I lived in Hong Kong for almost ten years. To some expats, that makes me an expert. I disagree. I think it takes a lifetime to fully understand a place like Hong Kong. Maybe after 30 or 40 years, I could claim to know something about the city.
I have lived in Kaohsiung for four months. That means I know almost nothing about the place. I know how to find my apartment and how to get to the places I need to go. I know where to get food and how to pay bills. I know where the best parking lots are and on which streets it is impossible to park. I can look like I live here, mostly because I do, but I cannot tell you about the heart and soul of Kaohsiung.
But I can recognize some of the differences between Hong Kong and Kaohsiung. I realize that this kind of thing would be better after I have been here for a few years and know more about Kaohsiung, but I also realize that after a few years in Kaohsiung, I will find it less exotic and I will probably talk more about other places. When I first moved to Hong Kong, every blog post was about Hong Kong. Everything was new and different. In the end, I rarely mentioned Hong Kong. When you live anywhere long enough, it is simply where you live.
The weather in Hong Kong and Kaohsiung is pretty much the same. They are practically at the same latitude and both in humid tropical zones. It rains more in Hong Kong and is hotter in Kaohsiung. The biggest difference is that Kaohsiung is more prone to typhoons. Both cities face the South China Sea, which receives every Pacific typhoon that does not swing north and crash into Japan. But Hong Kong is largely protected by the Philippines and Taiwan. A typhoon has to fit through a narrow corridor to hit Hong Kong directly. Most storms hit the Philippines, Taiwan and/or Fujian, bringing only rain and wind to Hong Kong. Taiwan is only protected to the south by the Philippines, and is wide open to the east. Kaohsiung is on the southwest coast, which is directly in the path of every storm that hits Fujian or turns north from the Philippines, but the overwhelming majority of typhoons hit Taiwan's central east coast, which is one of the reasons that area is sparsely populated. Since I moved during typhoon season, I have seen more rain in Kaohsiung than sun, but I am told that most of the year, Kaohsiung is far sunnier than Hong Kong.
The language is the same, more or less. Legally, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English. Realistically, most of the people who claim to speak English do not know it as well as they think. And Chinese is a jumble of a hundred different dialects, most of which are well represented in Hong Kong. When Hong Kong was occupied by the British, most of the Chinese population was from Guangdong. Since then, people have flooded in from all parts of China, bringing their dialects with them. You can easily find university classes taught in Cantonese, Wu, Min, Hakka, and more often than not, Putonghua. Cantonese might be the most popular dialect on the street, but Putonghua is the language of academia.
The official language of Taiwan is Chinese. Most people do not even pretend to understand English, though it is one of the most popular foreign languages taught in schools. As an island that was never really important to China, Taiwan developed its own aboriginal languages. Japan had a major impact during their occupation, but only the oldest generation remembers being forced to learn Japanese. According to the government, everyone speaks Chinese and/or Taiwanese. In Taiwan, Chinese is Putonghua, which is terribly convenient for me. But Taiwanese includes several different languages and/or dialects. Pretty much like Chinese. On paper, the overwhelming majority of people in Taiwan speak one or two languages, but you could easily fill a room with people all speaking different dialects.
In my limited experience in this country, Chinese works pretty well. I have yet to run into anyone who could not understand me, though I speak in a heavy accent to them and they speak in an unfamiliar accent to me. Several people have told me that I have a Shanghai accent, which I find odd since I have spent almost no time in Shanghai. If someone speaks Hokkien, Hakka or any other Taiwanese to me, I have no idea what they are saying. Fortunately, they are all the same in writing. There are some differences in grammar and syntax, but if you can read one dialect of Chinese, or Taiwanese, you can read them all. It is pretty much the same with English. Two people from Alabama and Australia might not understand each other in conversation, but they can read the same printed words.
China and Taiwan use a different system of measurements, other than volume, which is something to get used to since the words are the same. One 尺 is one foot in both China and Taiwan, but 1 Taiwan 尺 is 30.3cm, while 1 China 尺 is 33.3cm. One US foot is 30.48cm. Taiwan's 斤 is 600 grams, while China's 斤 is 500 grams, and 605 grams in Hong Kong. Moving from China to Taiwan means adjusting to different lengths and weights, but if you move from Japan to Taiwan, everything is the same since the Japanese converted Taiwan to their measurements during the occupation. You simply have to say the words in Chinese rather than Japanese.
The cultures of Hong Kong and Kaohsiung are the same if you go back far enough. Everyone came from China originally. But as an island that was never really important to China, Taiwan has a long history of foreign invasion and occupation, with each occupier trying to force the population to do everything their way. There is also a lot of island culture that you do not find in most of China. Hong Kong was always Chinese, until the British wanted to turn the Chinese into opium addicts. Today, any major city in Taiwan looks almost the same as any major city in China, except that China has more money and Taiwan is more relaxed.
The food in Hong Kong and Kaohsiung are night and day. Guangdong is one of the four compass points of traditional Chinese cuisine. As a British territory for almost the entire 20th century, and a more open city than most of China, Hong Kong became the modern center of Guangdong, or Yue, cuisine. When people in North America and Europe think of Chinese food, they are mostly thinking of Yue style Chinese, which is usually called Cantonese in English since Canton is the English name for Guangdong. Most American Chinese food is nothing like Chinese food in China, but the cooking style, spices and sauces that Americans know about are all Guangdong.
Taiwanese cuisine comes from Hokkien, Hakka, Japanese and a mix of southern Chinese. The ingredients are more or less the same as Hong Kong, but come from different places. Hong Kong imports a great deal of whatever it does not pull out of the ocean, while Taiwan grows almost all of its own food. The basic staples of rice and noodles are the same, but I see a wider variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices in Taiwan.
Since Hong Kong is a single city, you can get the same food anywhere you go within its borders. Taiwan has different specialties in different counties. Street food is similar in that they are both cheap and fast. Hong Kong is the better place to get dim sum. Taiwan is better for dumplings. Hong Kong desserts often have a western influence, especially from France, for some reason. Taiwan desserts are far less sweet.
Hong Kong's MTR goes almost everywhere, from Aberdeen to Shenzhen, the airport to Starfish Bay. If the MTR does not reach some place, a bus or boat probably does. My transportation was 90% MTR, 8% bus, 1% boat and the rare taxi. A car in Hong Kong is both unnecessary and difficult to park.
Kaohsiung's MRT red line covers 25km north to south in a city that is 120km long. The orange line covers a 12km stretch from east to west downtown. Both lines make sense in where they go. The problem is in all the places they do not go. Hong Kong has 23 lines and over 160 stations. Kaohsiung has 2 lines and 38 stations. They are planning additional lines, but no one knows if or when they will exist.
Hong Kong has 7.5 million people crammed into 2755 square kilometers. Kaohsiung has less than 3 million in almost 3000 km2. You could say that Kong Kong is more crowded.
In Hong Kong, I mostly shopped at CitySuper and ParknShop. Wellcome is kind of a dump. Kaohsiung has Carrefour and Jasons. I never liked Jasons as much as CitySuper, but Kaohsiung Jasons is different from Hong Kong Jasons. That makes sense since Taipei CitySuper is almost nothing like Hong Kong CitySuper. My main store now is Carrefour, which does not exist in Hong Kong. I went into a Kaohsiung Wellcome to compare. It was kind of a dump.
Friday, September 25, 2020
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Summer At Clear Water Bay
Kevin, my roommate, brother from another set of parents and, most importantly, my sister's significant other, works for a company that used to be based in Hong Kong. They moved to Taiwan for a variety of reasons, as did Kevin. Coincidentally, so did Lily and I. The boss of the company owns a rather nice house overlooking Clear Water Bay. He moved to Taiwan with everyone else, but he still owns the house. Most of the people at that company probably see Taiwan as a temporary assignment. Hong Kong is their home.
More than a few years ago, the boss asked Kevin to house sit while he was away on vacation. In Chinese culture, that is pretty much a power move to show everyone who is boss. The message to the entire office was that, even though Kevin is taller, stronger and visibly more Canadian than everyone else, the boss is in charge. Kevin's point of view was a little different.
When this all started, we lived in tiny Chinese box apartments, each with one tiny bedroom, tiny bathroom, a sink against the wall as a kitchen, and absolutely no counter space or view of anything besides other tiny Chinese box apartments. The Clear Water Bay house is a little bigger. It has 4 bedrooms, one of which was larger than my entire apartment at the time. It has 4 bathrooms with both showers and bathtubs, not a common sight in China. The kitchen is large enough for a professional chef, with a real oven, more counter space than I know what to do with, a jumbo size refrigerator, and all the latest appliances. On the ocean side of the house is an outdoor terrace with an outdoor cooking area, swimming pool and hot tub, and large windows with ocean views.
When Kevin first had access to this house, Lily and I stayed without reservation. Getting to work took longer and required more MTR transfers, but the swimming pool alone was incentive enough for me. The kitchen was the first place in Hong Kong I was able to do any real cooking. My apartment had a toaster oven and two-burner stove. It is amazing what a difference a real oven and counter space to knead dough can make.
