Location: Taipei
Weather: 18C
Today marks my last day of work at Topology Travel and the end of my first chapter in Taiwan! The past 2.5 months has been the best welcome to Taiwan one can ask for thanks to my wonderful new colleagues and friends, filled with learning, in-country travelling, and lots of eating (I've definitely gained a few pounds since being here). I am happy to announce I have secured a new job in Taipei from March 2016, and will be here for a while from then on, so lots more of Taiwan to come! But for now, tomorrow I head to Thailand to start a series of 4 trips, the first being SE Asia which has been top on my radar for the past few years.
From when I last wrote I was on my way to Taroko Gorge. That day with the American cyclists, we went to Qingshui cliffs, my first taste of eastern Taiwan's rugged landscape, followed by a short hike along the Shakadang Trail. Unfortunately, the latter part of the trail is closed due to the previous typhoons (a commonality in many of Taroko's trails, although I did climb over some signs), but it was still spectacular with the turquoise water and jagged rocks and cliffs. In the afternoon we were dropped off at Tienhsiang, in the heart of the gorge, for the night, and while the guests went off to set up their bikes, I went for a walk around the small village. Along the Baiyang Waterfall Trail, which was suppose to have a spectacular water curtain but again that part was closed, I met a group of Taiwanese on sort of an elementary school reunion trip (how amazing they managed to stay in touch all those years!), and they even offered to let me stay with them had I not arranged accommodation.
In the morning, I had breakfast with the cyclists and then enviously watched them off on their ride down to Kenting. Tienhsiang has to be one of my favourite places in Taiwan so far, wild Formosan macques running around everywhere and yet so serene and beautiful. I spent the day hopping on and off the bus that runs along the road in the park (so awesome, where else in the world do you get reliable public transportation inside a national park?), going on just about all the short hikes at Lushui, Swallow Grotto, Buluowan and Eternal Spring Shrine. That evening I took the train from Hualien to Zhixue, where my Couchsurfing host Jane invited me to a talk at her church about the various traditional religions in Taiwan. It was given by a professor of religious studies and what I thought was very cool was how Taiwan's island and immigrant culture have big roles in influencing people's beliefs. Jane, who is a student at National Dong Hwa University, introduced me to her church friends and I got a taste of university life in Taiwan.
On Saturday, I caught the train back to Hualien, where I rented a bike for the day and cycled around the town. Although the weather wasn't spectacular, I still found Hualien, edged between the Central Mountain Ranges and Pacific Ocean, very pretty. I spent a good part of the morning at Qixingtan beach, and the afternoon at Hualien Cultural and Creative Industries Park where there was the East Coast Living Art Festival featuring many artisan booths and cultural performances (and of course DIY activities). Revitalization of historical sites into new tourist attractions seems to be a common trend across many places in Taiwan. In the evening, I trained back up to Yilan to my coworker's Jenny's hometown of Luodong, where she took me through the famous but very crowded night market, sampling many of Yilan's delicacies.
Bright and early on Sunday, Jenny took me on a bike ride along the dikes near her home, before I went off to Luodong Foresty Cultural Park. During the Japanese occupation, This used to be a major lumber production site where they shipped the wood down from Taipingshan for processing, and has now turned into an outdoor exhibition/museum. Afterwards I took the train to Jiaoxi, where I had wanted to do the Linmei Shipan trail. It was just as well that it started raining then because the trail ended up being closed for repair, so I executed Plan B and went to the Lanyang Museum. Here's another prime example of Taiwanese hospitality: I was walking along the road from Toucheng train station when a bus driver stopped to tell me to get on and drove me with the rest of the passengers directly to the museum. A minute after I got on he stopped another foreign tourist and the entire bus exclaimed how well he was able to know exactly where people wanted to go. Lanyang Museum does a really good job of outlining everything about Yilan, from the geography to the history. I'm usually not a museum person but having personally been to and heard about some of the things on exhibit I found it pretty interesting. A recurring theme in Yilan is it's greenery, due to the vast amounts of rainfall that it receives, and the people's efforts to keep it green.
Ironically, the next day I found myself back in Yilan, this time for work helping out on a tour of Indonesian visitors. We went to the Wufengqi waterfalls, did a fish foot spa (my first and most likely last as I really didn't like the biting feeling, regardless of how good they say your feet feel afterwards, which mine didn't), and then went to the National Center for Traditional Arts, which offers a glimpse of Taiwan's past with traditional handiwork and performances.
For my last weekend together with my roommate, Jenny invited us to join some of her church's Christmas festivities. On Saturday, we went to a Christmas carnival put on their church and even helped out by selling some of the food items. We started Sunday morning with a short bike ride from Jenny's Taipei home on the outskirts of Taipei (New Taipei City actually) to Bitan, a nice waterfront area along the Xindian River. We then joined her church's mass and youth group. In the evening, we went to an orchestra performance where a friend of Jenny's was performing, rounding off a wonderful in-town weekend.
See you in SE Asia!
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