Winter Vacation IV - Taiwan

Look at my photos from Taiwan here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kristin.laufenberg/Taiwan2010#

Before I begin, here’s a little introduction to Taiwan that my friend and fellow EPIK-er Diana wrote for her blog (http://www.didiaway.blogspot.com/) after our vacation. Just in case you were wondering…

Taiwan is an independent republic located off the coast of China with a population of around 23 million. It is the second most densely populated country in the world and is largely Buddhist, with a small minority of Christians. The official language is Mandarin, with a minority of people speaking Taiwanese. It is a modern, dynamic country that relies heavily on electronics and machinery exports to survive. Taiwan has a complex political status and is struggling to be seen by the larger international community as an independent republic. They are currently fighting for membership of international organizations including WHO and the UN – China is doing its best to hinder these attempts and refuses to maintain diplomatic relations with any country which formally recognizes Taiwan as the Republic of China.

Scene set! (Thanks Di!)

On Sunday the 21st, the China Spree group checked out of the hotel and bused over to the Maglev train station. I won't pretend to understand exactly how the Maglev works; all I know is that it’s a special train that uses magnets and levitation, and we arrived at the airport - more than 18 miles away - in less than eight minutes. I said good-bye to Jeannine, Anna, and other friends I made on the China Spree tour, and a few hours later I was in Taipei! Warm, humid, tropical, green Taipei...it felt wonderful after freezing for the last few months in Korea and China. When the Portuguese visited Taiwan in the 16th century, they named the island ‘Formosa’ or ‘beautiful’; Taiwan is still sometimes referred to as Formosa, and it definitely suits.

A bus and taxi brought me to my hotel, where I met Diana and her sister Kate. Our hotel was in the Ximending neighborhood, which is a really cool pedestrian area known for shopping, theater, and food. Diana and I took a stroll around so I could get my bearings, and then we met up with Kate to head to the famous Shilin night market. Despite some misadventures (contrary to what the guidebooks said, it was actually a 45-minute walk from the subway, and Diana got sick before we could even find it so she turned back early), Kate and I persevered, and rewarded ourselves with a dinner of street food as we took in the sights and smells and pushed our way through the crowds. As my guidebook says of the Shilin night market, "If you can eat it, wear it or give it a name and bring it home with you [puppies, anyone?] you'll find it here." It was a great first night in Taipei.

The next day was a busy one. After coffee at Fong Da, we crossed the street to visit the Tien-Ho Temple. It's a really beautiful, tiny temple squashed between buildings in Ximending. Like the temples in China, Tien-Ho was really busy with people celebrating and praying for the New Year. Later that morning we walked to the 2-28 Peace Park (February 28, 1947 was the date of a civilian uprising against the government in which more than 10,000 Taiwanese were killed). It's a really peaceful, serene place, but it got interesting when we found the reflexology path. Diana and I saw some older ladies standing on the path, and had taken off our shoes and socks and decided to give it a try. We were just beginning to stumble around (yes, it's just as painful as it looks. We were literally hobbling) when an old man, maybe in his 70's, came over and started talking to us. As far as I can tell he spoke Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, a tiny bit of English and maybe a bit of Korean, too. He tried teaching us a few words of Chinese and then decided to give us a lesson on the proper use of a reflexology path. He pulled poor Diana along it, while I tried to follow, and then we got a lesson in stretching and massage techniques! We stretched our arms, backs, necks, and legs, and also massaged our faces for a bit. Then I saw the older ladies lying on their backs on the path. It looked like it might feel good (it certainly couldn't have been more painful than standing or walking) so when I tried it, the old guy kept trying to stretch me and pound on my back! You have to look at the pictures of this, they're absolutely hilarious. I look like I'm being attacked in a park by an old man - I'm just lying prone on the footpath while he digs his elbows into my back and pushes me around.

The Taiwanese are notoriously very friendly and laid-back people - while we were still talking to the self-proclaimed massage therapist by the footpath, two more men came up to us. The younger of the two just pointed to his friend and said, "He's 100 years old!" This was followed a multi-lingual discussion about tai chi, and the importance of exercise and flexibility to a long life. We even got a free tai chi demonstration from the centenarian. He was incredible - still walking around by himself, practicing tai chi and doing all these balancing moves, and I swear that he even reached down and touched his own feet! I have to say here that it can be really difficult for Westerners to gauge Asian people's ages, because they age beautifully compared to us. They almost always look younger than they are - I think it's true for both children (most of my students look too young to me to be in middle school) and old people. This Taiwanese guy definitely looked old, but I never would have dreamed that he was older than 80 or 85. You can judge for yourself from my pictures; maybe it will convince you to take up tai chi or massage therapy!