When we all moved to Yau Ma Tei, we had far more of the modern conveniences that are frighteningly easy to miss. But we continued staying at the Clear Water Bay house every year because it was available and had that swimming pool. I did not go last year, for medical reasons, and could not go in 2018 because Kevin's boss went on vacation while I was working in Spain. I found the timing annoying, but Spain is beautiful. The year before that, I was recovering from surgery. My primary activities were sleeping and vomiting, and the doctors told me not to go into any swimming pools, so the big house was useless to me. This is my first chance to go since 2016 and, even though I live in a different country now, I have every intention of overusing that pool.
Kevin will stay there all month. This is his summer vacation. Lily has a few classes, but she will go whenever she can. Since she is working on a graduate degree, she has more leeway as far as class attendance is concerned. I have a steady job, so I can't go for the full month, but I can probably drop in from time to time. Since we all have to fly there, it will take a little more planning than simply hopping on the MTR.
Kevin plans to sit around and do a lot of nothing. With a pretty big chunk of the world out of commission for vacations, he will go away to somewhere familiar. Lily's top priority is getting me to bake as much in that jumbo kitchen as possible. I am trying to gain weight, so I don't have any problem with that. I can and do bake at home, but that jumbo oven seems to get hotter much faster, and that jumbo refrigerator can hold more ingredients than I can ever use. My top priority is that swimming pool. I have no medical restrictions this year, and I plan on swimming every single day I am in that house, rain or shine. This is the rainy season in Hong Kong just as much as Taiwan, but I can swim in the rain. And if a typhoon hits while we are in Hong Kong, no problem. Taiwan will protect us.
More than a few years ago, the boss asked Kevin to house sit while he was away on vacation. In Chinese culture, that is pretty much a power move to show everyone who is boss. The message to the entire office was that, even though Kevin is taller, stronger and visibly more Canadian than everyone else, the boss is in charge. Kevin's point of view was a little different.
When this all started, we lived in tiny Chinese box apartments, each with one tiny bedroom, tiny bathroom, a sink against the wall as a kitchen, and absolutely no counter space or view of anything besides other tiny Chinese box apartments. The Clear Water Bay house is a little bigger. It has 4 bedrooms, one of which was larger than my entire apartment at the time. It has 4 bathrooms with both showers and bathtubs, not a common sight in China. The kitchen is large enough for a professional chef, with a real oven, more counter space than I know what to do with, a jumbo size refrigerator, and all the latest appliances. On the ocean side of the house is an outdoor terrace with an outdoor cooking area, swimming pool and hot tub, and large windows with ocean views.
When Kevin first had access to this house, Lily and I stayed without reservation. Getting to work took longer and required more MTR transfers, but the swimming pool alone was incentive enough for me. The kitchen was the first place in Hong Kong I was able to do any real cooking. My apartment had a toaster oven and two-burner stove. It is amazing what a difference a real oven and counter space to knead dough can make.
When we all moved to Yau Ma Tei, we had far more of the modern conveniences that are frighteningly easy to miss. But we continued staying at the Clear Water Bay house every year because it was available and had that swimming pool. I did not go last year, for medical reasons, and could not go in 2018 because Kevin's boss went on vacation while I was working in Spain. I found the timing annoying, but Spain is beautiful. The year before that, I was recovering from surgery. My primary activities were sleeping and vomiting, and the doctors told me not to go into any swimming pools, so the big house was useless to me. This is my first chance to go since 2016 and, even though I live in a different country now, I have every intention of overusing that pool.
Kevin will stay there all month. This is his summer vacation. Lily has a few classes, but she will go whenever she can. Since she is working on a graduate degree, she has more leeway as far as class attendance is concerned. I have a steady job, so I can't go for the full month, but I can probably drop in from time to time. Since we all have to fly there, it will take a little more planning than simply hopping on the MTR.
Kevin plans to sit around and do a lot of nothing. With a pretty big chunk of the world out of commission for vacations, he will go away to somewhere familiar. Lily's top priority is getting me to bake as much in that jumbo kitchen as possible. I am trying to gain weight, so I don't have any problem with that. I can and do bake at home, but that jumbo oven seems to get hotter much faster, and that jumbo refrigerator can hold more ingredients than I can ever use. My top priority is that swimming pool. I have no medical restrictions this year, and I plan on swimming every single day I am in that house, rain or shine. This is the rainy season in Hong Kong just as much as Taiwan, but I can swim in the rain. And if a typhoon hits while we are in Hong Kong, no problem. Taiwan will protect us.
Friday, September 11, 2020
Tour Of Taiwan
South To Kaohsiung
With a choice of two freeways, driving straight from Chiayi to Kaohsiung should never take more than an hour. Unless you are stupid enough to hit Tainan at five o'clock. The best thing about having Tainan and Kaohsiung so close together is that it is easy for everyone to go from one to the other. The worst thing about having Tainan and Kaohsiung so close together is that everyone goes from one to the other. Usually right after work. We always planned on leaving Tainan long before rush hour, but we still had a few things to see.
The westernmost point in the country is in Tainan, but it is different from the other points. The north, south and east lighthouses are proper white brick and mortar cylinders on rocky capes. Guosheng Lighthouse is just a steel tower near the beach with a big light on top. Instead of a cape, the western tip is a large sand dune. That might be why they built a steel tower rather than a brick house. The beach is pretty big, but like most beaches in Taiwan, it was deserted and did not look like the kind of place anyone ever visits. Even with a sand dune, which is rare in Taiwan, there were no people around. I don't think the government has figured out a way to make it a travel destination. It was pretty disappointing, but at least I can say I have been as far north, south, east and west as you can go on the island. For whatever that's worth.
For obvious reasons, Tainan is not famous for its lighthouse. Instead, people go for the temples. If you live in Taiwan, you are bound to see a temple or two. Some are enormous. Some are tiny. Some are old. Some are slightly less old. My apartment is about a kilometer from the second largest Buddhist temple in the city and five kilometers from the largest Confucius temple in the country. There are over a thousand temples in Kaohsiung, but pound for pound, Tainan is the temple capital of Taiwan, with everything from Buddhist to Taoist to Confucian. Tainan claims to be the oldest city in the country, and unlike larger cities like Taipei and Taichung, they did not tear down most of their temples as they expanded over the centuries. That might be one reason it is the smallest 直轄市.
As the oldest city in the country, there are a few museums. Easily the most surprising is the Chimei Museum, named after a plastic manufacturing company. Built in a European neoclassical style, it looks nothing like any museum in Taiwan. Rather than a museum of art or museum of natural history or museum of antiquities, it is dedicated to 13th to 20th century paintings, prehistoric to modern weapons, ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, and European musical instruments. It is best known for having an El Greco and the largest collection of violins in the world. The main entrance has a life-size replica of Versailles' Le Bassin d'Apollon.
The fountain is your first clue that everything about this museum is an imitation of a different place. Since it is nowhere near Europe, and more humid than anywhere in Europe could get, all the artifice only serves as a reminder that this museum is pretending to be something it is not. There is no rule that says all Chinese museums have to look like they were built in the 8th century. The Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum in Chiayi looks like it was built in 2015, but it is most definitely a Chinese art museum. Who would go to the Louvre if it tried to be Indian? It is unapologetically French, as it should be.
Outside of temples and museums, Tainan is interesting ecologically. Not only is there a sand dune, but northwest of downtown is all wetlands and mangrove forests. Much of it is a national park right next to the city. Technically, we went into the park when we went to the lighthouse, but we did not spend much time exploring the wetlands. Tainan turned out to be another place where we could have easily spent a few days, but we had to get home eventually.
I knew that Tainan was the most popular city for expats before I moved to Taiwan, but I never understood why. Several cities have more jobs and better public transportation, but Tainan seems to appreciate its long history and has a wide variety of things to do in a more compact space than the larger municipalities. Taipei has an extensive metro network, but in Kaohsiung or Taichung, you are much better off with a car or scooter. Tainan has more of what you want in a big city, with a small town feel. It is yet another place I have to put on my list of places I need to get back to when I have more time.
With the short drive from Tainan to Kaohsiung, we had circumnavigated Taiwan, counterclockwise. We drove through every county on the mainland. We spent the night on the west coast, up north, east coast, and about as far south as you can get. We drove up mountains, past volcanoes, over rivers, through forests, across plains, and up to beaches. Our streets were national highways that span almost the entire length of the country to tiny village roads, and everything in between. We stopped for gas in large cities, small townships, and at least one gas station on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. We drove 2,164 kilometers, which is five times the length of the country, if it were possible to drive in a straight line from one end to the other. We ate 15 meals and more snacks than either of us care to admit. We stopped at 7-Eleven and/or FamilyMart at least a dozen times, and noticed that while 7-Eleven easily dominates the west coast, there seem to be more FamilyMarts on the east coast, especially in Yilan.
Taiwan is a relatively small island. We went to every corner and deep into the middle. But we still barely scratched the surface.
The westernmost point in the country is in Tainan, but it is different from the other points. The north, south and east lighthouses are proper white brick and mortar cylinders on rocky capes. Guosheng Lighthouse is just a steel tower near the beach with a big light on top. Instead of a cape, the western tip is a large sand dune. That might be why they built a steel tower rather than a brick house. The beach is pretty big, but like most beaches in Taiwan, it was deserted and did not look like the kind of place anyone ever visits. Even with a sand dune, which is rare in Taiwan, there were no people around. I don't think the government has figured out a way to make it a travel destination. It was pretty disappointing, but at least I can say I have been as far north, south, east and west as you can go on the island. For whatever that's worth.
