What I learned about temples :)

Taipei, 10.9. 2012

Oh, Hualien has many temples, you'll see.
Yeah right. Not even one, if you don't count the Tzu Chi Hall of still thoughts, which is not really a temple.
So now I'm obsessed with them. On our first day in Taipei, we were luckly staying at a couch surfing host Eva knew from before. He is not only an arhitect, but also writes tour guides :D
So yes, I now know many new things about temples.
You are supposed to enter the temple or any tradicional chinese house at the right door from your standing point, there are usually three. The middle door id for important people, the left is called the mouth of the tiger and the right the mouth of the dragon.

So basically, you enter at the mouth of the dragon. People usually come to pray and they have to pray to all the gods at the temple. They light insence sticks. Due to the enviromental concern in Taiwan, they try only to take one stick for each god and they don't burn fake money in incenerators any more, at tleast not in Taipei. Than they pray by bowing. I like that thay can tell the gods whatever they want in their own words.

Flowers as a gift to the gods.

The tables with food and the pot for the insence sticks. 

You have to put them in with your left hand...

The woman facing us is praying to the sky and the others to the god inside.

 First they turn away from the gods, towards the enterance and pray to the god in the sky. Then they go around to see all the gods. They usually bring one of the gods some food or flowers. You can easily see which is the god of studies, because he has a lot of food on the table in front of him and many students are praying very intensely :D

The god of love is also very popular - on the picture above, especially among the japonese turists, female of course :)

My favourite temple is Longshan temple, the oldest one in Taipei. It has a very nice atmosphere, so I keep going there just to sit and observe and smel the insence burning :) More on the other famous temples soon :)

The farewell 'party'

Taipei, 9.9. 2012

We will have a party they said. It will be nice, they said...
Me and my roommate informed them (the contact people), that it's not a party without alcohol and dancing. So they corrected thereselves and said it's going to be a barbecue with beer for us. The dancing part I did myself, like always :)
So they took us to an all you can eat barbecue with all you can drink beer (that's why I did the happy dance...). But the thing I was most happy to see, was the salad. Not much of it, but at least it was there in my reach. I hate the way they don't eat a lot of vegetables, esspecially not raw.

Eva is happy, ah finally beer :)

Yes, only girls in the picture...

Steven making the hot pot, green stuf just for me.

Do it yourself barbecue :) Love the idea.

See food from the hot pot and grill.

One of the 8 containers with different meat...

Vegies, I <3 U 

The black hole called Steven, where all the food disapears.

Bathroom sign :)

After dinner we said goodbye to the boys and the girls took us on a hill where we got to see (finally) the night  view of Hualien and posed with the lotus flowers :)

Taroko national park - the most famous Taiwanese turist spot :)

Taroko, 1.9. 2012

I was trying to shake the knowledge that september has already arrived, so the idea was to take a weekend trip to Taroko. It lies only 15 minutes from Hualien, making it a ful of tpurists from mainly asian countries all year long. It is said that in the season, 20.000 people come to Hualien daily and then go to Taroko.

As the school year started last week, it was not so crowded.
Our first stop was the gate of Taroko, marking also the beggining of the trans-mountain road Hualien - Taichung. Many people died building it, and it is still only safe for smaller vehicles. Buses have to go to Taipei first (north) and then south again on the other side of the island instead.

the lion on my left is the protector of the road.

Taroko has many hiking trails, but some of them were now closed due to the typhoon last week.

The weather was not perfect, so the photos are not so good...

The eternal spring and the shrine next to it is dedicated to the 226 people that died building the road mentioned earlier. There is one smaler shrine in the cave on the way to the Eternal spring.

Because of the rain, my camera died... 

We went to see the Swallow grotto trail next. The water eroded the marble walls to make a special geological phenomena... In these walls, there are now holes in which swallows nest.

And since I didn't know what a swallow is... just in case you don't either :) - here she is :)

We drove through the whole park on scooter and after lunch descided to have a hike.

We chose the Baiyang trail. It's about 2,5 km and begins with a 380 m long, dark (no electricity anywhere in the park) and scary tunnel. Bring a flashlight folks :)

The trail goes next to the river and is pretty save, except for the snakes and bugs.

There are 5 more tunnels waiting along the way, and they finally lead you to another suspension bridge.

The view is amazing, there are 3 watterfals and a beautiful splash where the waterfall joines the river.

