Hello!
Matt and I decided that we had to go to the Taipei International Flora Exposition, even if we couldnt get a day off so that we could go during the week when it wasnt so busy. When Mom and Pat visited, we had seen that on weekends it was getting about 55,000 or 60,000 visitors a day. On the weekdays it was more like 30,000 or 35,000. Obviously we would have preferred a weekday, but it ended on Monday, so we didnt have a choice. Unfortunately, it seems like everybody else had put off it off until the last minute as well. It was beyond anything I had imagined. I was thinking that since it was the last weekend maybe it would get 80,000 people. Boy, was I wrong! 184,000 people were there on Sunday!!! It was ridiculous. It was very pretty, but we just couldnt handle the crowd. It was a very hot day, and there were long lines to even get to vending machines. Some people were being very rude, which is quite uncharacteristic here. We had a really hard time getting pictures, which is why there aren't many pictures with Matt or I in them. It just took too long, and it seemed very rude to make a line of 200 people wanting to walk a path wait while you used the whole thing. This is what was really bothering me about others, they would want to take pictures from five or six different angles, and would take up four of the five feet of walkway! I understand you want one picture, but they were a little ridiculous. There was one lady who would do this, and then she would elbow her way through the crowd till there was another photo opportunity, then hold up the crowd again! Well, we did enjoy it a lot. It was very beautiful, but we didnt explore very much. Two hours was more than enough time spent there.
We did a lot of other fun stuff as well. Before we even went to the flower expo, Matt and I decided to go to the Grand Hotel. It is a beautiful place, done in some sort of traditional Chinese architecture. It is absolutely huge! It would be very weird indeed to stay in a hotel that is a tourist attraction in its own right. There is a lot of security, plus tour buses coming and going every which direction. Its up on a hill, with gorgeous green mountains behind it. It overlooks a beautiful river, not quite sure but I think its the Keelung River. There is a lot of interesting looking hiking trails behind it, but we had enough planned for the day, plus it was a scorcher. From Grand Hotel, we walked to Martyrs' Shrine. It is very beautiful, and again with the beautiful back drop of the green mountains. Most people come primarily for the changing of the guards. In fact, we caught a bit of the changing of the guard as we arrived. Its cool, but I dont find changing of the guards that great just because of how closely people jam in to watch. I couldnt get a decent picture anyways. I have to stand on my tippy-toes to see anything over all the cameras, and in the Taiwanese heat, umbrellas. People here carry umbrellas for two reasons as far as I can tell. I cant tell which is the higher priority, but they want to keep there skin light, suntans are very unpopular, and it provides a constant source of shade, which makes it marginally cooler. Anyways, back to the changing of the guard. Because it has been going on for so many years, there are three lines worn into the tiles from the temple to the gate. Most people dont even bother going to the temple, they just watch the change and then head out, so the rest was relatively quiet. It was nice and peaceful, plus they had very good English translations of the paintings and statues. Its just a very beautiful shrine, and we appreciated how quiet it was, especially in comparison to going to Chiang-Kai Shek or 2-28 Peace Park on a weekend.
Later in the day we headed to one of our favorite districts in town, Ximen (pronounced she-men). Its the young, hip shopping district in town. It has many trendy shops, tattoo parlors, interesting restaurants, and street performers. We saw one man in clown paint dancing around to Lady Gaga and such. He was quite good, if you can get past his questionable taste in music and choice of the clown costume. Ximen is also the home to the famous Modern Toilet restaurant. For anybody who has seen 10 Craziest Themed Restaurants around the globe, or something of the sort, you have heard of it. It is the restaurant where everything is bathroom themed. You sit on toilets, your drinks get served out of urinals (anyone want some lemonade or green tea?), beware of ordering the chocolate ice-cream because you know what it will look like, and any other immature potty joke you can think of, comes to life here! We chose not to eat there this time, as one of our favorite things about coming to Taipei is having good food, not food thats hard to choke down. Anyways, we spent quite a long time exploring Ximen, but it was convenient as thats the district we were staying in. We will always stay here if we can, because its super close to the MRT and just so much fun. We went to Shilin Night Market briefly but they were busy plus our favorite building is shut down right now. Hopefully, they are just remodeling and then they will get it back up and running. Basically, we had no real meals all day long, just munched food as it appealed to us. We had a really good halal sandwich, chicken coffin bread, papaya milk, apple milk, and then we felt like indulging in American food and went to TGI Fridays to get Buffalo Wings and Quesadillas. We love papaya milk, we get it every week at our night market, but the apple milk was not so good. Try putting milk, freshly sliced apples, and ice into a blender and you will discover that the texture of apples just is not that appealing once you have had most of the ice and milk. It is just way too pulpy.
