera that day so I don’t have any pictures. But Jessica does. And her blog is jamming.
Then, back in Taipei, we took the gondola from the Taipei Zoo MRT station out to the tea drinking area of maokong. I highly recommend it even though a lot of people are leery after the collapse of one of the support pylons during a mud slide during it’s initial opening. But, everything felt more than safe to me. A smooth and beautiful ride. Cheap too and right in Taipei’s back yard.
Today, Jessica and I rode the 1602 bus out to Pinglin. This is something that we’ve been trying to do for a long long time. Since we first got here. It was really fun. We found a cool stairway that led up to a gold statue of Guanyin (Kwaiyin) the famous Boddhisattva then we walked around on some roads by the river, looking for a place to swim for awhile, kind of a long while. We were initially looking for a bike rental place that we thought would help us traverse the riverside more quickly to help find a swimming hole but then we just found suitable access. There was a Taiwanese family eating lunch by the river so I had to maneuver behind some rocks to change into my suit. But I made it into the water. It was cool refreshing river water, on a hot day. The kids from the family loved watching me frolicking on the slippery rocks. One of the kids starting singing “Sorry Sorry,” a Korean pop song to me when I got out too. Cute kids. Some of the rocks were so big that with the current I managed to sort of surf on them but then I ran into a small rapids and had to crash into a rock to keep myself from being sucked into en even stronger current. So my knee has a bit of a bruise and I have a horrible sun burn. I feel like I’m twelve again, except without the cuts on my feet from the hay fields.
Hangin in Hong Kong
19 Feb 2010 2 Comments
Well, Jessica and I went to Hong Kong for the past five days during Chinese New Year. It was fantastic. Hong Kong is a lot like Taipei except a lot different too. It felt more like what I think New York city is like, a little dirty and rowdy and full of all kinds of different people. We had a room at the YesInn hostel on the island and mainly stayed in Hong Kong just touring about and getting a feel for the city. There’s so much to do and so much to eat. Dim Sum, a style of brunch where little little dishes such as shrimp and pork dumplings, barbecued pork puffs, fish balls (like meat balls), taro cakes, and so much more, come around on carts. It’s incredibly delicious. Although, I thought I would be tough and ordered the chicken feet and realized that I am not so tough after all. Let’s just say there are limits to my love of exotic food. Other food of note was at an Indonesian restaurant where I tasted the best curry I think I’ve ever had. Yum.
The longest escalator system in the world is in Hong Kong. It’s 800 Meters long, not as one escalator but in several chunks that run up the hill in the city. The entire city is built basically on the edge of these very large mountain like hills that run down to the water, so everything is very leveled. In fact the city is sectioned off into labeled levels. The escalator’s function is to give people living in the midlevels an easy walking commute to their downtown job. To that effect, it runs down in the morning until 10 am and then begins going up until midnight, letting people getting out of work ride back up. Naturally, a lively night life area has sprung up around this moving walkway. We stopped off at a place and had the best mojitos I think I’ve ever had. They had tons of mint, ginger and were just delicious.
Kowloon lies just across from Hong Kong. We spent a few days there too, exploring. There is a place called Chungking Mansions which is the setting for the movie Chungking Express and is a hostel and home to a plethora of people of different nationalities and is also a giant shopping center, much like everything else in Hong Kong.
Lantau Island was home to the Tian Tan Buddha, an incredibly large Buddha that we visited via glass gondola. The ride was very fun but the two and a half hour wait was not. The Buddha was incredible though.
Well be back to work on Monday and are preparing for interviews to get jobs in China after our contracts are up here.
Happy Chinese New Year,
Lots of luck
.
Josh
bad teeth and bitter melon juice
10 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
Jessica and I finally went to the Dentist on Tuesday. I found one highly recommended on Forumosa (the aptly named (As Taiwan is sometimes referred to the isle Formosa from the 1500s when Portuguese sailors named her beautiful island) online forum of all things for English speaking Expats living in Taiwan) named Dr. Wei. The only drawback people said, was that one would have to make the trek all the way out to Tienmu. But wait, I thought, I already live in Tienmu. No trek for me and a few days later we discover this Australian trained Dr. Wei not three blocks away in a building with a lot of other businesses. Once there, we ran into a security guard and pointed to our teeth. He pointed up. Anyway, long story short, it was an excellent cleaning. They didn’t except our national health insurance but it was still only about $40 U.S. The bad news though is that I have five cavities. I can’t believe it. I never have cavities. In fact I’ve never had a cavity before I got the first one of the five I have right now. I don’t even have a sweet tooth. Although, I did drink a lot of Apple Cidra, this awesome apple soda, when we first arrived in Taiwan. Anyway, it’s going to cost $10000 NT for Dr. Wei to fix’em up which is about $300 U.S. and that’s too rich for my blood, even though it’s exceedingly cheap still compared to medicine in America. By the way American’s I hope you have all that straightened out by the time I get back. Since Jessie’s got a cavity too, we’re going out searching for another dentist that has National Health Insurance written all over it. No really, they write it on the signs out front.
