Arrived in Taichung on Sunday and spent a lovely afternoon with Ashley Squiers. She was so interesting and so much fun! Ashley is the niece of one of my mom's friends in Homer and she's currently working as an English teacher in a teeny tiny town not too far from Taichung. Because we we're going to be in the same area, my mother and her friend thought we should meet up. So we did, and a great time ensued.
We rambled around the center of town and saw what was usual Saturday afternoon events for this city. A man sunning his very large lizard, or maybe an iguana? A puppy market- so adorable! The central park, with forest path, butterfly center, lovely meadow, and a rock patio designed to give you a foot massage as you walk on it barefoot. So painful!
Later we ate at a street kitchen for $5 and had dessert at a fancy patisserie for twice that. Go figure.
I went looking for a bathroom, and kind of surprisingly, I discovered that McDonald's in Taichung had the dirtiest bathroom in the country, by far. Wow! It was like India dirty! Quite disappointing, really.
We found a hidden underground bookstore and had lattes and I saw a beautiful painting of a nude. Gorgeous colors!
We perused a temple that we passed by while looking for tea. It had some great dragons. We finally found some great tea at a place called Oven Coffee. I went back a few days later and found they also had amazing coffee.
Then we hit SOGO, a department store, and had delicious Thai food, and I left my prescription sunglasses in a bag in the bathroom by mistake. Gulp!! Why must I always use the bathroom everywhere?
But what a lovely day, otherwise!
Monday
Today, I went to Rainbow village and Lugang with a girl I met at the hostel, Tiffany. She's from mainland China.
Rainbow village was absolutely mind-blowing!! This guy just started painting walls all over his little neighborhood and eventually it turned into a tourist attraction. They even installed special boards in the playground so he could add paintings to them. It was so cool. Such a great idea! Of course he also happens to be a pretty good artist, so that helped. (Check out photos of rainbow village. It has its own album.)
Lugang is a village that was preserved from back in the first half of the 20th century. It's a cute little seaside town, but it was fairly quiet on a Monday and most of the attraction was just a street market with fried foods and junk being sold. We went to one of the famous temples, but even that was kind of ordinary.
Tuesday
Today, I went to see the Golden Buddha shrine. At first, I was a bit let down because it seemed like just another temple complex, but then I wandered around behind this building and found a giant golden buddha!!! It was so Awesome! And also, so Happy! I love those kinds of buddha. The ones that make you feel happy.
I also saw the funniest "strange Chinese walking exercise" today. I've noticed Chinese culture has this thing with doing all sorts of strange body movements while they're walking. They are not self conscious about these movements at all, but some of them are truly funny. Today, this guy was walking around in the park and holding his ears and flapping them!!. It was by far the weirdest and funniest walking exercise I've seen to date! Wish I had video.
I'm surprised how much of the advertising billboards here feature Caucasians. Not all of them but quite a few. This just seems out of place in a country where there are virtually no Caucasians.
Wednesday
Today I went to Sun Moon Lake. This is a beautiful lake up in the mountains that run along the spine of the island. I took a ferry across to the far side of the island. Here there is still a strong community of native Taiwanese tribal people.
At both ferry landings I visited, there were traditional tribal bands performing for the visitors. It was very unique music. I liked it. And their traditional costumes were pretty cool too. They had a lot of traditional crafts for sale- specifically a lot of wood carved items and gemstone jewelry.
I accidentally tried stinky tofu. It was on a stick with cabbage on top and it looked really good, at least for street food. It wasn't actually that bad. But not that great either, and afterward I was burping it up. I don't know how I didn't notice the smell before hand. I guess I was just too hungry.
There was also a special path that led to the top of the mountain where there was a Buddhist temple monastery. The temple was created in honor of a famous monk who traveled to India to study Buddhism and spent 18 years traveling around India before returning to China. By the time he returned to China, he was considered a great man of the Buddhist religion. The circuitous path up the mountain to the temple monastery was meant to represent this monks path (he walked) to India and back. As the path went on, it got steeper and steeper until at last it became a long flight of steps. Along the way, there were statues and lookouts and forests and even a sign about a barking dog to beware of. It was a very, very long 400 meters. But at the end, seeing the monastery was worth it. And I enjoyed the idea of having the spiritual journey that the monk had, albeit the abbreviated version.
Upon my return to Taichung, I happened to find a nice vegetarian restaurant. Very cheap too.
The next day I was back to Taipei on the train. In the train station, there was a sushi cart, with individually wrapped pieces of sushi, and you could pick and choose whichever you wanted to create your own sushi lunchbox. How cool is that!