For obvious reasons, Tainan is not famous for its lighthouse. Instead, people go for the temples. If you live in Taiwan, you are bound to see a temple or two. Some are enormous. Some are tiny. Some are old. Some are slightly less old. My apartment is about a kilometer from the second largest Buddhist temple in the city and five kilometers from the largest Confucius temple in the country. There are over a thousand temples in Kaohsiung, but pound for pound, Tainan is the temple capital of Taiwan, with everything from Buddhist to Taoist to Confucian. Tainan claims to be the oldest city in the country, and unlike larger cities like Taipei and Taichung, they did not tear down most of their temples as they expanded over the centuries. That might be one reason it is the smallest 直轄市.
As the oldest city in the country, there are a few museums. Easily the most surprising is the Chimei Museum, named after a plastic manufacturing company. Built in a European neoclassical style, it looks nothing like any museum in Taiwan. Rather than a museum of art or museum of natural history or museum of antiquities, it is dedicated to 13th to 20th century paintings, prehistoric to modern weapons, ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, and European musical instruments. It is best known for having an El Greco and the largest collection of violins in the world. The main entrance has a life-size replica of Versailles' Le Bassin d'Apollon.
The fountain is your first clue that everything about this museum is an imitation of a different place. Since it is nowhere near Europe, and more humid than anywhere in Europe could get, all the artifice only serves as a reminder that this museum is pretending to be something it is not. There is no rule that says all Chinese museums have to look like they were built in the 8th century. The Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum in Chiayi looks like it was built in 2015, but it is most definitely a Chinese art museum. Who would go to the Louvre if it tried to be Indian? It is unapologetically French, as it should be.
Outside of temples and museums, Tainan is interesting ecologically. Not only is there a sand dune, but northwest of downtown is all wetlands and mangrove forests. Much of it is a national park right next to the city. Technically, we went into the park when we went to the lighthouse, but we did not spend much time exploring the wetlands. Tainan turned out to be another place where we could have easily spent a few days, but we had to get home eventually.
I knew that Tainan was the most popular city for expats before I moved to Taiwan, but I never understood why. Several cities have more jobs and better public transportation, but Tainan seems to appreciate its long history and has a wide variety of things to do in a more compact space than the larger municipalities. Taipei has an extensive metro network, but in Kaohsiung or Taichung, you are much better off with a car or scooter. Tainan has more of what you want in a big city, with a small town feel. It is yet another place I have to put on my list of places I need to get back to when I have more time.
With the short drive from Tainan to Kaohsiung, we had circumnavigated Taiwan, counterclockwise. We drove through every county on the mainland. We spent the night on the west coast, up north, east coast, and about as far south as you can get. We drove up mountains, past volcanoes, over rivers, through forests, across plains, and up to beaches. Our streets were national highways that span almost the entire length of the country to tiny village roads, and everything in between. We stopped for gas in large cities, small townships, and at least one gas station on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. We drove 2,164 kilometers, which is five times the length of the country, if it were possible to drive in a straight line from one end to the other. We ate 15 meals and more snacks than either of us care to admit. We stopped at 7-Eleven and/or FamilyMart at least a dozen times, and noticed that while 7-Eleven easily dominates the west coast, there seem to be more FamilyMarts on the east coast, especially in Yilan.
Taiwan is a relatively small island. We went to every corner and deep into the middle. But we still barely scratched the surface.
Wednesday, September 2, 2020
Tour Of Taiwan
South Central Chiayi
The drive from Taipei to Sun Moon Lake is almost entirely on the west coast, which is city upon city, rather than any kind of country scenery. Taipei suddenly becomes Taoyuan, which dissolves into Hsinchu. The cities get smaller after Hsinchu, but they never separate. Until you are back in a large city, the second largest in the country, Taichung. There might be some interesting things in Taichung, and I should probably go there someday, but we wanted to go to Sun Moon Lake, which is more natural than the second largest city in the country. You almost have to go through Taichung to get to the lake. There is little to no scenery on the drive between Taipei and Taichung, but at least there is the choice of two freeways, running parallel. After a few days of winding mountain roads, letting loose on a freeway made my new car happy.
From Taichung, Nantou is due east into the mountains. Once you hit Nantou, Sun Moon Lake is a curved, mountain road south. The scenery was better than the west coast freeway, but that winding mountain road really slowed things down. It took an hour and 15 minutes to drive the 160km from Taipei to Taichung. It took almost the same amount of time to drive 75km to the lake.
Everyone in Taiwan says you have to go to Sun Moon Lake. It is the largest and most famous lake in the country, and home to one of the smallest indigenous tribes in Taiwan. Someone told us it is the most popular tourist sight, though claims like that have to be taken with a large block of salt. Everyone in Taiwan seems to think their best thing is the most superlative thing in the country. But as a large lake with its own tiny island in the middle, almost in the dead center of the country, surrounded by scenery and hiking trails, Sun Moon Lake is likely one of the more popular sights. Summer is supposed to be the most crowded time, but the typhoon probably made a difference.
There are plenty of boats to take people across the lake and/or to tiny Lalu Island, but I think the best way to get around is on the bicycle paths, some of which were built directly over the water. Like most scenic or recreation areas, renting a bicycle is easy and inexpensive. Also common are the temples all over the place. Since Lalu Island is sacred to the Thao people, it only makes sense that the Japanese and then the Chinese would build temples in the area. Unfortunately, Lalu Island was mostly destroyed by an earthquake in 1999, so it no longer has the sun and moon shape. Unlike a lot of places in Chinese-speaking countries, the English name “Sun Moon Lake” is a literal translation of the Chinese name, 日月潭. Now that Lalu Island is basically a large rock in the water, the name makes less sense.
There are plenty of hotels near Sun Moon Lake, but we had other plans. It is a nice enough lake, and we could have easily spent the night, but we come from Manitoba and Minnesota. Lakes are not extraordinary to us.
From Sun Moon Lake, we drove southwest instead of west back to Taichung. We were headed to Chiayi, and taking the mountain roads to the freeway was faster than taking the small Nantou freeway. We passed through Yunlin, the poorest county in the country, and the one place where no one has ever advised us to go. Since it is on the west coast, which is all about cities, there is less scenery, and Yunlin suffers from no cities that anyone seems to want to visit.
Just south of Yunlin County is Chiayi County. Chiayi City is smack dab in the middle of the county, and where the freeway goes, but we were headed to Taibao, just west of Chiayi. Rather than spend the night in another themed B&B, we stayed at a friend's house. That was really the only reason we went to Chiayi.
There were no national parks or hiking trails in Chiayi, but just like the government buildings in Taipei, the government buildings and museum in Taibao turned out to be a good place to ride a bicycle. Just north of the museum is a cultural park, with plenty of bicycles, and a long path that went pretty much nowhere. The flat plains of Chiayi were not nearly as challenging as a mountain trail, but the bicycle paths were separated from the streets, making them infinitely safer to ride.
The plains were also the easiest place to teach Lily how to drive my new car. She knows how to drive, of course, but that right hand drive steering wheel intimidated her. Most of the trip before Chiayi was mountain roads and Taipei, not the best places to drive an unfamiliar car. It also helped that Chiayi is tiny. I have never seen a single street in Kaohsiung without other cars, but Taibao is a little smaller. It is technically a 市, but it feels like a 鎮. Kaohsiung has about 7500% more people. The street from the front door of the museum to the back door of the high speed train station was empty, by Taiwan standards. The area around the train station also turned out to be a good place to practice driving. The street at the front of the station was essentially a parking lot, with taxis and relatives competing for the best spots to drop off their passengers while blocking the most traffic. But the other side of the station was a small neighborhood of absolutely nothing but short streets and empty fields.
The deserted roads only went to two different streets that headed to the station, but they were wide. Two of them were three lanes in both directions. The palm trees were trimmed and the empty fields were manicured. Someone clearly thought there would someday be something more in the neighborhood than a train station. I can't predict what will become of the area in the future, but for our purposes, it was ideal. The streets were too short for Lily to see what a Porsche can do, but she would have never been comfortable with speed anyway. Our goal was to get her used to the right hand drive. The lane markers in the road made it easy for her to position the car, even when she wanted to veer left. She quickly adjusted, as I knew she would. It is not that complicated. But she was never comfortable enough to drive on streets with traffic. That had more to do with the horrid driving habits of Taiwan than the car's steering wheel.
She has no driver's license, so we should probably stick to empty roads whenever she is behind the wheel.
From Taichung, Nantou is due east into the mountains. Once you hit Nantou, Sun Moon Lake is a curved, mountain road south. The scenery was better than the west coast freeway, but that winding mountain road really slowed things down. It took an hour and 15 minutes to drive the 160km from Taipei to Taichung. It took almost the same amount of time to drive 75km to the lake.
Everyone in Taiwan says you have to go to Sun Moon Lake. It is the largest and most famous lake in the country, and home to one of the smallest indigenous tribes in Taiwan. Someone told us it is the most popular tourist sight, though claims like that have to be taken with a large block of salt. Everyone in Taiwan seems to think their best thing is the most superlative thing in the country. But as a large lake with its own tiny island in the middle, almost in the dead center of the country, surrounded by scenery and hiking trails, Sun Moon Lake is likely one of the more popular sights. Summer is supposed to be the most crowded time, but the typhoon probably made a difference.
