Let's start this blog off with a delicious shot of AMAZING DUMPLINGS!!
Now that I got your attention, welcome to my second Taipei, Taiwan post. I've been settling in to my life here and trying to get a schedule going on and finding new friends. It's incredibly hot and humid in Taiwan, and I can't seem to stop sweating, but it has gotten a lot better than when I first came 3 weeks ago. Right now, everyday I work out and practice my vocals getting ready for round 2 of the singing competition 7/31 (Wish me luck!) I am excited/anxious and haven't figured out what song I want to sing yet (you get 30 seconds to sing without music accompaniment in front of 3-4 judges)=nerve-wracking. Been practicing guitar recently too! Check out my video of the first time playing and singing at the same time. I've been teaching myself guitar so it's probably not the best way to play
Anyways, back to the dumplings. The skin is the thinnest I've ever had and it's just really tasty. And for only 7USD (2 orders of dumplings, soup for 2, and veges) you have a satisfying meal! Yum yum yum
After lunch, my good friend took me to a temple to pray. What you do in Buddhist temples is go and pray to the Gods of the temple and at the end you get to ask if the Gods there are willing to answer a question of yours. The process goes like this: you take two pieces of cashew-shaped wood chips and you ask your question. If you drop the wood pieces and one is facing up and the other if facing down, that means the Gods are willing to answer your question. If however both pieces are facing up/down, you get to try 3 times and if still no up and down, then you are DENIED.
If you're answer is positive, then you go to a bundle of sticks and choose out one which has a number on it.
After you get your stick and number, you ask the Gods once more with the cashew-shaped pieces to see if you chose the right stick. After all that is valid, you then ask a monk to interpret the answer.
The plaque of the temple
Offerings to the Gods. Out of respect, you must give them a gift before you pray to them. Then after the whole process, you take these home and eat them to bring yourself luck. I ate the sticky rice one and almost threw up. it tastes so bad....
Supposedly, there's an entrance gate and an exit gate, but most people don't really pay attention and enter and leave where they please.
Next day, my friend from back home, Wayne Chiang (fellow Hokie) called me and told he was in town, so we decided to meet up and do some touristy things, like VISIT THE CHIANG KAI SHEK memorial.
C.K.S was a keynote player in developing the Nationalist party in Communist China. Since he was going against the government, the Commies wanted him dead so he and his Nationalist team had to do a lot of there developing work in secret hide-aways through China. When the Nationalist party started losing foot against Communism, they decided to run away to the island of Taiwan, where they decided to build and develop Nationalism. That is a main reason why Communist China dislikes and disagrees with Taiwan, believing that the island is in fact a part of China. Find out more of C.K.S from wikipedia. That time era and movies about his party are quite interesting (Lust, Caution plays a bit on it and the Soong Sisters is a good indirect depiction of the times since one of the Soong Sisters was his wife)
Stairs to the Memorial
The C.K.S. memorial. Reminds me of Abe Lincoln with wise, patriotic words at the top...and a random lady in the front -___-
The grand ceiling with the Taiwan nation flags icon
Statue-like guards stand still in the heat and humidity.
The courtyard of the memorial. The buildings on the left and right are the National Theater and National Concert Hall of Taiwan
Then we headed over to the National History Museum, which wasn't as interesting as I hoped, but still worth a visit. Also had a special gallery of the 3 Kingdoms (if you've played Dynasty Warriors or watched Red Cliff, you'll know what I'm talking about)
Nice seeing you again, Wayne and nice to meet your sweet/nice wife, Carolyn
One day, my friend Emily invited me to her Church in Ximen. The church seems to be really aimed for the youth and she is one of the singers. She did a great job and has a strong voice. Also cool they have subtitles so you can sing along haha.
I'm not religious, but once in awhile, I like to go to church when I'm invited because I like to see how religion touches and helps people through tough time. My own thoughts of religion are, if it helps you through hard-times and is something spiritual and soothing to your soul, I'll respect it, but just don't try to force it on me. Then we'll have a problem. But Christians in Taiwan are not pushy, which is more welcoming in my opinion.
This is a shot of Ximen Ding, a great place for youngsters to shop for clothes and food. There's a lot going on. The pale face girl is advertising for a ghost/haunted house attractions opening soon to celebrate "Ghost Month" which starts end of July until August. It follows the Lunar Calendar is said to be the month when the spirits and ghosts come back through the gates of death and enter the living world. So this is a month where parents warn there kids to come home early and not stay out late, or else "things" will follow you back home....
That night, I was waiting for a friend to eat dinner and randomly bumped into a Hong Kong friend. We both didn't know we were in Taiwan, so we were shocked to see each other. We looked at each other for 10 second before it clicked. Randomly,we decided to go hiking the next morning to Yan Ming Shan, the national parks of Taiwan. 6:30AM wake-up call...groan
Best message to see at the start of the hike. Welcome!
Confusing-ass map. I needed to take a picture of the hiking map to make sure we didn't get lost...which we kinda did.
The park is HUGE, this is just one of the many trails
The trail is well-kept and had some pretty sights of mountains and greenery, but the start was killer as it was stairs, after stairs, after stairs. We were dead after just 30 minutes and plus even at 9AM, it was getting hot...
