Our Trip To YiLan (宜蘭): Day 1

This past weekend, Nick and I went with some friends on a trip to Yilan, on the east coast of Taiwan.

In typical Taiwanese fashion, we went with a tour group of three bus loads of people.

As always, there was KTV on the bus. Our fellow travelers were particularly welcoming to me, their 美國朋友 (American friend),so they clapped along with me and applauded encouragingly throughout my karaoke performances.

The bus ride to Yilan took us through the mountains of Taiwan, up past Taipei and then down the eastern side of the island. It was an absolutely beautiful bus ride. It was one of the clearest days we've had here in Taiwan and the mountains were breathtaking.

(even from this truck stop!)

After a stop for lunch and another for souvenir shopping, we arrived at a water-fun park. This park had a couple areas for kids with shallow pools equipped with a wide array of shower-like water fun attractions. Based on the suggestion of our friend, we decided to skip over these crowded areas and head for the more natural river area.

We had a little less than 3 hours to hang out by the river, so we hurriedly changed into our swimsuits and jumped in. The river was dammed in several places to create a handful of separate and distinct wading pools. The water was calm, warm, about thigh-deep, and refreshing.
The afternoon was reminiscent of one of my favorite summer activities back home: driving up to Fort Collins, CO to go tubing down the Poudre River. It certainly wasn't the same as floating freely down the pristine Poudre,

but, it certainly was refreshing to be out of the city and surrounded on all sides by beautiful, lush green mountains, and, as our friend said, this was much safer.

My favorite feature of the park was the water slide located at the top of the river:

It doesn't look very steep, but it was fast! Thankfully, the park provided helmets: Just in case you're worried about the safety of this ride, you can grab a foam helmet when you pick up your tube!

There actually weren't too many people wearing these things, but some people certainly were!

The thing that struck me as the most peculiar was that the people that I saw wearing these things weren't small children whose mothers had instructed them to do so... they were actually older teenage boys! Seriously! ooh some things I will just never understand!

Towards the end of our time at the park, it started to rain... a typhoon was coming! So we headed back to the bus and continued on our way to the hotel.

I'll tell you what, these tour groups sure like to pack in the activities! Once we arrived at the hotel we had 1/2 hour to get situated before dinner, which was promptly at 6:00pm. At 7:00 most people went to the near-by park to watch a drum show (which we missed). Evening activities also included a trip to the spa and some friendly gambling.

Saturday morning our wake up call was at 6:30am, as we were planning for an early morning bike ride through the park. Breakfast was to be at 8, departure at 9, whale watching for the morning, lunch, a trip to an outdoor museum in the afternoon, followed the long drive back to Taichung.

Whew, I'm winded just thinking about it! But I'll save day 2 for another post!

We Finally Made it to Sun Moon Lake!

After a couple failed attempts to drive our scooters to Sun Moon Lake, last weekend, we finally made it!

Sun Moon Lake is the largest lake in Taiwan, and it's only about an hour and a half from Taichung by car. We were taking our scooters though, which meant the highway was off limits.

If you know where you're going, it takes about 2 hours to get there by scooter; if you don't know where you're going, it takes three attempts and a total of 6 hours to find it! (what's that saying... life's a journey, not a destination)

The drive up to the lake goes through some beautiful mountain roads with great views (that I was hardly able to capture with my standard digital camera)

The mountain vistas were as plentiful as they were beautiful and after spending so much time driving along this quiet mountain road, I began to get images in my head of an untouched mountain lake - as quiet and as peaceful as our drive had been.


I pictured something like a larger version of Bear Lake at Rocky Mountain National Park:

But my illusions were shattered when we arrived at Sun Moon Lake and the first thing we saw, after the gas station, was this:
I had no idea that there is actually a full blown town up there!

Despite the people and the development, Sun Moon Lake is a beautiful mountain lake / recreation area with tons of things to do and see - temples, memorials, walking paths - certainly enough to fill a full day or two with activities and sight-seeing. Here are some pictures of the lake:

After walking around for a bit we stumbled upon a HUGE temple and took some time to look around.

We spent about a half hour at the temple when it began to rain... so after 2 hours of driving to the lake and 2 hours of checking the place out... we began our journey back home.

Fortunately, other than a light sprinkle at the beginning of our ride, we had great weather the entire trip and were driving home just as the sun was setting over the mountains, which gave us some great views.

We'll definitely have to take another trip out there when we have some more time to check things out - but next time, I think we'll take the bus!

Taiwan Solar Eclipse!

Today I saw the first solar eclipse of my adult life.

I do have a vague memory of seeing one when I was a child, but that may or may not be a figment of my imagination.... so today was a big day for me!