There are plenty of boats to take people across the lake and/or to tiny Lalu Island, but I think the best way to get around is on the bicycle paths, some of which were built directly over the water. Like most scenic or recreation areas, renting a bicycle is easy and inexpensive. Also common are the temples all over the place. Since Lalu Island is sacred to the Thao people, it only makes sense that the Japanese and then the Chinese would build temples in the area. Unfortunately, Lalu Island was mostly destroyed by an earthquake in 1999, so it no longer has the sun and moon shape. Unlike a lot of places in Chinese-speaking countries, the English name “Sun Moon Lake” is a literal translation of the Chinese name, 日月潭. Now that Lalu Island is basically a large rock in the water, the name makes less sense.
There are plenty of hotels near Sun Moon Lake, but we had other plans. It is a nice enough lake, and we could have easily spent the night, but we come from Manitoba and Minnesota. Lakes are not extraordinary to us.
From Sun Moon Lake, we drove southwest instead of west back to Taichung. We were headed to Chiayi, and taking the mountain roads to the freeway was faster than taking the small Nantou freeway. We passed through Yunlin, the poorest county in the country, and the one place where no one has ever advised us to go. Since it is on the west coast, which is all about cities, there is less scenery, and Yunlin suffers from no cities that anyone seems to want to visit.
Just south of Yunlin County is Chiayi County. Chiayi City is smack dab in the middle of the county, and where the freeway goes, but we were headed to Taibao, just west of Chiayi. Rather than spend the night in another themed B&B, we stayed at a friend's house. That was really the only reason we went to Chiayi.
There were no national parks or hiking trails in Chiayi, but just like the government buildings in Taipei, the government buildings and museum in Taibao turned out to be a good place to ride a bicycle. Just north of the museum is a cultural park, with plenty of bicycles, and a long path that went pretty much nowhere. The flat plains of Chiayi were not nearly as challenging as a mountain trail, but the bicycle paths were separated from the streets, making them infinitely safer to ride.
The plains were also the easiest place to teach Lily how to drive my new car. She knows how to drive, of course, but that right hand drive steering wheel intimidated her. Most of the trip before Chiayi was mountain roads and Taipei, not the best places to drive an unfamiliar car. It also helped that Chiayi is tiny. I have never seen a single street in Kaohsiung without other cars, but Taibao is a little smaller. It is technically a 市, but it feels like a 鎮. Kaohsiung has about 7500% more people. The street from the front door of the museum to the back door of the high speed train station was empty, by Taiwan standards. The area around the train station also turned out to be a good place to practice driving. The street at the front of the station was essentially a parking lot, with taxis and relatives competing for the best spots to drop off their passengers while blocking the most traffic. But the other side of the station was a small neighborhood of absolutely nothing but short streets and empty fields.
The deserted roads only went to two different streets that headed to the station, but they were wide. Two of them were three lanes in both directions. The palm trees were trimmed and the empty fields were manicured. Someone clearly thought there would someday be something more in the neighborhood than a train station. I can't predict what will become of the area in the future, but for our purposes, it was ideal. The streets were too short for Lily to see what a Porsche can do, but she would have never been comfortable with speed anyway. Our goal was to get her used to the right hand drive. The lane markers in the road made it easy for her to position the car, even when she wanted to veer left. She quickly adjusted, as I knew she would. It is not that complicated. But she was never comfortable enough to drive on streets with traffic. That had more to do with the horrid driving habits of Taiwan than the car's steering wheel.
She has no driver's license, so we should probably stick to empty roads whenever she is behind the wheel.
Friday, August 28, 2020
Tour Of Taiwan
North To Taipei
It was a 30 minute drive from Yilan to Taipei. This was our only freeway on the east coast, but I mostly kept to the speed limit since most of the drive was in narrow tunnels through the mountains that separate the counties. Even a small accident can block commuter traffic all day. Once you hit those tunnels, you either make it through or you wait. There are no alternate roads at that point.
Since Yilan to Taipei was our least amount of driving, and since this was a road trip, we decided to drive up to Tamsui, which is generally spelled Tamsui, but pronounced 淡水. Most of the place names in Taiwan are spelled relatively close to their pronunciation. Hsinchu and Chiayi might confuse a few foreigners, and it takes English-speaking people a while to get Kaohsiung, not to mention the inappropriate confusion between 高 and 肏, but Tamsui is just off no matter how you look at it. I would have spelled it Danshui, but no one ever asked me when they were printing up English signs and maps.
“Tamsui” is at the mouth of the Tamsui River, about 25km from downtown Taipei. The red line MRT goes that far north, but with almost 20 stops, it takes a while. The drive is pretty easy, once you get away from downtown Taipei traffic.
Like a lot of villages in Taiwan, Tamsui was home to one indigenous group or another who were forced out by invaders. The Spanish invaders built a mission to convert the heathens into the proper religion. The Dutch invaders kicked out the Spanish and built a fort just in case. They were then kicked out by invading Chinese.
Most people go to Tamsui for food, shopping and to stare at the horizon. It is a popular place to watch the sunset because you can face west without anything in front of you but water and sky. One of their signature foods is 阿給, which are liberally soaked cubes of tofu, gutted and filled with fried noodles, wrapped up and steamed. Variations are widely available, but Tamsui seems to be the place to get them.
Just next to Tamui is Yangmingshan National Park, home to Qixing Mountain. Qixing is Taiwan's largest volcano, but the park is a noticeably lower elevation than other mountain parks in the country. Most of the mountain ranges are over 3,000 meters above sea level. Taiwan's tallest mountain, Yushan, is 3952 meters. Qixing is 1120. We drove on roads at Taroko Gorge that were higher.
Like every national park, there are numerous hiking trails. But since this park is based around a volcano, there are flowers and plants that rarely grow in other parts of the country. Millions of people go to Yangmingshan every spring to see the cherry blossoms and early summer for the migrating butterflies. And with volcanoes come hot springs. Finding a hot spring north of Taipei is easier than getting dysentery from gutter oil. Closer to the city, you can sit in a wooden structure built around a spring. At Yangmingshan, you can soak in the mountains.
There are several differences between the hot springs at Yangmingshan and the cold springs at Su'ao. Not only are the temperatures on opposite ends of the scale, so are the dress codes. In the cold springs, we could wear whatever we were willing to get wet. We could have gone in fully clothed if we wanted to. No one would have cared. In the hot springs, not even the bathing suits we brought were allowed. Since they are segregated by gender, no one has a problem with all the nudity.
I fully support separate pools. Segregation almost never works on a date, but when you are there to relax, keeping men away is the way to go. Soaking in water is always better without clothes, even more so the hotter the water gets, and too many people today are not mature enough to be naked without acting like 12-year-old boys. There was a time when it was possible, but just like modern American politics, different parties can no longer work together. Not too long ago, we were all in it together. Now, everyone is the enemy.
I also fully recommend soaking in a natural hot spring on a mountain. Taiwan is a place where it is easy to buy a massage chair. Go to any of the thousands of stores that sell them and you will see several people sitting in chairs and testing them out, getting a free massage. Relaxing is one of Taiwan's national pastimes. A hot spring is a million times more relaxing, in every possible way. And taking off your clothes in the mall and sitting in those chairs is discouraged.
While driving around the park, fully clothed, we hit the northernmost point of Taiwan, Fuguijiao. Just like the southernmost point, Eluanbi, there is a lighthouse up north, though it has a less interesting history and is closed to the public most of the time. Naturally, this had us wondering where the western and eastern tips were. As it turned out, the easternmost point, Sandiaojiao, was an hour's drive away. It would have been more efficient to go to Sandiaojiao from Yilan, but we did not know it existed until we were at Yangmingshan. Unlike Fuguijiao, the lighthouse at Sandiaojiao is a tourist attraction.
The drive to Taipei was mostly downhill, but about as safe as driving down mountain roads can be. Since most people go from Taipei to Sandiaojiao by bus, someone decided that the route should probably not kill everyone. Of course, that also means cars share the road with more than a few buses, so it is not the quickest drive, until you hit the freeway from Keelung to Taipei.
We had no hotel reservations in Taipei, just like the rest of the trip, but Taipei has more than enough hotels. As long as it is not the New Year. Something we had to consider this time was parking. If there are a million hotels in Taipei, there are maybe a hundred with reliable parking. Unlike a B&B in a small village, where you park as if you live in the house, a large city hotel either has a parking lot underground or there is a public lot somewhere in the vicinity. This is where driving a new car has a drawback. In a 20-year-old cream colored Kia, I would be completely comfortable parking anywhere. In a 20-hour-old purple Porsche, I get a little picky about parking spaces.
All the top hotels have parking. They are also $6,000 per night, or more. To make this an authentic road trip, we were looking at places in the $1,000 or less range. Fortunately, Taipei, like most large cities in east Asia, has love hotels.
