Taiwan

Hi y’all. I hope you had a happy holiday season. Myung and I didn’t celebrate Christmas, as it’s not a big deal here in Korea. We did, however, get out of town again. This time, we went to Taiwan from Dec 27 to Jan 6. We were going to stay till the 12th, but came back early. I’ll write about that at the end.

We had been wanting to go to Taiwan for years, but never got around to it. Finally, we just went. Winter is the best season to go, as it’s hot nine months out of the year. Plus, we got tired of the cold here. As I think I have mentioned, we watch the nightly travelogue on one of the educational TV channels here. Taiwan has been on the show a few times, and that helped create the itch. The food looked great, so we went with the intention of eating. Boy, did we do that! There aren’t many restaurants in Taiwan. The culture is to eat in one of the thousands of hole-in-the-wall joints, sitting on a plastic stool or taking the food with you. Myung often takes photos of the food, but she didn’t this time. I think those pics are boring for most people, anyway. I’ll just say, it was good to be eating Chinese food again. I think it’s the best in the world, certainly for the price. These little “restaurants” are only slightly more expensive than at the night markets. For those of you who don’t know night markets, they are areas, usually a blocked-off street or a parking lot where sometimes many food vendors set up stands and serve food to carry till you get to the next stand. They are most popular in tropical countries where it’s hot and muggy during the day, and going outside in the relatively cool evening is an enjoyable relief.

So, I’ll go chronologically with what we did. The main international airport near the capital, Taipei, is actually in Taoyuan. I booked us an airbnb place to stay there, and spent three days and four nights. I learned a long time ago that it’s good to plan nothing upon arrival and to allow a day to get settled. What to do almost always presents itself. Often, you, or at least I, need a day to recover from jet lag, though this time the flight is only 2 1/2 hours and one time zone away. We walked around, eating, and looking at what Taiwan looks like. Then we went to a couple of museums. There is a nice park near where we stayed.

One of the attractions “everybody” sees is the Mazu temples. I’ll get to that in a minute. Besides the museums and that park, there are a couple of other places not worth really mentioning here. So I’ll skip to Tainan.

We rented a car from this little two-car rent-a-car business and went to Tainan by way of Alishan National Park. We would have done some hiking or something there, but it was the long New Year holiday and the crowds around there were awful. You couldn’t even park near anything good, so we bagged it and went on to Tainan.

Tainan was the capital till the 1880’s. Lots of traditional Taiwan culture there, compared to Taoyuan. Taoyuan/Taipei is like Orange County/Los Angeles, as in why would you go?. We got there on New Years Eve. On New Years Day, we figured nothing would be open, which is pretty much the case, but we did happen by a Mazu Temple where they were preparing a big parade, Very big, like an Indian puja. I know little about Mazu. I just say Mazuism is a traditional religion centered on Mazu, the Goddess of the Sea. There are elements of Buddhism and Taoism, but that is basically all I knew. I read about it on Wikipedia. If you are interested, here is the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazu

There are hundreds of these temples in Taiwan.

 

The insides of the temples all look pretty much like this. I don’t know about all the demigods. I did read that they can be loosely compared with Buddhist bodisatvas.

We were walking around, looking for something to do, when we happened across alleys filled with people preparing for a parade. All were dressed as Mazu figures. Then they filed out. It turns out that this parade is a thing. Many people lined the streets to see it, including Western tourists who were clearly more informed than me.

I think it was the next day, we went to a famous old house overgrown by banyan trees. Reminded me of Angkor Wat, though not nearly that impressive.

Another nice park was near there. Having a car was nice. Just go here, just go there.

The main thing to do in Tainan is going to the national historical museum. It really made Taiwan history interesting. It didn’t pull punches on what it was like when the nationalists first came over in 1949. The grounds outside and the building are beautiful.

After Tainan, we went to the most famous scenic attraction in Taiwan, Taroko National Park, where the Taroko Gorge is. Nice place. If you’re totally jaded about natural wonders, I suppose you wouldn’t think it was great. But I’m jaded, and I still liked it and the road over the mountains of Taiwan’s interior.

The west side of the island is flat, and that is where nearly all the 23 million people live. Only towns are along the east coast. The mountains go straight up from there.

Hualien was the last place we stayed in Taiwan. The plan was to go up the east cost, then spend 5 days in Taipei. Unfortunately, a big truck smashed into our parked rent-a-car. We were in it, but were not hurt. That was that for the car. We just came home.

All in all, it was a good vacation except, of course, for that last afternoon. Taiwan is surprisingly mellow for a crowded little country, except for New Years Eve in Alishan. I wish we could have gone to Taipei. I really wanted to see the treasures brought over by the retreating nationalists. Maybe next time.

 

 

 

With that, until next time, be well, all of you.