Just last year I had the pleasure of watching a total lunar eclipse (2/20/08) while I was on a business trip driving through the mid-west country side, so astronomically speaking, this has been a lucky year for me!

It turned out to be fortunate that it was a partially cloudy day because the clouds allowed us to see the eclipse more clearly (and allowed me to take some pictures!) Check it out:

The language center office took apart some old floppy disks and gave us the film to use while we were looking at the eclipse, these - along with the clouds - gave us a great view of the event! According to my teacher, the next one won't occure in Taiwan until the year 2070!

Taiwan only enjoyed an 80% solar eclipse. Here are some pictures of the eclipse at it's peak:

Pretty cool!!!

Here is a video of the eclipse that someone from my University put together (Feng Chia University - 逢甲大學). The video was taken from the same courtyard where I was watching the eclipse.

and speaking of eclipse videos... my friend just sent me a note asking me if I caught the eclipse yesterday and attached this video... priceless!

Taichung is a Beautiful City...?

Since I've come to Taiwan, I've heard people say some peculiar things like:

~The words ambulance and excellence sound the same

or

~It takes over an hour to get to a grocery store in the United States

but one statement that really struck me as completely off the mark was this one:

"Taichung really is a beautiful city!"

REALLY?

I have been living in Taichung for about 6 months now, and I really can't find any reason to say that Taichung is beautiful... Sure it has some nice parks and some cool things to see, but the city as a whole...it's just not beautiful.

As far as the eye can see, Taichung is just a string of (ugly) buildings.

No sky-line to speak of, no apparent city planning or consideration for the aesthetic, just buildings, buildings, buildings.... Sure, every now and then it has an architecturally interesting building, but for the most part its just... blah. Nick and I don't even look up anymore because there's just no reason to.

From what I've seen, Taipei is the same - an endless sea of buildings with the world's tallest sky-scraper arbitrarily shooting up from the center.

(photo taken from this website)

Nothing, to be sure, compared with my home town:

(photo from here)

The sad thing is that Taichung is surrounded by some beautiful mountains; however, due to population density, pollution, and humidity, it is almost impossible see them most of the time.

Two weeks ago I was driving home from school (a drive which I have done 5 days a week for the last 5 months) when I caught my first glimpse of the mountains - poking out from between the buildings at the end of the street.

5 months, I had been driving on that same road every day, before I noticed them! And they were beautiful.

I was so caught off guard that I was only half looking at the road, half staring in amazement at the sight before me. I had forgotten how much joy I derived from ever-present mountains surrounding Denver. Mountains give me peace and remind me that my problems are small compared with the rest of the world, and just as in Denver, beautiful mountains surround this city, unfortunately the sightings are seldom and fleeting.

For those living in Taiwan, I do have to say that Taichung is a nice city to live in. I am thankful that we ended up here - It's close to the mountains, the weather is ideal (sunnier than Taipei and cooler than Kaoshung), it's not too crowded, the traffic isn't bad most of the time, and the people are wonderful...

Aesthetically speaking though, It aint no Pittsburgh!

(photo source)

The Wonderful World of Taiwan's Eggs

As we all know, the egg is a very versatile food.

Coming from the US, if you asked me how many different ways there are to cook an egg, I would come up with the following list:

• scrambled
• hard boiled
• sunny side up
• over easy
• poached
• deviled
• omelet

Pretty extensive, I think, but by no means exhaustive.

Living in Taiwan for the last 6 months, however, has opened my eyes to a whole new world of egg preparation. And so, I'd like to take a moment to share with you all my egg-citing discoveries.

The first and by far most prevalent egg here in Taiwan is the Tea Egg (茶葉蛋). Tea eggs are eggs which have been hard boiled once, then had their shell slightly cracked, and been further stewed in a salted tea liquid with various other spices. According to the Wikipedia post on Tea Eggs, 7-11 chain stores alone sell 40 MILLION tea eggs per year in Taiwan!!!!

At any convenience store in Taiwan, you will find a vat of eggs floating in a black tea mixture

Needless to say, Tea Eggs are very popular here. I'm actually ashamed to say it, but it took me a full 5 and 1/2 months to try a tea egg! Finally a couple weeks ago, on my way to work, I picked one up for a quick snack on the go.

I have to say, tea eggs are the least flavorful of all of the egg-options here in Taiwan. They're really just hard-boiled eggs with a hint of tea flavor.... that's it. But the mild tea flavor is enough to turn a simple hard-boiled egg into a lovely little snack.