A love hotel in Taiwan is pretty much like a roadside motel in the United States. They have cheap rooms for low prices. The difference being that love hotels are infinitely cleaner and are designed for couples to go somewhere private. Cheating on your wife is a time-honored tradition in Taiwan. Getting caught is not. Most rooms have bathtubs big enough for two. Some have special sex chairs and mirrors on the ceilings. All have porn on the TV, which is interesting because porn outside of love hotels is as heavily censored in Taiwan as it is in China. Our room was some kind of underwater theme. The ceiling was painted blue with fish and seashells. I'm not sure why anyone would want to have sex under water, but if every room at every love hotel has a theme, they must run out of ideas sooner or later.
Most importantly for us, it had private parking. Each room had its own individual parking garage. They are designed that way so men cheating on their wives can drive their mistress to the motel and go into their room without being seen by anyone. Lily and I were never worried about being seen, but the private garage was about the safest place I could possibly park my new car. I found that convenient.
We stayed in Xinyi, which was my first neighborhood on my first trip to Taipei. This trip was about exploring new places, but it was nice to see something familiar. That made Taipei less hectic and busy, which was nice.
Xinyi is the government center of Taipei, with the city hall, Taipei 101, world trade center, and the convention center. If you want to get to know Taipei or its people, this is not the best neighborhood, but because it is full of government buildings and overpriced western hotels, there are wide sidewalks where you can ride a bicycle without getting hit by cars. Other than along the rivers, Xinyi might be the safest place to ride a bicycle in Taipei.
I have spent more time in Taipei than anywhere else in Taiwan, besides Kaohsiung, but I have no idea what Taipei's most famous food is. In villages and smaller townships, everyone will tell you their signature dish. Taipei might be too large to have one.
Since Yilan to Taipei was our least amount of driving, and since this was a road trip, we decided to drive up to Tamsui, which is generally spelled Tamsui, but pronounced 淡水. Most of the place names in Taiwan are spelled relatively close to their pronunciation. Hsinchu and Chiayi might confuse a few foreigners, and it takes English-speaking people a while to get Kaohsiung, not to mention the inappropriate confusion between 高 and 肏, but Tamsui is just off no matter how you look at it. I would have spelled it Danshui, but no one ever asked me when they were printing up English signs and maps.
“Tamsui” is at the mouth of the Tamsui River, about 25km from downtown Taipei. The red line MRT goes that far north, but with almost 20 stops, it takes a while. The drive is pretty easy, once you get away from downtown Taipei traffic.
Like a lot of villages in Taiwan, Tamsui was home to one indigenous group or another who were forced out by invaders. The Spanish invaders built a mission to convert the heathens into the proper religion. The Dutch invaders kicked out the Spanish and built a fort just in case. They were then kicked out by invading Chinese.
Most people go to Tamsui for food, shopping and to stare at the horizon. It is a popular place to watch the sunset because you can face west without anything in front of you but water and sky. One of their signature foods is 阿給, which are liberally soaked cubes of tofu, gutted and filled with fried noodles, wrapped up and steamed. Variations are widely available, but Tamsui seems to be the place to get them.
Just next to Tamui is Yangmingshan National Park, home to Qixing Mountain. Qixing is Taiwan's largest volcano, but the park is a noticeably lower elevation than other mountain parks in the country. Most of the mountain ranges are over 3,000 meters above sea level. Taiwan's tallest mountain, Yushan, is 3952 meters. Qixing is 1120. We drove on roads at Taroko Gorge that were higher.
Like every national park, there are numerous hiking trails. But since this park is based around a volcano, there are flowers and plants that rarely grow in other parts of the country. Millions of people go to Yangmingshan every spring to see the cherry blossoms and early summer for the migrating butterflies. And with volcanoes come hot springs. Finding a hot spring north of Taipei is easier than getting dysentery from gutter oil. Closer to the city, you can sit in a wooden structure built around a spring. At Yangmingshan, you can soak in the mountains.
There are several differences between the hot springs at Yangmingshan and the cold springs at Su'ao. Not only are the temperatures on opposite ends of the scale, so are the dress codes. In the cold springs, we could wear whatever we were willing to get wet. We could have gone in fully clothed if we wanted to. No one would have cared. In the hot springs, not even the bathing suits we brought were allowed. Since they are segregated by gender, no one has a problem with all the nudity.
I fully support separate pools. Segregation almost never works on a date, but when you are there to relax, keeping men away is the way to go. Soaking in water is always better without clothes, even more so the hotter the water gets, and too many people today are not mature enough to be naked without acting like 12-year-old boys. There was a time when it was possible, but just like modern American politics, different parties can no longer work together. Not too long ago, we were all in it together. Now, everyone is the enemy.
I also fully recommend soaking in a natural hot spring on a mountain. Taiwan is a place where it is easy to buy a massage chair. Go to any of the thousands of stores that sell them and you will see several people sitting in chairs and testing them out, getting a free massage. Relaxing is one of Taiwan's national pastimes. A hot spring is a million times more relaxing, in every possible way. And taking off your clothes in the mall and sitting in those chairs is discouraged.
While driving around the park, fully clothed, we hit the northernmost point of Taiwan, Fuguijiao. Just like the southernmost point, Eluanbi, there is a lighthouse up north, though it has a less interesting history and is closed to the public most of the time. Naturally, this had us wondering where the western and eastern tips were. As it turned out, the easternmost point, Sandiaojiao, was an hour's drive away. It would have been more efficient to go to Sandiaojiao from Yilan, but we did not know it existed until we were at Yangmingshan. Unlike Fuguijiao, the lighthouse at Sandiaojiao is a tourist attraction.
The drive to Taipei was mostly downhill, but about as safe as driving down mountain roads can be. Since most people go from Taipei to Sandiaojiao by bus, someone decided that the route should probably not kill everyone. Of course, that also means cars share the road with more than a few buses, so it is not the quickest drive, until you hit the freeway from Keelung to Taipei.
We had no hotel reservations in Taipei, just like the rest of the trip, but Taipei has more than enough hotels. As long as it is not the New Year. Something we had to consider this time was parking. If there are a million hotels in Taipei, there are maybe a hundred with reliable parking. Unlike a B&B in a small village, where you park as if you live in the house, a large city hotel either has a parking lot underground or there is a public lot somewhere in the vicinity. This is where driving a new car has a drawback. In a 20-year-old cream colored Kia, I would be completely comfortable parking anywhere. In a 20-hour-old purple Porsche, I get a little picky about parking spaces.
All the top hotels have parking. They are also $6,000 per night, or more. To make this an authentic road trip, we were looking at places in the $1,000 or less range. Fortunately, Taipei, like most large cities in east Asia, has love hotels.
A love hotel in Taiwan is pretty much like a roadside motel in the United States. They have cheap rooms for low prices. The difference being that love hotels are infinitely cleaner and are designed for couples to go somewhere private. Cheating on your wife is a time-honored tradition in Taiwan. Getting caught is not. Most rooms have bathtubs big enough for two. Some have special sex chairs and mirrors on the ceilings. All have porn on the TV, which is interesting because porn outside of love hotels is as heavily censored in Taiwan as it is in China. Our room was some kind of underwater theme. The ceiling was painted blue with fish and seashells. I'm not sure why anyone would want to have sex under water, but if every room at every love hotel has a theme, they must run out of ideas sooner or later.
Most importantly for us, it had private parking. Each room had its own individual parking garage. They are designed that way so men cheating on their wives can drive their mistress to the motel and go into their room without being seen by anyone. Lily and I were never worried about being seen, but the private garage was about the safest place I could possibly park my new car. I found that convenient.
We stayed in Xinyi, which was my first neighborhood on my first trip to Taipei. This trip was about exploring new places, but it was nice to see something familiar. That made Taipei less hectic and busy, which was nice.
Xinyi is the government center of Taipei, with the city hall, Taipei 101, world trade center, and the convention center. If you want to get to know Taipei or its people, this is not the best neighborhood, but because it is full of government buildings and overpriced western hotels, there are wide sidewalks where you can ride a bicycle without getting hit by cars. Other than along the rivers, Xinyi might be the safest place to ride a bicycle in Taipei.
I have spent more time in Taipei than anywhere else in Taiwan, besides Kaohsiung, but I have no idea what Taipei's most famous food is. In villages and smaller townships, everyone will tell you their signature dish. Taipei might be too large to have one.
Monday, August 24, 2020
Tour Of Taiwan
Northwest To Yilan
From Taroko Gorge, we headed east to the coast and then north up the winding road into Yilan. More often than not, if I am going somewhere, I want to head out as early as possible. Days go by quickly the more you put into them. Getting an early start is usually the best idea. On this day, we knew we would be spending the night in Taipei. We also knew that was one of the few places on this trip that does not close down early, so it would never really matter if we got in late. We had all day to make a three hour drive. Spending the morning at Taroko Gorge did not set us back at all.
There was little to see between Taroko Gorge and the northern tip of Yilan County besides mountain roads and tunnels. Even when the road was near the ocean, we were either in a tunnel or too high up a cliff to see much of anything.
Our first stop of the day was Su'ao, a tiny fishing village we visited in February. Nothing has changed since then, but we wanted to drive around anyway. The last time, we came by bus and walked around. This time, we had a car. Su'ao is actually a township and not a village, but most of the township is industrial and a navy base. Visitors mostly go to the villages and harbor.