We spoted a rainbow :)

light at the end of the tunnel and Sophie :)

watterfalls and me

The very end of this trail is the watter curtain. Bring a dispensable raincoat. If not, people will leave you theirs, don't worry. Be sure to pass it on to the next visitor, you are in Taiwan :)

Driving back, we gave the beautiful valey one more glance and thought - I shall return :) 

Mountains and sea

Sophie, are contact persone, descided to take us with scooters acros the great mountain steach, that separates east from west Taiwan. She had never done that before, but thankfully told us that when we already did it... :)

So we drove about 2 hours from the Butterfly valey to the coast and the Road 11, which connect Hualien with Taidung. The mountains here are much higher, and very beautiful.

On the way up we saw different orchards (bananas, papaja...), this here is a kind of citrus fruit, but looks like a pear from afar.

The drive in the mountains was scary... as some parts of the road were missing.

But the view was nice...

Finally we arrived at the beach - or can we even call it that if swimming is not allowed?

the waves are hude and the current very strong, so it's dangerous.

And us being us, we had to go into the water :)

The salt water fills the air with salt that you can taste while driving on road 11 :)

When ever on the beach in Taiwan, mountains can be seen in the background.

Kingdom of butterflies...

Butterfly valey,

It took some conviencing, but we managed to persuade our contact persone, that driving 4 hour in one way was not our idea of a weekend trip and that also is no need to spend the night in some hostel, one day will be fine, since we work till 5 pm every day. I believe they are too ambicious at 20 years old, and us - the european girls at 24 just want to relax (and drink, but that's a whole other sory :p).
So we headed to the butterfly valey, located south, about 1,5 hours drive from Hualien. At the end of the drive, I was pretty sure I won't be able to walk, since the drive on the back of the scooter was so uncomfortable. Peace of advice - don't drive with it more than 30 minutes away...
The helments are cute though :)

before the begining of the journey - still smiling :)

Taiwan is supposebly called the Kingdom of butterflies, since there are many unique species here. And from what I saw, they are much bigger than the ones in my country. The valey is actually a park, where you walk through and relax. Our tour of course had to be started with cofee, which was very good :D

Eva with the butterly :) - the butterfly queen :p

The park also contains many hiking trails - we took the one to the waterfall and many snake warnings.

the suspension bridge, the waterfall and on the felt - sticks to chase away the snakes with.

video just for you :p

I was really happy to see orchids :)

The park also has a special kind of deer, that Taiwan is famous for. They are called Sika deer or plum flower deep, because their dots are like plum flowers shining in sunshine...

That's all for now...

Night market Yilan

Yilan country, 19.8. 2012

Finally time for the night market :)
It's typically a food market, but if you're like me, you find clothes and jewlery as well :)

The plan was to try as much food as possible but it was quite difficult since there were tons of people waiting in line at every food stand and it sometimes took 10 minutes to get a bite.
I found my favourite tea up to now, made out of white gourd and lemon :)

mmmm, food :)

making Runbing (潤餅 Spring Rolls)

Sophie and Paul happy with the food

herb jelly in large amounts

gambeling on the street

one of the waiting lines

desert time :)

tapioka with red beans inside - here called large pearls

desert - pankakes with ice-cream and peanuts (this big chunk of food are peanuts)

Clogs, cold spring and prayer :)

Hualien, 18.8. 2012

I live for weekends, since I have to be at the pediatric department from 8 am to 5 pm. Last weekend we headed up to Suao (see the map).

First I was told we were going to climb a mountain. Well it was a hill and we were hardly climbing, the walk took us 10 minutes :) And I brought my hiking shoes!!! On top of the hill were canons in memory of a war between China and France. The view of the Suao harbour was very nice.

They took me to see the clogs museum (seriously :D ?), but the museum reached it's maximum capacity...
So we went to see a local temple in a fishermans village and than had a typical sea food lunch.

Don't ask me to name these things, all I know is that it was good :p

The temple was very interesting, I got my fortune told by choosing a wooden stick with a number and than getting a paper with ancient chinese letters on it. My mission then was to find someone who can read that. When I finally did, the suprisingly young man told me that it sais that I am up to my knees in shit and should really take time and think about my problem and than start solving it. I am still trying to figure out what problem that would be, no luck up to now :D

Here is where you take the stick :)

The locals told me that you can buy fake money at the temple and throw it into the incinerator. The smoke is supposed to go right to your loved ones in the sky :). You can also light some incense or give the gods food or flowers.

                       

                       

                                                                                pretending to pray much? :)

fake money and flowers

Burning of the fake money :)

After driving with the scooter the whole day we went to a cold spring. Sounds interesting, so what is it?
Well it's a river bank :) Looks like this:)

 

The water was pearsing cold, so not very enjoyable for me...

We had a private pool :)

Angela trying to find courage to dive in :)

And for the end some pictures of Suao...