Adventures in Taipei

Had an awesome day in Taipei yesterday, I wanted to see the panda exhibit before it closed today. It was at the Chang Kai Shek Memorial, so we got to see that and the museum.

Changing of the guard ceremony

The ceiling in the memorial hall.  The 12 stars represent 12 months of the year, and 12 hours in the ancient Chinese day.  The ceiling is a series of squares because Chiang Kai-Shek's birth name meant "square."

Chiang visited Washington DC at one point, and you can definitely tell he liked the design of the Capitol, and the Lincoln Memorial.  And the marble on the walls came from Vermont.

They're not allowed to move.  If it's hot, every once in a while, a volunteer will come and wipe the sweat off their faces.

Changing of the guard

Interesting stuff we learned at the museum:

1.  Chiang Kai Shek was born a Buddhist, but converted to marry his second wife, the famous one.  He was interested in the Bible, and read it every morning.

2.  Madame Chiang Kai Shek spent a good portion of her life on the East Coast, and she graduated from Wellesley College.  According to Wikipedia, she spoke English with a Georgian accent. I can kind of hear it in this video

After the museum, Linda and I found a tea house and had crepes and tea.

 We strolled around for awhile, then took the MRT back to Banqiao.  We had dinner at the station, and then got on our separate trains to go home.

My daily Chinese lesson

Brought to you by Ruby, and the fifth graders that clean the office.

Yangmingshan and Beitou

Yesterday the FET's took a field trip to Yangmingshan National Park, near Taipei.

Peggy, Thomas, Tara, Mandy, Bryce, Me, Adrian, and Van is down in front

Flower clock

After Yangmingshan, we got back on the road and went to Beitou.  The trip was supposed to be 30 minutes, but the driver's sense of direction was a little off, and it took 90 minutes, lol.  Beitou has lots of hot springs.

Hot springs museum

Hot springs egg.  Not bad.

The sulfur turns the rocks green.

Thermal Valley.  The water is between 175 and 200 degrees.

We soaked our feet in one of the small creeks.

Teacher Allison and the Mysterious Junk Food

Today was a good day, I was in Zhunan filming TV clips with Linda, bought a new purse, and walked barefoot around Zhunan.  Long story.  When I got back to Tongxiao, it was just around dinner time, so I stopped by 7-11 and got dinner, and a snack.  That's when the trouble started.  I like Pringles, and they're one of the more popular junk food items here.  They have the usual flavors, pizza, sour cream and onion, seaweed.  And some in a can that I didn't recognize.

So I bought them and tried them when I got back to the apartment.  They're good, a cheesy, almost citrus flavor.  But I still have no idea what flavor.  I can't tell from the can, it's a couple of Pringles dancing in a cheesy(?) river.  But they're wearing scarves.  Yarn flavored?  I've tried Google Translate, even a program where you draw the characters and it will translate.  No luck.  All I've gotten is cupboard door-one-July.  So if anyone can interpret, let me know.  I'm going to live in ignorant bliss, just me and my mystery flavored Pringles. 

 Update:  I think it's written in Japanese.  It means (according to Google Translate) Support ~Wa Ichi勹 one re A / Isuzu data one

This is not helpful.

Mystery solved! Sour Cream and Butter
Weird, but edible.  I guess the river is butter, not cheese.  But what's with the scarves?

Seven down, four to go...

Not much happening lately, school is back in full swing, but my schedule seems to be different each week.  There's testing going on, and stuff with the ETRC keeps me busy.  Yesterday was a professional development meeting.  I think we all have a little too much fun at those.  I realized a few days ago, that I need to start looking at plane tickets for July.  For real this time, not "I'msosickofeating7-11foodandfightingbugsIhavenoideawhat'sgoingonI'mleaving" tickets.  Some days, I can't wait to get back, and some days, I don't know how I'm going to leave these kids.

One of the fifth graders keeps coming in here, but all we know how to say to each other is "Hi, how are you?" and "Ni hao?"   She's adorable though.  

I feel really bad when the phone rings in the office, and someone has to run and answer it.  I'm going to answer it one day, just to see what happens.