The second egg-option here in Taiwan is the salted duck egg (鹹鴨蛋). Now, unlike the tea egg, this is not a chicken egg, but rather a duck egg (surprise surprise). I have to say, this is my least favorite egg option and I have only eaten it once since I came to Taiwan.

They are basically just salt-cured eggs and they are SOOO damn salty that I really couldn't eat more than one bite of mine.

(as a side note, these are served with a very thin egg-shell firmly and surreptitiously in place... diners beware!)

The third eggcelent egg I've come across here in Taiwan is the Iron Egg (鐵蛋). Iron Eggs are eggs that have been repeatedly stewed in a mix of spices and air-dried. They're a bit like tea-eggs on steroids, except they're not made with tea. They are very dark brown and chewy due to the fact that they've been cooked for such a long time... and I love them.

In my opinion, these eggs are by far the best of all egg options here in Taiwan. They have a sweet-spicy flavor and they're just delightful. They are commonly made from chicken eggs, but one of my new favorite snacks here are iron eggs made from quail eggs.

Quail eggs are pretty tiny, so you can eat 7 in one sitting to equal the calories in one big chicken egg.

Last, but certainly not least are the Thousand Year Eggs (皮蛋). Mmmm.

These eggs are a traditional Chinese snack that are cured for about three months (traditionally by burying them in clay.

They're cured for so long that the egg white becomes a clear, brown jelly-like substance and the yellow becomes green and creamy (or slimy, depending on who you ask). It's a bit like the egg family's version of blue-cheese.

Despite their appearance, these eggs actually have a much milder flavor than that of the iron eggs, and once you get over their appearance, you'll find that they're delicious.

So there it is, the wonderful world of Taiwanese eggs!

Bonn Appetite.

Karaoke Picture of the Day!

Every time I write a KTV post, I think it will be the last one... but inevitably I continue to find KTV popping up in the least expected (and most delightful) places.


Last week, I was in the check-out line at Carrefour, Taiwan's equivalent of Walmart, when I began staring off into space. After a brief moment of day dreaming, I snapped out of it and realized that my eyes hand landed upon an old man singing karaoke all by himself at the front of the store.


In an apparently successful attempt to market the Nintendo Wii to their Taiwanese customers, the store had a game station set up to play Wii Karaoke. (Brilliant marketing, if I do say so myself!)


He looked like he was having a grand ole time, and didn't seem to mind one bit that he was all alone.

You gotta love it!

Noises of Taiwan

It seems to me that the Taiwanese are much more tolerant of noise than Americans are. As a result, Taiwan is chock-full of noises that you just don't often hear back in the States.

One of the more quirky aspects of life here in Taiwan is the seemingly ubiquitous megaphone.

Megaphones are used every day - all over the place - for advertising purposes. Basically, someone will record some type of sale or promotion and then they will let it play on a continuous loop over a megaphone that they then tie to a pole, or just set down any place they deem appropriate.

They don't only do this outside of their businesses, as my pictures show. These things can be found anywhere, including among bras and panties in a department store. Here is a short video of one of these babies in action:

You may think to yourself, 'hmmm, no one is paying any attention to that megaphone's message,' and you are right! I've never actually seen anyone pause to listen to what these things are saying. Nonetheless, it seems that no retailer, small business, or night market stand is complete without one of these incessantly spewing an advertisement.


Just as omnipresent as megaphones and KTVs are these little blue trucks. The streets of Taiwan are crawling with these moving billboards whose drivers are paid to slowly drive around town broadcasting their special deals with super-powered megaphones.

If it suits them, they may even decide to just park on the side of the road, or in the middle of a busy intersection (no joke) to allow potential customers to drive past them.
Here's a short clip of my friends and I encountering one outside of a restaurant in the small beach town of Kenting:



I'm not sure how effective these things really are at selling their products, but I have to believe that work because they seem to be a very popular means of advertising here.

Last, but certainly not least, on this short list of the noises of Taiwan are the local garbage trucks.


Here in Taiwan, you can't just set your garbage out on Monday night so that it can be whisked away while you sleep early Tuesday morning. Probably due to the fact that almost EVERYONE lives in apartment buildings, it is basically impossible to have everyone in a neighborhood set their trash on the curb at the same time - there is just no place for it.


Some apartment buildings (like ours) have a big dumpster outside that you can throw your garbage in any time. For most people, however, this is not the case.


So what to do? Well take a look at this video to find out:




Basically there are garbage trucks wandering around the city all the time, from early in the morning, late into the evening, all the while playing something that resembles the music you'd hear coming from the ice cream man in the states.


When you hear the ice cream man coming down the street, it's time to run outside and give him your trash. Typically two trucks go around the neighborhood together - the first is the regular garbage truck, and the second is the recycling truck.