This week we’ve been running around the country. First we went to Jinshan kind of by accident. Got on a wrong bus and thought we were heading for Jiufen. But, once we reached the coast and started heading the opposite way, we knew Jiufen was for another day. Jinshan was lovely and we took a ride in a taxi through lovely mountain roads to a sculpture museum that was closed unfortunately. But, it’ll just give us a reason to go back.
Today, we went to Jiufen and finally walked down the old street. The last time we were there it was raining and miserable so we skipped a lot of cool stuff. Today was gorgeous though and the view was incredible. Jessica had some yummy mochi dessert and I some stinky tofu that was delicious and satisfying and not really even that stinky. Also, we had some juice on a porch overlooking I think I might say the most beautiful view we’ve seen yet in Taiwan. It was just a lovely day. We even got seats on the bus.
Happy New Year
03 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
It is Chinese New Year coming up in a few weeks. This year is the year of the Tiger, year 99. Good bye 98, year of the Ox. I’ll miss you ol Oxy. It’s weird because when we first starting getting our bills they all said 98 on them for the year and I kept thinking that we were getting some really old bills from someone else. Actually, the year is 98 because in Taiwan the years are counted from the birth of the R.O.C. in 1912. Good to know if you’re ever paying bills in Taiwan.
It’s been a hectic few weeks with work piling higher and higher. We had a Parent Teacher Conference /slash/ Chinese New Year celebration at school on Saturday. We did a dragon dance and I was the dragon ball with all of the children running behind me in one of those dragon costumes I’m sure everyone can imagine. We danced for the parents. One child fell over and the dragon was teetering pretty low to the ground but we managed to get back up and salvage our dance and our dignity. That’s the funny thing about parents, they’re very lenient in their criticism of their child’s school performance abilities. Who would have thought.
Also, I was told to plan a twenty minute PTA session with the parents and then the school gave us about forty five minutes. So, there was a little bit of awkward time that I didn’t count on but we just chatted and I showed the parents around my room.
Then, there was a blessing, where the parents dressed up in traditional dress and sat on two chairs and their son or daughter would kneel before them, say, “thank you mommy and daddy for taking care of me,” then say it in Chinese, “Xie Xie baba mama …” and then lift a tray of tea up in an offering to their parents. Then the parents would smile and give their children a red envelope with some kind of prize inside. I’m not sure if it is money but I think it might be.
But before all that on Sat. morning I went to the main Hess office in Taipei and filled in for Jessica in being a regional judge for a final round of the Hess speech competition. Jessica taught a speech class late last year but she had commitments at her school and couldn’t make it to the regional competition. It was fun. One girl gave a speech on how she wanted to be Bill Gates because he is an Angel and gives all of his money to charity. Another person wanted to be the ruler of the world in order to abolish homework. I had to test my own speech skills also as I found out about five minutes before festivities opened that the judges would be invited to the stage to give feedback when all contestants were finished. That was a bit nerve racking but I felt after I had stepped down from that stage and spoke my peace I felt I had maybe I had had my mettle tested more than the students competing.
So, besides the obvious stress bomb characteristics of the day, it was pretty fun.
We’re only teaching in the mornings now so we have the whole afternoon off. Today, I spent some time laying in bed reading.
Yesterday we went back to Maokong for more hiking. I swear, every hiking trail is beautiful in Taiwan.
The pictures are of maokong and of a dinosaur bone exhibit that we went to a few weeks ago.
And, there was this really funny talking raptor that I’d thought I’d share.
shrimp masters
10 Jan 2010 Leave a Comment
Hey,
Just a quicky post
Jessica and I went shrimp fishing last night which is purely for sport/leisure/entertainment as the shrimp have already been caught, we just pay to re-catch them in an indoor pool, while sitting in lawn chairs and drinking big bottled beers. It was fun but heartbreaking as a requirement when catching shrimp is to rip off their long pincher claws so they can’t chew on out of the net you put them in. I felt for the little guys but it didn’t stop me from eating them. They taste like a little lobsters.
Everything else is good. Today, we went to Guandu nature park just a ways north of us in the city and walked around. I got an orange tea with little jellies in it and we visited the sunday afternoon market in the Tienmu square just by our apartment in search of awesome nicknacks but it was so busy there wasn’t much luck there. It was a nice lazy weekend for us. The best kind.