I've been doing a lot of cross-stitching lately, I spent Saturday afternoon in Toufen, and found the cross stitch shop.  It doesn't carry supplies though, just kits.  I have a supplier in Utah though, the only one I've found that will ship to Taiwan.  They're going to have a very good year, ha ha.

My next adventure will be next weekend, a field trip to Yangmingshan.  "Shan" means mountain in Chinese, and any mountainous area in Taiwan is bound to be gorgeous.  I just hope the weather holds up.  It's still rainy and cold, and I keep asking when Spring is coming.  Although I'm grateful I'm not in Ohio, I just checked the temperatures, it's 65 degrees here, it's 16 degrees in Ohio.  

Trains

Always an adventure in Taiwan.  Today I spent the day in the office, and witnessed a traffic accident.  If Tara hadn't stopped to talk to the English guy, we could have been right in the middle of it.  Long story.

Anyway, I wanted to do a post about the trains.  I spent 27 years in Orrville, and trains are not a big deal.  Except now, I ride one at least once a week.  There are advantages and disadvantages.  It's cheap and reliable, and a good way to see the rest of the country.  The only downside is that during rush hour, they're usually delayed, and since it's my only form of transportation, I have to plan around the train schedules.

There are three types of trains:  Ordinary, Express, and High Speed Rail.   Express trains are slightly more expensive, but if you get them early enough, you get an "assigned seat."  I've only ridden the HSR once, but it was pretty nice.

Tongxiao train platform.

Sometimes they come through to check tickets, sometimes they don't.  In the larger stations, you have to run your ticket through the machine before you can get to the platform, and again when you get off the train.  You have to keep the tickets for the entire journey, otherwise you get charged the price of the ticket, plus a fee.  Unless you can't find the ticket at your destination.  and you wait for the conductor to leave the post and slip through the gate.  True story.

Commuter train ticket on the left, express ticket on the right.

View from the Coast Line

The timetable at the Zhunan train station.  All the Chinese words I know how to read, I've learned at the train station.  I've gotten pretty good at figuring out the schedules, and I don't have to ask before I get on a train anymore.  I've figured out what the right stops are, whatever direction I'm going, but there's still that uneasiness until I know for sure that I'm on the right train, headed in the right direction.  I've only gotten on the wrong train once, and hopefully, that'll be the only time.

Sun Moon Lake

Had a great weekend, the only downside being that I aged while I was there, ha ha.

Friday was a holiday, the commemoration of the "228 incident." Which, if you know the address of the house I grew up in, is kind of odd.

Anyway, I got the train to Xinwuri Friday morning and met up with James, Thomas, and Linda.  We rode along with James's friend Jeff and his family, and they were kind enough to show us around Puli, then took us to the hotel at Sun Moon Lake.

Bee hives and a stand selling honey vinegar

Inside the Paper Museum

Calligraphy

We watched them make paper by hand

Starts with pulp

The pulp is mixed

Screens

This was the coolest part.  The pulp is watered down and poured onto these screens.  If you look carefully, the worker puts a string across the screen to separate the sheets, then peels the whole sheet off onto the stack.

Then they're put on heated tables to be separated and dried.

After lunch, we stopped for Gelato at 18C, a famous chocolate/ice cream place in Puli.  

Our next stop was the Paper Church, constructed after the Kobe earthquake to replace a destroyed Catholic church, and given to Taiwan as a symbol of the friendship between Japan and Taiwan.  The exterior is steel and glass, the seats and the decor inside are made of paper.

The flowers in Nantou are gorgeous.

After a stop at a famous temple, we reached Sun Moon Lake

We had dinner, and then took a moonlight stroll around the lake.

Saturday was just as busy, after breakfast we boarded a ferry and made a stop at the old street, and  another temple before taking the gondola to the aboriginal park.

Bamboo

Watched some traditional tribal  dances.

Paiwan tribal home

We took the gondola back down

They were doing some kind of promotion, there was a stuffed bear in each car.

The ferry took us back to the dock, and we hiked along the shoreline to get back to the hotel.

Chang Kai Shek memorial pavilion

At 9:30, the front desk called our room, and brought a birthday cake!

 The next morning, Linda and I took a bike ride around the lake before breakfast.

After we packed up, we took a shuttle van, then a bus, then the train back home.  All in all, a very enjoyable weekend :)