Another difference was that we brought bathing suits. Not specifically for Su'ao, but you never know when you might need one on a road trip, and a car can carry a lot more than a backpack. We went to our usual cold spring. Now that we have been there twice, it is our usual. As usual, the place was completely deserted. We could understand that in February, even though it was certainly hot enough, but this was in August. The place should have been packed. Ordinarily, an empty business is a warning sign, but an even bigger sign might have been all the clouds in the sky. It always looked like it was going to rain on this trip, and it rained a little from time to time, but what we did not know until we got home was that a typhoon was headed toward Taiwan. The locals were undoubtedly aware. Though it passed just north of Taiwan before hitting Wenzhou, this was our first official typhoon since moving here.
From Su'ao, it was a quick drive into Luodong, famous for its night market. We were pretty sure we would be in Taipei by dusk, so the night market was useless to us. Luodong has more than a few parks and cultural centers. None are as big and famous as any of the national parks we saw on this trip, but if you live in the neighborhood, they look like a good place to take a walk or ride a bicycle. Luodong is also at the mouth of the Lanyang River, with several tributaries cutting through, so there are riverside parks and a good deal of water activities around town.
Physically, Luodong is the smallest township in the county, but we liked what we saw enough to spend the night. Taipei would always be there the next day. Alternately, we could have simply driven through Taipei without stopping at all. We have both been there a few times and this trip was about discovering new places. But that would have meant spending the day driving north to Taipei and south along half of the west coast. Taipei was the logical place to spend the night. But not this night.
This is as good a place as any to point out how Taiwan divides itself. Rather than provinces or states, there are counties (縣). Each county has at least one city (市), more than a few townships (鄉 rural or 鎮 urban), and a lot of villages (村 rural or 里 urban), based on population. Larger cities are further divided into districts (區). The largest cities are also special municipalities (直轄市). They used to be cities within counties, but now the entire county is in the city, like San Francisco. The exception being Taipei County, which became New Taipei City while Taipei City stayed as it was, for purely political reasons. On this trip, we spent the night in a 村, two 鎮, and two 市, one of which was also a 直轄市. There will be a test a few posts later.
Since we were spending the night in Luodong, we got to see the famous night market. Having seen several night markets throughout the country, I'm not really sure why this one is so famous. There is nothing particularly wrong with it, and it is larger than you expect from such a small town, but every city and almost every township has a night market. This one had nothing that the others did not. Every county, and almost every city, has a signature food. At the Luodong night market, it was 蔥油煎餅, which is widely available at street stalls all over the country, and probably at most night markets.
We had the Hello Kitty room in a B&B close to the night market. Though Luodong is tiny, it is difficult to park downtown, just like any downtown in Taiwan. With parking at the hotel, we could walk downtown and drive to the scenic spots, where parking was easy.
Something we noticed in Yilan County was that more than a few people drive Maseratis and Porsches. We even saw a McLaren. The houses in Yilan make it look like it might be one of the poorest counties in the country. Maybe the people of Yilan spend their money on cars rather than houses. Then again, maybe someone saw my new car and thought the same thing.
There was little to see between Taroko Gorge and the northern tip of Yilan County besides mountain roads and tunnels. Even when the road was near the ocean, we were either in a tunnel or too high up a cliff to see much of anything.
Our first stop of the day was Su'ao, a tiny fishing village we visited in February. Nothing has changed since then, but we wanted to drive around anyway. The last time, we came by bus and walked around. This time, we had a car. Su'ao is actually a township and not a village, but most of the township is industrial and a navy base. Visitors mostly go to the villages and harbor.
Another difference was that we brought bathing suits. Not specifically for Su'ao, but you never know when you might need one on a road trip, and a car can carry a lot more than a backpack. We went to our usual cold spring. Now that we have been there twice, it is our usual. As usual, the place was completely deserted. We could understand that in February, even though it was certainly hot enough, but this was in August. The place should have been packed. Ordinarily, an empty business is a warning sign, but an even bigger sign might have been all the clouds in the sky. It always looked like it was going to rain on this trip, and it rained a little from time to time, but what we did not know until we got home was that a typhoon was headed toward Taiwan. The locals were undoubtedly aware. Though it passed just north of Taiwan before hitting Wenzhou, this was our first official typhoon since moving here.
From Su'ao, it was a quick drive into Luodong, famous for its night market. We were pretty sure we would be in Taipei by dusk, so the night market was useless to us. Luodong has more than a few parks and cultural centers. None are as big and famous as any of the national parks we saw on this trip, but if you live in the neighborhood, they look like a good place to take a walk or ride a bicycle. Luodong is also at the mouth of the Lanyang River, with several tributaries cutting through, so there are riverside parks and a good deal of water activities around town.
Physically, Luodong is the smallest township in the county, but we liked what we saw enough to spend the night. Taipei would always be there the next day. Alternately, we could have simply driven through Taipei without stopping at all. We have both been there a few times and this trip was about discovering new places. But that would have meant spending the day driving north to Taipei and south along half of the west coast. Taipei was the logical place to spend the night. But not this night.
This is as good a place as any to point out how Taiwan divides itself. Rather than provinces or states, there are counties (縣). Each county has at least one city (市), more than a few townships (鄉 rural or 鎮 urban), and a lot of villages (村 rural or 里 urban), based on population. Larger cities are further divided into districts (區). The largest cities are also special municipalities (直轄市). They used to be cities within counties, but now the entire county is in the city, like San Francisco. The exception being Taipei County, which became New Taipei City while Taipei City stayed as it was, for purely political reasons. On this trip, we spent the night in a 村, two 鎮, and two 市, one of which was also a 直轄市. There will be a test a few posts later.
Since we were spending the night in Luodong, we got to see the famous night market. Having seen several night markets throughout the country, I'm not really sure why this one is so famous. There is nothing particularly wrong with it, and it is larger than you expect from such a small town, but every city and almost every township has a night market. This one had nothing that the others did not. Every county, and almost every city, has a signature food. At the Luodong night market, it was 蔥油煎餅, which is widely available at street stalls all over the country, and probably at most night markets.
We had the Hello Kitty room in a B&B close to the night market. Though Luodong is tiny, it is difficult to park downtown, just like any downtown in Taiwan. With parking at the hotel, we could walk downtown and drive to the scenic spots, where parking was easy.
Something we noticed in Yilan County was that more than a few people drive Maseratis and Porsches. We even saw a McLaren. The houses in Yilan make it look like it might be one of the poorest counties in the country. Maybe the people of Yilan spend their money on cars rather than houses. Then again, maybe someone saw my new car and thought the same thing.
Thursday, August 20, 2020
Tour Of Taiwan
Northeast To Hualien
From Kenting, we drove up the east coast to Doulan Forest, home to the Ami indigenous people. They put on a show for the tourists, but otherwise live just like everyone else. The forest has scenery, sights, and plenty of hiking trails, but we were never going to stay long. Our main stop that day was Taroko Gorge, four hours up the coast. Doulan was a rest stop before the longest leg of our road trip.
The good thing about driving the east coast of Taiwan, as opposed to the west coast, was virtually no traffic. The bad news was that the main route was a narrow road rather than a freeway, and rarely hugged the coast. Even when the road was close to the ocean, there were usually bushes and trees between the road and water. I think they worried more about typhoons than the view when they built the roads. The scenery most of the way was trees and fields, but at least they were green. The east coast gets more rain than the west coast and is mostly undeveloped. Instead of driving from city to city, we drove past farms and rice paddies, with the occasional village along the way.
The four hour drive took me about three. We were mostly on a two lane road, but with no traffic and long stretches without any cross streets, scooters or pedestrians, it was almost like a miniature freeway.
What I liked about the east coast was the combination of nature and civilization. Even though that entire side of the country is undeveloped and green, there are ample gas stations and rest stops. There were small parking lots at every government-approved scenic area. Just past the border between Taitung County and Hualien County, the Tropic of Cancer cuts through the country and there is a large marker for people to take internet pictures. We never saw any people on any of the beaches along the way, but they were mostly rocky coasts, and it was the rainy season. It never rained during this leg of the drive, but it looked like it could have at any moment.
The road changed in Hualien County. Instead of driving between fields, we were finally between mountain cliffs and the ocean. But that was never going to last. About 30 kilometers into our coastal drive, we had to start heading up into the mountains. After a few twists and turns, we went back toward the coast again, but then we were driving through Hualien City, which is small, but more developed than the country drive we had for the previous two hours. From Hualien City, it was a quick drive to the entrance to Taroko National Park. Once in the park, the real driving began.
The main road through Taroko Gorge is narrow, winding and more than a little steep in places. It was a great test of my new car, which handled beautifully. The tunnels were especially interesting. The headlights and dashboard lights are all automatic, though I can set them to operate manually. The tunnels were the first time I really got to see the automation in action. Every time we entered a tunnel, everything switched on as it was supposed to, and immediately switched off as soon as we exited. The technology is not all that impressive, but I liked how quickly everything happened, even when we repeatedly went in and out of smaller tunnels. Since we were on the side of a cliff, some of the tunnels had an open wall. None of the different lighting levels confused the car for a second. Had I been manually operating the headlights, I would have kept them off through all but the longest tunnels.