Here's another example of Taiwanese friendliness: on a different day Diana and I were trying to visit the Museum of World Religions. As we were in the subway, looking at a map and trying to figure out which exit to take, a gentleman approached and asked us where we were going. When we told him, he introduced himself as Reverend William Lo, said that on his way to the same museum for the 2010 Spring Peace and Tea Ceremony, and offered to share a cab with us. We found out that he is the president of the Taiwan United Nations Alliance – he gave us a business card, sticker, and brochure about Taiwan’s efforts to join the UN despite China’s interference (“We are a peace-loving people!”). When we arrived at the museum, Reverend Lo invited us to the ceremony. I'm not 100% sure what it was all about, besides peace and tea, but Diana and I got pretty little sash things to wear around our necks as we watched the tea ceremony, drank the tea, and listened to the prayers (most of which we couldn’t understand). Before saying goodbye to Reverend Lo, we had a huge, fabulous, and very expensive lunch in the museum's vegetarian restaurant. Then we finally moved on to see the museum itself, which is pretty cool and worth the trip in and of itself - there were exhibits on eight or ten major world religions, and scale versions of famous religious buildings, like the Dome of the Rock and Chartres Cathedral, with mini cameras so that you could look around inside them.

Other places we saw were the Longshan Temple and the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. I won’t say much about the Longshan Temple here; I love visiting temples (if you couldn’t tell), and this one was really cool too, but similar enough to the others. Just look at my pictures. The Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, however, was really interesting. Chiang Kai Shek was the leader (many say incompetent, oppressive dictator) of Taiwan for about 30 years. His Memorial Hall reminded me of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. – Chiang Kai Shek is a huge, seated figure in a huge hall – except this one had armed guards on either side. It’s in a huge plaza, with gardens, a theater and a concert hall. Taiwan was under martial law until the late 1980’s and now that things have turned around, there is a lot of controversy about memorials and monuments of this nature. Many similar statues glorifying C.K.S. have been removed all over Taiwan, and my guidebook suggested that this one might be removed as well and the park given a different name by the time I visited. However, when I got there, “General Cash-My-Check” (friendly local nickname, I guess!) was still sitting on his throne.

A visit to Taiwan is not complete without enjoying the hot springs. According to Wikipedia, “Taiwan has one of the highest concentrations (more than 100 hot springs) and greatest variety of thermal springs in the world varying from hot springs to cold springs, mud springs, and seabed hot springs.” There was no way we were going to miss that, so we spent one evening soaking at Beitou, just outside of Taipei. It felt wonderful - my allergies and sinuses were really bothering me, but all the sulfur and minerals in the air cleared everything up. It makes your skin feel amazing, and it was such a novelty to be in a swimsuit again! Outside! In February! On another day we went back to Beitou to hike around the geothermal valley, called Hell Valley, and it was beautiful too. We could see steam coming out of the sewer grates and cracks in the rock walls, and the smell, steam and heat (over 200 degrees F) coming out of these pools was incredible.

On another day we visited a suburb of Taipei called Danshui. Danshui is just north of Taipei on the Danshui River. It has a cool atmosphere - it's a college town, and sort of a beach town, and a little touristy too. We just strolled around, eating street food, sampling teas, checking out the souvenirs, and enjoying the view along the river.

One of my favorite things about Taiwan was the food. I drank tons of bubble tea (a cold, sweet drink that comes in lots of different flavors and has chewy tapioca balls at the bottom that you drink with a big straw; it's popular all over the world now but was first made in Taiwan) and ate delicious noodles with beef, delicious noodles with peanut sauce, and a huge variety of street food (fried milk, crispy bread, almond milk, fried pancake/omelet things, and my all-time favorite, fried squid with plum seasoning from Danshui). I think that Taiwanese food is at least as good as Korean food, and their street food is probably even better than the Korean equivalent.

I really loved Taiwan, and definitely plan to go back. Taipei is such a cool city, and there are things both in and out of it that I really wanted to see but didn't have time for (the Maokong tea fields and Taroko Gorge, to start with). If anybody plans on going while I'm still in Asia, I will meet you there!