Anyways, that is it for now. Back to life as usual until we can do another mini-vacation! I hope you all had a very happy Easter!
PS. If you are ever wondering what the pictures are, you can just click on them and I write little comments under most about where the picture is from or what it specifically is. It just takes you to Picasa Web Albums and then you can view the pictures individually and full size. Love you all!
Monday, April 25, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Matsu Pilgrimage
Matsu, the goddess of the sea, is a very popular spiritual diety who has a very cool festival/pilgrimage in her honor. I read that there is over 500 temples in her honor on Taiwan. On the 23rd day of the 3rd lunar month a week long pilgrimage starts in her honor. It travels through three counties, and is walked around 280-300km across the island, round trip. THe story, as we know it, of Matsu is that she was an intelligent and gifted girl who loved the sea. She would dress in red and help direct sailors safely into the harbor during storms. After she ascended to heaven, she often appeared to distressed sailors. She was brought over from mainland China, as Taiwan was settled primarily by fishermen.
Luckily for us, the pilgrimage happens to go through Changhua, so we didnt even need to get lost trying to find out where it goes through in other towns. We talked to some co-workers, and they told us where some popular spots are to see it. Matsu is followed by many devoted, some bicycling, others walking, and some riding in trailers or vans. It is sort of a "parade" as the devoted pass through the town before the big spectacle. You are never quite sure when Matsu will arrive, so many people arrive many hours early to guarantee they have a good view and to show their devotion. In Changhua alone, they visited many temples, and fireworks and firecrackers were being shot off all over for many hours. It is dependent on many variables when Matsu will go through the towns, so its not possible to plan far ahead. A coworkers tells us of the time when Matsu came through a downtown area in Changhua at three am, and its not like they kept it quiet because people were sleeping.
This is an extremely noisy affair, which I loved. Matt and I got out pretty early, because I really did not want to miss anything. We found a seat on the bridge, and sat there for about 1.5 hours before the parade started. It wasnt too bad, there was a beautiful Porsche we had driven by earlier in the day that pulled up, plus there was some Matsu devotees catching some sleep on the sidewalk, and other things to keep us entertained. Being foreigners in Taiwan, we also had several people take our picture (that we noticed!). Some tried to be sneaky, but others were up front and said "Thank You" afterwards. We witnessed some of the parade, which was decent. It was very different because normal cars and scooters were pulling in and out. It wasnt in parade formation, it was basically that you went through when you got there. If you are driving, you just find a space and squeeze in. The parade had vehicles with statues and shrines, and also people dressed in costumes designed to look like various dieties. Mostly though, it was devotees either walking, cycling, or in vehicles. Vendors came out with grilled squid, sausage, etc. We were supposed to be meeting friends for dinner, so we were very happy when a nice lady from Taipei chatted us up, and told us that the big show would be around eleven. We left for two hours, then came back. It was crazy. This is one of the biggest intersections in Changhua that we were hanging out at, at least 2 lanes each way, and in some places very wide. They ended up shutting it down around eleven thirty. People just slowly crushed in until it was one lane each way, then only a one way, and then they shut it down. I cant even guess how many people were there.
Well, Matt and I knew basically nothing about the Matsu pilgrimage. We just knew there were a lot of fireworks and firecrackers, but the actual events we didnt know. We just kind of imitated what everyone else around us was doing. We ended up all scrunched together when the Matsu statue came into view. People were going crazy all around us. Then somebody laid down like a brick of firecrackers, and stuff was raining down everywhere. The heat wave was pretty intense as well, but Matt didnt really feel it. He was too busy trying to stay on his feet. I felt like I was back in a mosh-pit at a heavy metal concert, because people were trying to get out of the way, and I almost lost my shoes like I did at the Panic at the Disco (an old band from my high school years) concert. The fireworks show was absolutely, ridiculously amazing thing I have ever seen. They were going down a 4 lane road, shooting off the types of fireworks that you see at your towns annual firework show, with spectators only 10, 20, 30, 40 feet away. The fireworks only go maybe 10 stories high, and the ash is falling all around you. The smell of sulfur is all around. You have to crane your neck really far back to see them shooting right above your head. The show is nonstop fireworks for 15 to 20 minutes. You can feel it all around you, the noise is insane, and it's absolutely beautiful. What is also worth mentioning that as we were walking behind Matsu, there was several Moms there with infants, who were fast asleep! How could you sleep during that?!? Even though it was midnight by the time the show started, there was no age that would be inappropriate to be there. There were two year olds, and 80 year olds. Anybody is welcome. And what is even better, Matsu will be coming back through this weekend. Lucky us! There will be a video coming soon, but me being me can't figure out how to load it. We were hoping youtube but I dont know why thats not working...
