Crystal awaiting our pizza....our real, live, actually authentic pizza. Most "pizza" in Asia would be best described as wonder bread with ketchup and cheap, perhaps fake, cheese and a few chunks of uncooked green pepper. What we stumbled upon here, in Taipei of course, was the real deal! On the right...friend we met along the way as we hiked up to the temple (below).
Taipei from a distance on the left, one of the many temples that dot the landscape in this region. At least the Daoist and Buddhist temples have the pleasantry to make their places of worship attractive, unlike the architectural swill of the christian houses. Despite the mythology of worship and the irrationality of spending so much on a building to burn incense and talk to a pretend friend in the sky in, it makes for a colourful addition to the landscape.
Trevor, trying to find the end of the noodles. The impossible feat attempted and failed, the only option left was to bury ones face in mid stream of the noodles and chew your way through to make your own end. Pleasant to watch, I assure you!
Happy Birthday Crystal!!
[Comment for y'all: There are a few more pictures that we hoped to post but, on three separate computers, they would not load. Sometimes this happens and I simply dont have the time to keep fighting with it. These are a taste of our tea time in Taipei, if I can manage to upload the rest I will do so and link to it later on. Nothing absolutely phenomenal is missing, I do say!]
This weekend was planned to be an adventure into tea growing country to the south-east of Taipei city. We had planned a general area to hit up, a general itinerary and a gran plan for hiking through the fields and the backwoods of this somewhat forgotten region of Taiwan. A birthday romp in the tea leaves of future cups of tea.
What we didn't plan, or really expect with any certainty, was a typhoon. We knew of it (see previous post) but as things have gone throughout this typhoon season we figured that, perhaps, we may be ok. However.....
Friday train to Taipei, managed to break our way in (somewhat legally) to our hostel, dropped our gear and headed out to the night. A weakly translated set of directions to a cabbie took us to a place with real pizza, rather real bruschetta and a nice dark beer. Pleasure of the senses!!
[Comment for y'all: There are a few more pictures that we hoped to post but, on three separate computers, they would not load. Sometimes this happens and I simply dont have the time to keep fighting with it. These are a taste of our tea time in Taipei, if I can manage to upload the rest I will do so and link to it later on. Nothing absolutely phenomenal is missing, I do say!]
This weekend was planned to be an adventure into tea growing country to the south-east of Taipei city. We had planned a general area to hit up, a general itinerary and a gran plan for hiking through the fields and the backwoods of this somewhat forgotten region of Taiwan. A birthday romp in the tea leaves of future cups of tea.
What we didn't plan, or really expect with any certainty, was a typhoon. We knew of it (see previous post) but as things have gone throughout this typhoon season we figured that, perhaps, we may be ok. However.....
Friday train to Taipei, managed to break our way in (somewhat legally) to our hostel, dropped our gear and headed out to the night. A weakly translated set of directions to a cabbie took us to a place with real pizza, rather real bruschetta and a nice dark beer. Pleasure of the senses!!
A break along the way up. Lunch in our bellies, we hit the backroads and trails to get us up the hill to the upper tea growing area. The sky was clear, the typhoon still but a foggy consideration in the future...our minds were on tea and tea alone! On the right is an old forgotten abode in a forgotten part of Taiwan, one which nature took ahold of and cloaked in vegetation. The trail wanders off to the right of this picture and then into tea country.
Saturday we hit the road for MaoKung, a nice tea growing region of Taiwan. The idea was to take the gondola ride into the heart of it, take the trails that started there and meander our way through the tea fields and tea houses. However, as the typhoon was on its way the gondola was halted. Stopped. Dead. Not moving.
So we walked there. Somewhat there. We basically spent the day most among the tea fields and villages and back paths....with a map that would have been more effective as a mop than an actual direction finder or location finder. It was rather horrid, but we managed. Sort of! We ended up not where we intended to go, but where we enjoyed being. So that is all that matters. After a day of walking, a lunch of the coolest (and most filling!!!) noodles and a nice tea house visit we surrendered to the day and took a bus back to the city (apparently the bus driver thought our noses were beautiful, and explain it to us in Chinese and Taiwanese....repeatedly! Fun conversation, though...).
So many tea houses, so many types of tea, and no clue how to get to any of them!! Ok, we could get to most of them, but to be there and find that spot on the map....almost impossible. Worst map ever. On the right, a watchful eye snarls at us as we take refuge from the rain under an awning in front of an abandoned house.
After our search, and due to a torrential rain fall that would be best described as a natural warm up for the typhoon to come that night, we snuck into a tea house and sat down to a nice cup or twelve. Thumbing through a better map, we came across what might be the best tourist attraction in all of Taiwan. That's sarcasm.....by the way.
Once in the city, we ended up waiting out the typhoon in a cramped saloon, ate some hotpot (with a jug of fresh, as in pureed fruit of, mango juice) and spent the night watching the weather turn from perfect to typhoon.
