Ottawa to Toronto to Taipei...
Crystal met her partents in Taipei on Saturday morning, showed them the sights and on Sunday brought them to Hualien City. We rented a car, I drove to Hualien and spent the morning playing hacky sac on the beach with a steaming java and a blue sky, they took the train from the soggy Taipei climes to the dry, warm and sunny Hualien City. We met up at noon on Sunday and we headed to Taroko Gorge.
Some of the highlights: the drive (as always) with epic scenery, TienHsiang Village, afternoon break on the roof, dinner and beer and cards in the garden and the calmness that only an evening in this little village can provide.
The next day they got up early and visited the TienHsiang Memorial up the hill, met up with us for breakfast at the hostel and then we walked to the TienHsiang Buddhist Temple across the river. Buddhism and its mysticism and irreparable paucity of reality aside, the temples they build and the grounds they keep are superbly calm, clean and gorgeous. Beauty through simplicity. No gaudy artifacts of religiosity like the other, equally reality-illeterate, religions and their grounds. This temple is a hefty walk up many stairs (they are led by the mantra "Bu Er Men" - No Two Doors - to signify that there is only one way to enlightenment and that one way takes work. There are no two doors to the top...if you want the best, you have to work for it. I think, taken out of its spiritual context, this is excellent advice) to the top. Once you get to the top...you get to go up again! The TienHsiag Pagoda is another 8 stories climb in a cramped circular staircase up, up, up....until you reach the top and are greeted with a perfect view of both the TienHsiang Village itself as well as the temple grounds. All set in the background scenery of mountains, lush tropical forests, chirping birds and endless blooms of flowers red, yellow, green and blue. And mauve. And purple. And white and red stripes. And...... the flowers take on every colour imaginable by genetic alterationa and pigment combination.
After this, we got back in the car and headed east back to the ocean. Once at the ocean, back to Hualien City. We did a tour around to our old house, old schools, and to the area we will live in next year. Then, to the coastal road (Highway 11) and south, south, south. Now a bit wet and cloudy, the drive was not as scenic as it could have been, but the mist in the mountains and the blue ocean pounding the shore still had a purely 'Taiwan" feel to it. We stopped at the ShiTiPing fishing village, saw a brief fish sale, then continued on our way homeward.
Then we rescued a goat. Two, actually. Mom was calling for them, they were crying back at her, stuck in a drainage ditch that was as deep as my waist. After crawling through goat poop, a highly aged drainage tunnel and trying to make soothing goat calls at them to calm them down, we prevailed and they were saved. Two goats, running back to mommy. Happy times.
Had to convince crystal not to take one and hide it in our trunk and keep it as a pet. She really wants a pet goat.....
Then, home, we made a nice dinner and called it a night.
Since then we have been to the WuHe tea farm, where the best of Taiwans coffee beans are grown and where Taiwans most famous tea is grown, a hot pot dinner and tour of Yuli, and today Crystal and her parents are off to the Buterfly Conservation Area and the hotsprings...
...the rest will be posted as it happens!