Luckily for us, the pilgrimage happens to go through Changhua, so we didnt even need to get lost trying to find out where it goes through in other towns. We talked to some co-workers, and they told us where some popular spots are to see it. Matsu is followed by many devoted, some bicycling, others walking, and some riding in trailers or vans. It is sort of a "parade" as the devoted pass through the town before the big spectacle. You are never quite sure when Matsu will arrive, so many people arrive many hours early to guarantee they have a good view and to show their devotion. In Changhua alone, they visited many temples, and fireworks and firecrackers were being shot off all over for many hours. It is dependent on many variables when Matsu will go through the towns, so its not possible to plan far ahead. A coworkers tells us of the time when Matsu came through a downtown area in Changhua at three am, and its not like they kept it quiet because people were sleeping.
This is an extremely noisy affair, which I loved. Matt and I got out pretty early, because I really did not want to miss anything. We found a seat on the bridge, and sat there for about 1.5 hours before the parade started. It wasnt too bad, there was a beautiful Porsche we had driven by earlier in the day that pulled up, plus there was some Matsu devotees catching some sleep on the sidewalk, and other things to keep us entertained. Being foreigners in Taiwan, we also had several people take our picture (that we noticed!). Some tried to be sneaky, but others were up front and said "Thank You" afterwards. We witnessed some of the parade, which was decent. It was very different because normal cars and scooters were pulling in and out. It wasnt in parade formation, it was basically that you went through when you got there. If you are driving, you just find a space and squeeze in. The parade had vehicles with statues and shrines, and also people dressed in costumes designed to look like various dieties. Mostly though, it was devotees either walking, cycling, or in vehicles. Vendors came out with grilled squid, sausage, etc. We were supposed to be meeting friends for dinner, so we were very happy when a nice lady from Taipei chatted us up, and told us that the big show would be around eleven. We left for two hours, then came back. It was crazy. This is one of the biggest intersections in Changhua that we were hanging out at, at least 2 lanes each way, and in some places very wide. They ended up shutting it down around eleven thirty. People just slowly crushed in until it was one lane each way, then only a one way, and then they shut it down. I cant even guess how many people were there.
Well, Matt and I knew basically nothing about the Matsu pilgrimage. We just knew there were a lot of fireworks and firecrackers, but the actual events we didnt know. We just kind of imitated what everyone else around us was doing. We ended up all scrunched together when the Matsu statue came into view. People were going crazy all around us. Then somebody laid down like a brick of firecrackers, and stuff was raining down everywhere. The heat wave was pretty intense as well, but Matt didnt really feel it. He was too busy trying to stay on his feet. I felt like I was back in a mosh-pit at a heavy metal concert, because people were trying to get out of the way, and I almost lost my shoes like I did at the Panic at the Disco (an old band from my high school years) concert. The fireworks show was absolutely, ridiculously amazing thing I have ever seen. They were going down a 4 lane road, shooting off the types of fireworks that you see at your towns annual firework show, with spectators only 10, 20, 30, 40 feet away. The fireworks only go maybe 10 stories high, and the ash is falling all around you. The smell of sulfur is all around. You have to crane your neck really far back to see them shooting right above your head. The show is nonstop fireworks for 15 to 20 minutes. You can feel it all around you, the noise is insane, and it's absolutely beautiful. What is also worth mentioning that as we were walking behind Matsu, there was several Moms there with infants, who were fast asleep! How could you sleep during that?!? Even though it was midnight by the time the show started, there was no age that would be inappropriate to be there. There were two year olds, and 80 year olds. Anybody is welcome. And what is even better, Matsu will be coming back through this weekend. Lucky us! There will be a video coming soon, but me being me can't figure out how to load it. We were hoping youtube but I dont know why thats not working...
Friday, April 1, 2011
Some sweet souvenirs!
We have picked up some souvenirs here in Taiwan that we really like. I think my favorite is a mask that we got at Taroko Gorge in Hualien when Tasha and Jeff were visiting. It's about 14 inches high, and is designed in one of the aboriginal peoples traditional way. I cant remember which it is, but I believe that it is the Ayatal people. We also picked up a cool tea pot, which is good for making the loose tea, not the kind in bags that we are so used to in the states. We havent used it too much, but I think we are just not in the habit of it. We also have gotten a cool dragon scroll, and a Buddha. There have been little trinkets here and there as well, but we didnt feel like posting any of those. Hope everything is going great back home! Miss you all! Also, our cats were being sweeties again. They amuse us to no end!
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