The Northern Half

Spring is Coming

Let the traveling begin:

On the second day of the New Year, everyone is supposed to go home to visit their Mother's family. I went with Fu to her mother's mother's house in YiLan where all the relatives were gathered, with munchkins riding little plastic tricycles underfoot. Gambling during family gatherings seems to be pretty popular here, and the kids and me and Fu played a completely random chance dice game for peanuts. I lost all my peanuts several times over, but luckily Fu was nice enough to lend me some of hers. We got back to Taipei and Fu's house late, where Fu's Mom was more than gracious, and is trying to get me fat on tasty Taiwanese snacks.

Over-looking the Graveyard

The third day of the New Year, Fish came to pick me up and we started our week-long drive around the north of Taiwan. We drove down the west coast, stopping first at the university he graduated from. Wandering along the hills of the perimeter, I looked down into a valley and discovered a graveyard... then that the graveyard extended up to where we were standing... whereupon Fish told me that his college was built on an old prisoner extermination ground, and some of the college buildings were now unstable because their foundations are laid on unmarked graves. Whoa. I guess during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, a lot of prisoners were killed.. Fu also told me later that a lot of universities in Taiwan are built on such sites - because a school needs a lot of space, and the areas around these old "prisons" were left clear of houses because of ghost stories. Goodness. Makes me curious if it was something that only happened during the Japanese occupation, or if these grounds continued to be used under the rule of Chiang Kai-Shek (I hear he killed lots of Taiwanese intellectuals opposed to his party, and shipped some of them off to Greenland...) and if so, when the "prisons" got converted to schools. I guess it gives a student reason to believe that he really is in jail...

The West Coast - Towards Wind-Mills

Hello Bird!

After a visit to the muddy coast, full of people wading ankle deep in the mud (Fish says they were looking for things to sell...), we went to a night market to eat our fill. In Taiwan, there are tons of night markets - I live right next to one of them, which is great when I get hungry late.... mostly it just means that it's a collection of shops and food vendors that sell things cheaply in a centralized location. I like them! Unfortunately, it seems that most of the vendors/restaurants here are very specialized, so it's often difficult to find vegetarian food on the street. I'm used to being able to go into any restaurant and assume that there will be at least one vegetarian option - but here, I often wander into three or four stores, asking if they have anything vegetarian and getting a firm "no." Still not used to it... but I'm continuing to find places and things that are interesting and meat-less, yay!

Sun Moon Lake

Amazing Sun Moon Lake Rock-Climbing Frog

From TaiZhong (台中), starting up into the mountains, we stopped by Sun Moon Lake (日月潭), the wondrous famous lake... which was indeed very pretty. Lots of mountains surrounding a really big lake. Supposedly from above it looks like the sun and the moon together... but on the aerial view map, it still didn't really look like a sun and a moon... ah well, perhaps the ancient namers were of a more romantic sort than I. We paddled around on a boat and wandered around the perimeter, and I didn't even fall in, yay!

Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village - the Tlingit and Haida Aborigines?

Close to Sun Moon Lake lies the Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village - where there are roller-coasters (wheee!), reconstructed houses of the major Taiwanese aboriginal groups (sparse, but cool), and aboriginal music, dance, and other performances (ooh, pretty!). An interesting combination of commercialism and cultural preservation, but I'm glad I went, just to know that such a place exists..

Towards the Green Green (Yellow?) Grasslands

On to the upper mountain reaches and the Green Green Grasslands, where crowds of Taiwanese people gather to take pictures of sheep. baaaaa! The sheep get to live in the beautiful mountains, which made me temporarily envious of the woolly ones, until I realized that to earn their place in the cool fresh lands, they have to endure the handling and photographing of a gazillion Taiwanese tourists... There were signs warning not to chase or ride the sheep, but I'm not sure how strictly they were enforced. I think I'll try not to be born a sheep in the Green Green Grasslands next life... even if sheep milk popsicles are rather tasty.

Mountains!

Through the mountains in the center of Taiwan! Taiwan is a big oblong shape - with it being long N-S, and skinny E-W. But all through the center (running N-S), there are mountains! And they're massive and covered in green, inter-mingled with white mists swirling to cover and reveal the sun shining down in dappled rays... We drove up, up, and up and wandered around the cold summit, following close behind the ant-like tourists on pilgrimage past the "do not enter" signs to find the perfect picture location.

Taroko Gorge

Then down and down, through tunnel after tunnel, to the bottom of the mountains and a deep gorge with steep rock walls, clumps of green still clinging to the vertical gray. Ahhhh...

ShihTiPing's Volcanic Rock Coast

Passing through nature's mountains, we arrived in Hualien where my friends Fu and Jia Yi met us. We spent a late night at the night market losing money on fair games, eating tasty food, and talking, until I finally crashed and left the others to their conversation. The next day we drove south down the dramatic east coast to see a bat cave (whoa, bats!), and take silly pictures of Fu with the brilliant blue ocean and rocky shore in the background at ShihTiPing (石梯坪).

Fu!

I've learned that events here can be much more about the taking of pictures than about the event itself... Brook theorizes that it's a way to show off to people where you've been, while reminding yourself that you went somewhere beautiful... I'm not sure yet, but my wandering self likes looking at the pictures in retrospect much more than stopping to compose a shot. I'm grateful there are so many people around me with amazing digital cameras to help relieve me of the picture-taking responsibilities!

Alaska's That Way...

Then up the east coast in the middle of the mountain-side, with a drop to the sea on the right... amazing. And I got back to Taipei just in time to go to rehearsal... I performed a 4 person Irish tap last Wednesday with Brook, another foreign salsa teacher Maggie, and Taiwan's master of tap Yu Qing (who's about my age and amazing, amazing, amazing). I've been rehearsing at least once a day since then, as I perform again on Sunday night, and we're putting together an hour and a half show for next Thursday in TaiZhong(台中)... it looks like I'll be dancing Disco, Irish tap, Chicago Hat and Cane, Charleston, Lindy Hop, Salsa, and doing a short comedy piece. Awesome. I'm learning a whole lot with all this dancing, and meeting some really excellent people in the process.