Taroko Gorge is “the Grand Canyon of Taiwan”, though it is mostly green rather than mostly brown, it was created by earthquakes as well as rivers, and it is less than one fifth the size. One of the great things about Taroko Gorge is that you can drive from just above sea level to almost 3,000 meters. No mules required. There are a million hiking trails and plenty of relatively safe places to ride a bicycle, but I liked driving through the park. I'm sure my new car greatly influenced that. If we were driving a beat up 1998 Suzuki Kei, the steeper roads would have been a nightmare.
Hotel options are limited inside the park. Most people stay in Hualien City. There is a big, fancy resort in the park, but we did not make any reservations and we did not want to spend ridiculous amounts of money for accommodation on this trip. Road trips are for Motel 6, not the Ritz. The Taiwan equivalent of Motel 6 is some random B&B. Our room's theme was fruits and berries, for some reason.
We mostly spent the night at Taroko Gorge because we wanted enough stops on the trip to keep it from getting tedious. But Taroko Gorge is the kind of place where you can easily spend a few days. Driving up and down the winding road is fun, but there are also too many trails, rivers, and bridges for one day. I will have to come back sooner or later. Maybe not during the rainy season.
The good thing about driving the east coast of Taiwan, as opposed to the west coast, was virtually no traffic. The bad news was that the main route was a narrow road rather than a freeway, and rarely hugged the coast. Even when the road was close to the ocean, there were usually bushes and trees between the road and water. I think they worried more about typhoons than the view when they built the roads. The scenery most of the way was trees and fields, but at least they were green. The east coast gets more rain than the west coast and is mostly undeveloped. Instead of driving from city to city, we drove past farms and rice paddies, with the occasional village along the way.
The four hour drive took me about three. We were mostly on a two lane road, but with no traffic and long stretches without any cross streets, scooters or pedestrians, it was almost like a miniature freeway.
What I liked about the east coast was the combination of nature and civilization. Even though that entire side of the country is undeveloped and green, there are ample gas stations and rest stops. There were small parking lots at every government-approved scenic area. Just past the border between Taitung County and Hualien County, the Tropic of Cancer cuts through the country and there is a large marker for people to take internet pictures. We never saw any people on any of the beaches along the way, but they were mostly rocky coasts, and it was the rainy season. It never rained during this leg of the drive, but it looked like it could have at any moment.
The road changed in Hualien County. Instead of driving between fields, we were finally between mountain cliffs and the ocean. But that was never going to last. About 30 kilometers into our coastal drive, we had to start heading up into the mountains. After a few twists and turns, we went back toward the coast again, but then we were driving through Hualien City, which is small, but more developed than the country drive we had for the previous two hours. From Hualien City, it was a quick drive to the entrance to Taroko National Park. Once in the park, the real driving began.
The main road through Taroko Gorge is narrow, winding and more than a little steep in places. It was a great test of my new car, which handled beautifully. The tunnels were especially interesting. The headlights and dashboard lights are all automatic, though I can set them to operate manually. The tunnels were the first time I really got to see the automation in action. Every time we entered a tunnel, everything switched on as it was supposed to, and immediately switched off as soon as we exited. The technology is not all that impressive, but I liked how quickly everything happened, even when we repeatedly went in and out of smaller tunnels. Since we were on the side of a cliff, some of the tunnels had an open wall. None of the different lighting levels confused the car for a second. Had I been manually operating the headlights, I would have kept them off through all but the longest tunnels.
Taroko Gorge is “the Grand Canyon of Taiwan”, though it is mostly green rather than mostly brown, it was created by earthquakes as well as rivers, and it is less than one fifth the size. One of the great things about Taroko Gorge is that you can drive from just above sea level to almost 3,000 meters. No mules required. There are a million hiking trails and plenty of relatively safe places to ride a bicycle, but I liked driving through the park. I'm sure my new car greatly influenced that. If we were driving a beat up 1998 Suzuki Kei, the steeper roads would have been a nightmare.
Hotel options are limited inside the park. Most people stay in Hualien City. There is a big, fancy resort in the park, but we did not make any reservations and we did not want to spend ridiculous amounts of money for accommodation on this trip. Road trips are for Motel 6, not the Ritz. The Taiwan equivalent of Motel 6 is some random B&B. Our room's theme was fruits and berries, for some reason.
We mostly spent the night at Taroko Gorge because we wanted enough stops on the trip to keep it from getting tedious. But Taroko Gorge is the kind of place where you can easily spend a few days. Driving up and down the winding road is fun, but there are also too many trails, rivers, and bridges for one day. I will have to come back sooner or later. Maybe not during the rainy season.
Monday, August 17, 2020
Tour Of Taiwan
South To Kenting
With the keys of a new car in hand, I wanted to take a road trip. Driving in bumper to bumper traffic is exciting and all, but I wanted to take the new car out on the open road. As it turned out, I had not seen most of this country. My sister's school starts later this month, so she came along for the ride. This was her last chance to have any time off until they take a break around the new year.
Our first stop was Kenting, possibly the most popular vacation spot in the entire country. Maybe going on a Saturday was not the best idea. The drive from Kaohsiung to Kenting takes two hours. We got there in about an hour and fifteen minutes. There was no traffic, until we hit Kenting, and I might have exceeded the speed limit on the freeway once or twice.
Kenting is known for its tropical beaches, tropical national park, and tropical scenery. Lily and I were immediately unimpressed with the beaches. They might be the most popular beaches in Taiwan, and Taiwan is a mostly subtropical island with more than a few empty beaches. This should be a beach paradise, but Chinese culture is not fond of the sun or living near water. Just like Hong Kong, Taiwan could have some amazing beaches if the people wanted them. Instead, most beaches look like abandoned campsites, with ocean debris and more than a few dead fish and birds. Kenting is better groomed, but the beaches are small and, if you have ever been to a decent beach in any part of the world that appreciates beaches, nothing special.
The national park is a nice place for a hike and a great place if you like watching birds and butterflies. Most people seemed to spend most of their time in the village of Hengchun, which is the closest thing to a downtown around the national park, with all the hotels, restaurants, night market, and gas stations.
One of the biggest attractions that has nothing to do with nature is the Eluanbi Lighthouse. It looks pretty much like a lot of lighthouses, except that it is surrounded by an old fort. As the story goes, the Chinese authorities who controlled Taiwan in the 1870s did not particularly care that Japanese and European ships were crashing against Cape Eluanbi, so some French and British engineers built a lighthouse. Naturally, the locals were not too excited about being invaded, so the Chinese military built a fort to protect the construction and later the lighthouse itself. Why the Chinese sided with the Europeans against the Taiwanese over a lighthouse they never cared about is unclear. It may have simply been part of their long term goal of doing everything possible to alienate the indigenous population. In the beginning, the fort protected the lighthouse from the Taiwanese. Over the years, it had to protect Taiwan from the Japanese, Chinese, Americans, and then the Chinese again. The lighthouse is still functional today, though the fort is nothing more than a tourist attraction.
We had dinner at Smokey Joe's, a “Tex Mex” restaurant that reminded neither of us of Texas or Mexico. Their menu was mostly a combination of Taiwanese and standard “international”, but they also had burritos, quesadillas, and nachos, which are rare in Taiwan. The only reason we went to Smokey Joe's was because there is one in Kaohsiung, within walking distance of our apartment. We have never been there, and when we saw one in Kenting, we figured we might as well try it out. If we ever go to the one in Kaohsiung, it will definitely not be on a Saturday night.
We ended our night with a walk around the carnival atmosphere of downtown and the night market, mostly in the rain. Summer is the rainy season, and Kenting has the most tropical climate of the entire country. Rain or sun, Saturday night during summer was still too crowded to move around. Only a typhoon could have dispersed that kind of crowd.
We stayed at a tiny B&B relatively close to downtown, which was a good idea since parking downtown was difficult, while parking around the national park was surprisingly easy. There are a wide variety of hotels in the area, from expensive resorts to a room in someone's house. Since Kenting is the most popular vacation spot in the entire country, there are enough rooms for everybody. We wanted to plan as little as possible on this trip and go wherever the road took us. We also wanted to spend as little money as possible since one of us has no job and the other just spent a small fortune on a new car. That meant spending the night in a tiny B&B relatively close to downtown.
Where I come from, a B&B is usually a large house that the owner converted into a cozy hotel, with breakfast in the dining room and tourist brochures in the foyer. The system is relatively the same in Taiwan, except that the owner might not live anywhere near the property, and the house or individual rooms have a theme that has nothing to do with when the house was built or its location. We stayed at a B&B near Kenting National Park that decorated its rooms with cartoon characters. We were in the Doraemon Room.
The only reason we even spent the night in Kenting was because we knew we would be driving up most of the east coast the next day. We know there are plenty of places to sleep on the west coast, but the east was unknown to us. Discovering something new was part of the reason for this road trip.
Kenting is the kind of place that everyone in Taiwan should go to at least once. There are a few points of interest, and I suppose it is nice to say we have been to the southern tip of the island, but I can't imagine going all the way there from Taipei on purpose. If you live farther away than Kaohsiung, once might just be enough.
Our first stop was Kenting, possibly the most popular vacation spot in the entire country. Maybe going on a Saturday was not the best idea. The drive from Kaohsiung to Kenting takes two hours. We got there in about an hour and fifteen minutes. There was no traffic, until we hit Kenting, and I might have exceeded the speed limit on the freeway once or twice.