The distance over which you can hear this truck is quite amazing. I work on the 42nd floor of a building down town and on occasion I have actually been distracted during an English lesson! 42 floors up!!!


Sometimes, however, a different, blue truck drives around by itself. (I'm not quite sure what makes this garbage truck different, although it is clear to me that these two trucks are distinct.) Now, you may be asking yourself, how do you know which truck is outside your door!?


Well, they play different music of course! The regular garbage truck plays a monophonic song like you heard in the last video, but the solitary blue truck plays a much more grating polyphonic tune... check it out:




Both trucks regularly drive past my house, and these days I typically am able to tune them out. The one exception to this being Saturday and Sunday mornings, when I'm trying to sleep in!

It just goes to show you that even the most mundane, basic things can become fascinating when you're in a different country!

Kenting Beaching and Snorkeling

Ok, So I went to Kenting.... famous for the best beaches in Taiwan, so why haven't I written about the beach yet?!

Well, unfortunately, the Kenting beach was actually the only disappointing thing about the whole trip! After our long day in the Kenting National Forest, we went to what I believe is the most popular beach in Kenting, and I was absolutely amazed by it.

Amazed, that is, by the obscene amount of trash on the beach and floating in the water. It was by far the dirtiest beach I have ever been on. The water was the perfect temperature, but I just couldn't bear to stand in it longer than a couple of minutes because I was so turned off - and really just grossed out - by all of the trash floating around me, occasionally grazing my legs... blech!

Now, I am a beach person. I LOVE the beach! My vision for our trip to Kenting included lots of beach time, tanning, swimming, reading, relaxing... But as soon as we got onto this beach I could not wait to get the hell off of it.

Walking down the beach, one had to be careful not to step on tooth brushes, potato chip bags, sanitary products... you name it, it was there.

As I sat on the beach, anxiously waiting for my friends to tire of it, I kept thinking to myself, "this can't be what everyone comes down here for, this can't be the best that there is in Taiwan... there's just no way!"

Thankfully, we didn't arrive at the beach until 5:00pm, so after only about an hour we decided to head to dinner.

The next day, we had a little more luck. We were driving down the road around 4:00 (after the aquarium) and stumbled upon this little beach

It certainly wasn't a white-sand beach, but it was clean, private, and quiet, so we decided to spend our last beaching hours here instead of driving further, hunting for another spot. As a result, I really don't know what else is available as far as Kenting beaches go. I'm clinging to the hope that there are clean beautiful beaches down there, but.... I'm really not so sure. I guess there's a reason Taiwan isn't known for it's beaches...

Right across the street from this beach was a little snorkeling shop and so my friends decided to rent some snorkel gear so that we could explore the waters.

As was the case on our snorkeling trip to Green Island, the experience was just a little bizarre!

Here is a list of all of the accoutrements that are included when renting snorkeling gear for a low key swim in this small, shallow alcove:

Snorkeling Gear Check List:

• Snorkel
• Goggles
• Full wet-suit
• Booties
• Life vest
• Cotton gardening gloves

I realize that this list might bring up some logical questions from my readers, so I'll answer them here in an FAQ section:

Q: What could you possibly need cotton gardening gloves for?

A: Well in case you want to touch anything of course! The gloves will allow you to touch the coral or sea urchins without worrying about getting hurt!

Q: But why touch something if you can't even feel it?!

A: I still haven't figured out the answer to this question

Q: What about the full-wet suit?

A: The water was the perfect warm temperature, so it certainly wasn't for warmth. Apparently that was to protect you from getting hurt on the small patches of coral.

Q: What is the life-vest for?

A: To protect you from the perilous ocean, of course! Please note rule number 3 below (note: this picture was actually taken at a different beach), "While swimming in the sea, you must wear a life jacket or flotation device"

Q: Um... you forgot to put flippers on your list...

A: Actually, I didn't forget. There were no flippers! Just like on Green Island - and unlike anywhere else in the world - snorkelers here in Taiwan are not given flippers!

They'll give you a life vest so that you can easily float (out to sea) but they won't give you flippers, which would help you get back to the shore!

O what a strange relationship the Taiwanese have with the ocean....

English Mania

Sorry I've been out of commission for the last week, my Internet unexpectedly quit on my. I'm still trying to fix my connection, but hopefully I'll be up and running soon.

In the mean time, I found another interesting video clip on TED. This one is particularly relevant to my life right now, as it's about "English Mania." It's just a 5 minute clip about the unbelievable amount of people around the world who are learning English as a second language these days.

Did you know that by the end of this year, China will be the world's largest English-speaking country!? Pretty crazy... isn't it!?