Hk friend and Hiking partner, Anson
Red-tailed squirrel. A bit bigger and...redder than it's relative in Virginia
This bridge was cool, but in the middle it started to sway and creak, which freaked me out a bit
The left peak is ChingTiangGang and the right is Mt. Jhugao, two places we will not go this time because they are too f*cking far away. ahah
This used to be a farming area, and this is an abandoned water storage container
It was relief to have flat grounds to hike. We had reached the tallest part of JinBaoLi trail (Fisherman's Trail) Anson and I originally wanted to start our hike at JinBaoLi trail, but ended up having to hike 1.5 hours before we even got to our starting point. haha
This is the Temple of God of Earth, which is located on the highest point of the Jinbaoli Trail. During the Ching Dynasty, people who traveled on the fisherman's trail would stop here to rest, so during that period, the God of Earth was transferred from the tea fields to this location on Mt. Jhuzih, and has been there for over 200 years. How do I know all this, you may ask? well well well, my friend.... it was an info plaque on the side.
The starting gate of Jinbaoli trail (FINALLY!)
This is the fisherman's trail that people since the Ching Dynasty used to take when transporting fish from Jinshan to Shihlin for business. It's incredibly long and made me feel bad for the people in the past when they didn't have cars. Must have SUCKED> The trail is quite cool with a few sites along the way. Also, after the Japanese invasion, they made some moderations to the trail and it was quite cool to see information plaques along the way about those Jap alterations, or should I say Japerations? hahah..ha...ha....*cough*
Serene
This section was of the trail was quite disturbing. Flying insects EVERYWHERE and all of them were HUGE. I got hit in the face at least 5 times by different insects including a cicada, a bee, a poisonous blue-white spotted beetle, and 2 other unidentified ones which i couldn't see because, oh i don't know, I was too busy GETTING HIT IN THE FACE.
Cool-looking bridge I built...
Actually built during the Ching Dynasty by a tea farmer named Syu Cin-Yan. He built this bridge because often times goods were lost when transporting tea, fish, and sulfur across the ShangHuang Creek, so crossing the bridge helped prevent these losses.
The end of our 4 hour trail was Bayan (8 smokes). We then had to wait in exhaustion and dehydration for the damn bus which took 30 minutes. Sigh. I love hiking
At night, I got to see my good friend and fellow contest contestant, Joanna. She's like a sister to me and takes care of me! Great seeing her. We ate at an Italian restaurant in East Section, Downtown Taipei. Best Italian food I've had in Asia, yet.
So a few days past, and another set of friends decided to take me to Jiufen (9 shares). Meeting at 7:50AM (which of course I was late and made it at 8:05AM), we headed to our destination by train.
I love this picture
We started our Jiufen trip by heading into Old Street. This is a long street filled with snacks and deliciousness. I wanted to try everything, but of course, I'm on a diet, so I refrained...
....for 3 minutes. Then I helped my friend eat her dessert, which is composed of thin flour skin smoldered with peanut candy shavings and topped with Taro ice cream, then wrapped into a burrito and engulfed with delight. Very tasty!
Sausages! Taiwan sausages are the BEST!
The view of Jiufen is really quite breath-taking. We chose a good day to go! It is quite cute how Jiufen, which means 9 shares in English, got its name. In the past, this town was very small and only contained 9 households. Since the town is very far from civilization, whenever they ordered goods from the city, and the delivery man asked them how many shares of goods they needed, the answer was always "9 shares"
We then visited a museum that was only 10NTD to get in (30 cents USD). It was filled with historic toys and household items. Very cool to see how much things have changed
Some say I look hotter with this mask on...
I sure do sweat a lot.. I think it's cuz i've been working on my chest recently, so I've been sweating more there. Yuck
I lOVE these old phones! I remember having one when i was a kid, but I would always forget half way what number I was on since I was distracted by the turning and would have to start over. I was a very dumb kid...
There was even a section that was made to look like an office for C.K.S.
This dog was a greeter for a restaurant. We kept calling it "Lassie" and it just looked at us uninterested and walked back in
Looking for the Gold Mining museum
The fifth gate to the mining shaft which is what Jiufen used to be known for. It is a mining town. The mining shaft was very damp and chilly, and prolly filled with spiders and Golem.
The Gold Mining museum....Yeah
An old map of the entire town. Reminds me of one of those maps you open up in your inventory in Silent Hill games.
The old man in charge of mining museum was VERY into his job. He mumbled the whole time so I couldn't really understand all he said, but he was walking us through the steps of how they extract gold pieces from the mines.
Grinding the sediment
Shifting the sediment in the water to separate the impurities from the heavier gold pieces. You can start to see some gold-color
If you look close enough, you can see the gold pieces! Very cool, huh? The old man asked us all to take pictures and then asked to see the picture and if it didn't capture the beauty of the gold pieces, he would ask you to retake it. If it still didn't capture what he envisioned, he would scowl at your camera. hahaha Ba HUMBUG
In Jiufen also lies the first movie theater ever built in Taiwan. Sucks people used to have to come this far for the movies. It's no longer open, although I think it would be cool if they reopened it!
Shot of the old museum through the closed gates
At night we went to Jeelung Night Market, a city on the northern section of Taiwan. The Night Market is quite famous for a lot of things, including this dish below called Ding-Bian-Cuo. Don't know what the name means, but it was made out of flour....That's all I can tell you
Bustling streets of the market. Taiwan night markets are the BEST with amazing food/snacks at great prices. Anytime you visit Taiwan, night markets are a must-see visit! Be prepared to get fat! They serve things like fruit, mango ice, pig-blood jelly, Stinky tofu, oyster pancakes, and anything you can think of. hahaha I know a lot of that doesn't sound appetizing, but it's really good! I promise!
An example of a street vendor selling grilled seafood
Alright, well that's it for now! Tune in next time for more Taiwan fun
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