Kenting is known for its tropical beaches, tropical national park, and tropical scenery. Lily and I were immediately unimpressed with the beaches. They might be the most popular beaches in Taiwan, and Taiwan is a mostly subtropical island with more than a few empty beaches. This should be a beach paradise, but Chinese culture is not fond of the sun or living near water. Just like Hong Kong, Taiwan could have some amazing beaches if the people wanted them. Instead, most beaches look like abandoned campsites, with ocean debris and more than a few dead fish and birds. Kenting is better groomed, but the beaches are small and, if you have ever been to a decent beach in any part of the world that appreciates beaches, nothing special.
The national park is a nice place for a hike and a great place if you like watching birds and butterflies. Most people seemed to spend most of their time in the village of Hengchun, which is the closest thing to a downtown around the national park, with all the hotels, restaurants, night market, and gas stations.
One of the biggest attractions that has nothing to do with nature is the Eluanbi Lighthouse. It looks pretty much like a lot of lighthouses, except that it is surrounded by an old fort. As the story goes, the Chinese authorities who controlled Taiwan in the 1870s did not particularly care that Japanese and European ships were crashing against Cape Eluanbi, so some French and British engineers built a lighthouse. Naturally, the locals were not too excited about being invaded, so the Chinese military built a fort to protect the construction and later the lighthouse itself. Why the Chinese sided with the Europeans against the Taiwanese over a lighthouse they never cared about is unclear. It may have simply been part of their long term goal of doing everything possible to alienate the indigenous population. In the beginning, the fort protected the lighthouse from the Taiwanese. Over the years, it had to protect Taiwan from the Japanese, Chinese, Americans, and then the Chinese again. The lighthouse is still functional today, though the fort is nothing more than a tourist attraction.
We had dinner at Smokey Joe's, a “Tex Mex” restaurant that reminded neither of us of Texas or Mexico. Their menu was mostly a combination of Taiwanese and standard “international”, but they also had burritos, quesadillas, and nachos, which are rare in Taiwan. The only reason we went to Smokey Joe's was because there is one in Kaohsiung, within walking distance of our apartment. We have never been there, and when we saw one in Kenting, we figured we might as well try it out. If we ever go to the one in Kaohsiung, it will definitely not be on a Saturday night.
We ended our night with a walk around the carnival atmosphere of downtown and the night market, mostly in the rain. Summer is the rainy season, and Kenting has the most tropical climate of the entire country. Rain or sun, Saturday night during summer was still too crowded to move around. Only a typhoon could have dispersed that kind of crowd.
We stayed at a tiny B&B relatively close to downtown, which was a good idea since parking downtown was difficult, while parking around the national park was surprisingly easy. There are a wide variety of hotels in the area, from expensive resorts to a room in someone's house. Since Kenting is the most popular vacation spot in the entire country, there are enough rooms for everybody. We wanted to plan as little as possible on this trip and go wherever the road took us. We also wanted to spend as little money as possible since one of us has no job and the other just spent a small fortune on a new car. That meant spending the night in a tiny B&B relatively close to downtown.
Where I come from, a B&B is usually a large house that the owner converted into a cozy hotel, with breakfast in the dining room and tourist brochures in the foyer. The system is relatively the same in Taiwan, except that the owner might not live anywhere near the property, and the house or individual rooms have a theme that has nothing to do with when the house was built or its location. We stayed at a B&B near Kenting National Park that decorated its rooms with cartoon characters. We were in the Doraemon Room.
The only reason we even spent the night in Kenting was because we knew we would be driving up most of the east coast the next day. We know there are plenty of places to sleep on the west coast, but the east was unknown to us. Discovering something new was part of the reason for this road trip.
Kenting is the kind of place that everyone in Taiwan should go to at least once. There are a few points of interest, and I suppose it is nice to say we have been to the southern tip of the island, but I can't imagine going all the way there from Taipei on purpose. If you live farther away than Kaohsiung, once might just be enough.
Thursday, August 13, 2020
A Voice To Lead
I have lived in Taiwan for just over two months and have seen the president twice, though the first time was during a trip in February, before I lived here.
On Tuesday, the Taiwan Nursing Association gave a friend of mine, who is a nurse, an award. It was part of their big International Nurses Day celebration, “Nurses: A Voice To Lead, Nursing the World To Health”. They have a big ceremony every year, but this year came with a bigger bang, probably because a large chunk of the world is having a few medical problems. Nurses are generally treated with about as much respect as janitors, who also do an invaluable job. But this year, people are starting to appreciate what nurses do, if only temporarily. When the virus is gone and everyone is obsessed with the next big thing, I'm sure most people will treat nurses like crap again.
President Tsai Ing Wen gave a speech at the beginning of the ceremony and handed out a few awards. Having already seen her speak, I was not surprised by how calm and soothing her voice is, but I could not help but notice that her speech was about the nurses and not about herself. She never mentioned how popular she is, even though she won the last election in a landslide. She did not use the opportunity to attack her opponents, perceived enemies, the media or science and education. In fact, she seems to think science and education are a good thing. The most annoying part of her speech, to me, was that she had the entire thing memorized and yet was able to speak in coherent sentences. There were no teleprompters anywhere and she never looked down at notes or the lectern. It was either memorized or she was improvising. If the speech was improvised, then Tsai is a remarkably intelligent person. While she was praising the work that nurses do, I was wondering how a country with such diverse and occasionally volatile political opinions can so effortlessly have a worthwhile leader.
The ceremony reminded me of the Oscars. While the point was supposed to be recognizing a few people for their achievements, most of the time was used up by the host's inane chatter and too many song and dance numbers. I have nothing against song and dance numbers. I have made a decent living from them, but singing and dancing seems unnecessary when handing out awards to nurses. One of the songs at this particular award ceremony was by a high school a cappella group who were dressed like DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, for some reason. I wanted to be on their side since I know what it takes to sing on stage without any instrumental accompaniment, and this show was probably a great honor for them, but teenage a cappella groups around here are nothing like the Mills Brothers or Manhattan Transfer. Instead of harmony, they focus on “beatboxing” and a combination of rap and doing poor imitations of Mariah Carey. It was pretty bad.
While only a few people got awards personally handed to them by the president, a few hundred nurses were given plaques. That took a long time. Fortunately, they did not announce everyone's name. They lined up on stage in groups of eight, got their plaque, had their pictures taken, and went back to their seats. Names were printed in the program.
Since the president was involved, it was on the news that night. Rather than tell the people much of anything, the news showed the president posing for photographers with the head of the Taiwan Nursing Association and mentioned that this year is Florence Nightingale's 200th birthday. The nurses were the stars that night, but only for three hours.
On Tuesday, the Taiwan Nursing Association gave a friend of mine, who is a nurse, an award. It was part of their big International Nurses Day celebration, “Nurses: A Voice To Lead, Nursing the World To Health”. They have a big ceremony every year, but this year came with a bigger bang, probably because a large chunk of the world is having a few medical problems. Nurses are generally treated with about as much respect as janitors, who also do an invaluable job. But this year, people are starting to appreciate what nurses do, if only temporarily. When the virus is gone and everyone is obsessed with the next big thing, I'm sure most people will treat nurses like crap again.
President Tsai Ing Wen gave a speech at the beginning of the ceremony and handed out a few awards. Having already seen her speak, I was not surprised by how calm and soothing her voice is, but I could not help but notice that her speech was about the nurses and not about herself. She never mentioned how popular she is, even though she won the last election in a landslide. She did not use the opportunity to attack her opponents, perceived enemies, the media or science and education. In fact, she seems to think science and education are a good thing. The most annoying part of her speech, to me, was that she had the entire thing memorized and yet was able to speak in coherent sentences. There were no teleprompters anywhere and she never looked down at notes or the lectern. It was either memorized or she was improvising. If the speech was improvised, then Tsai is a remarkably intelligent person. While she was praising the work that nurses do, I was wondering how a country with such diverse and occasionally volatile political opinions can so effortlessly have a worthwhile leader.
The ceremony reminded me of the Oscars. While the point was supposed to be recognizing a few people for their achievements, most of the time was used up by the host's inane chatter and too many song and dance numbers. I have nothing against song and dance numbers. I have made a decent living from them, but singing and dancing seems unnecessary when handing out awards to nurses. One of the songs at this particular award ceremony was by a high school a cappella group who were dressed like DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, for some reason. I wanted to be on their side since I know what it takes to sing on stage without any instrumental accompaniment, and this show was probably a great honor for them, but teenage a cappella groups around here are nothing like the Mills Brothers or Manhattan Transfer. Instead of harmony, they focus on “beatboxing” and a combination of rap and doing poor imitations of Mariah Carey. It was pretty bad.
While only a few people got awards personally handed to them by the president, a few hundred nurses were given plaques. That took a long time. Fortunately, they did not announce everyone's name. They lined up on stage in groups of eight, got their plaque, had their pictures taken, and went back to their seats. Names were printed in the program.
Since the president was involved, it was on the news that night. Rather than tell the people much of anything, the news showed the president posing for photographers with the head of the Taiwan Nursing Association and mentioned that this year is Florence Nightingale's 200th birthday. The nurses were the stars that night, but only for three hours.
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