After our tea time, our hike through the tea fields and makign our way back to the city, we aimed ourselves towards the closest HotPot place for Crystal to have her official 'birthday dinner' over a tall jug of freshly pureed mango juice. Then we took to a bar, and had the choice of many more drinks, such as the always delicious 'male juice'. We gave that a pass....
Anti-american beef still reigns after last years problems with trade and E.coli in American ground beef. On the right, Crystal waits (finally!!!) for our train home deep in the bowels of Taipei's train station.
So, Sunday became a bit of a challenge.
Saturday we hit the road for MaoKung, a nice tea growing region of Taiwan. The idea was to take the gondola ride into the heart of it, take the trails that started there and meander our way through the tea fields and tea houses. However, as the typhoon was on its way the gondola was halted. Stopped. Dead. Not moving.
So we walked there. Somewhat there. We basically spent the day most among the tea fields and villages and back paths....with a map that would have been more effective as a mop than an actual direction finder or location finder. It was rather horrid, but we managed. Sort of! We ended up not where we intended to go, but where we enjoyed being. So that is all that matters. After a day of walking, a lunch of the coolest (and most filling!!!) noodles and a nice tea house visit we surrendered to the day and took a bus back to the city (apparently the bus driver thought our noses were beautiful, and explain it to us in Chinese and Taiwanese....repeatedly! Fun conversation, though...).
What to do with a map that is useless....keep on trying. When it is your only hope....keep trying...look for clues.....keep on, keep on'ing!
So many tea houses, so many types of tea, and no clue how to get to any of them!! Ok, we could get to most of them, but to be there and find that spot on the map....almost impossible. Worst map ever. On the right, a watchful eye snarls at us as we take refuge from the rain under an awning in front of an abandoned house.
After our search, and due to a torrential rain fall that would be best described as a natural warm up for the typhoon to come that night, we snuck into a tea house and sat down to a nice cup or twelve. Thumbing through a better map, we came across what might be the best tourist attraction in all of Taiwan. That's sarcasm.....by the way.
Once in the city, we ended up waiting out the typhoon in a cramped saloon, ate some hotpot (with a jug of fresh, as in pureed fruit of, mango juice) and spent the night watching the weather turn from perfect to typhoon.
After our tea time, our hike through the tea fields and makign our way back to the city, we aimed ourselves towards the closest HotPot place for Crystal to have her official 'birthday dinner' over a tall jug of freshly pureed mango juice. Then we took to a bar, and had the choice of many more drinks, such as the always delicious 'male juice'. We gave that a pass....
Sunday, up early, chatted with fellow hostel folks and hit the road intending to be home early get some work done and go for a run. But nature had a different take on things... A typhoon, a delay
Anti-american beef still reigns after last years problems with trade and E.coli in American ground beef. On the right, Crystal waits (finally!!!) for our train home deep in the bowels of Taipei's train station.
So, Sunday became a bit of a challenge.
Stranded in Taipei for the entire day, waiting for the trains to run and take us home, we found ourselves trying to figure out "if we would get home and if we did make it, by which means. Because of the typhoon - which was astoundingly dreadful in Hualein, but weak in Taipei - all trains were cancelled, all buses were cancelled and the only way we could find to actually get home the same day was a cab ride (for $6000NT....something around $200 CDN....not going to happen!!). Out of the question. We waited, waited and waited....1pm announcement - trains cancelled. Wait, wait wait...3pm announcement - trains still cancelled. Go for another coffee, slept on the street a bit, walked around aimlessly. Wait, wait, wait....5pm announcement - Trains are going! Grabbed a ticket for the 6:30 southbound. We totally thought we would be sleeping the night at the train station in Taipei, waiting for a random 3/4/5 am train to take us home....but we made it. The weather let us go home. A seat on a train, a safe ride home, and cheap. Perfect. Like a birthday wish come true.
Arrived home around 9:30, drove through the deadness of the evening, lights out, trees and signs and roofs all over the place, road covered with broken glass (which eventually gave us a flat tire on our scooter) and general damages from the typhoon. It was a weird, weird ride. It looked like a different city. The thwacking of the typhoon left damage all over the city, and in the morning it became so much more pronounced. No pictures (yet) but this city is beaten.
Time will repair it, but time takes time.
Arrived home around 9:30, drove through the deadness of the evening, lights out, trees and signs and roofs all over the place, road covered with broken glass (which eventually gave us a flat tire on our scooter) and general damages from the typhoon. It was a weird, weird ride. It looked like a different city. The thwacking of the typhoon left damage all over the city, and in the morning it became so much more pronounced. No pictures (yet) but this city is beaten.
Time will repair it, but time takes time.
[Update: Hualien City is still cleaning up after the damage from this typhoon. While it is not even close to the destruction left by the massive typhoon last year, leaving something in the area of 200 dead and villages destroyed, this one took its toll. Entire banana fields are flattened, palm trees lay prone on the street, building signs torn down, electrical wires and poles ripped out of their concrete nest and strewn across the roads and a general, overall mess. Nobody was killed, which is a grand thing indeed. ]
