Taiwan Day 1: Arrival & New Year's Eve

The trip begins...

We left our house for Taiwan at 5:30 AM. To get our bodies on Asian times, we stayed up the entire night before. I managed to stay awake until 4:45 AM. I don't know if staying up actually helped with the jetlag - but it did put me in a bad mood for most of the travel day. Our flight from Minneapolis to Chicago was brief. Out flight from Chicago to Hong Kong was not brief - about 15 hours. We traveled over 7,000 miles. The flight path took us through the Canadian Northwest Territories, over the Arctic, and down through Siberia and China. At one point, the outdoor air temperature at 33,000 feet was -77 degrees Farenheit. They showed four movies on the plain: Son of Rambow; Ghost Town; Nights of Rodanthe; and The Dutchess. I only watched The Dutchess - it was quite good. An hour or so into the flight we had lunch - salad, a roll, teriyaki chicken with noodles & carrots, and a browner - mediocre. Seven hours into the lifhgt, we had a small bowl of ramen noodles with a pecan cookie - pretty good. Our second lunch was a plate of lasagna, strawberry yogurt, and raspberry shortbread cookies - also mediocre. We had about 2 hours in Hong Kong before our flight to Taipei left. Scott was hungry, so we stopped at Starbucks. I warned Scott that we would get fed on the flight to Taipei, but he didn't believe me. He bought a puff pastry triangle filled with beef curry and a mango passionfruit frappacino. He thought they tasted fabulous. I took a bite and thought it was okay. Even thought the flight to Taipei was only 1.5 hours. Sure enough, we had a full meal despite the short flying time - gotta love non-U.S. airlines. The meal was quite tasty - cold noodles with salmon in a spicy sauce, a warm roll, fruit juice, and some kind of cake with blueberry jam. The flight attendants (who were all young and very pretty) kept coming around offering tea, coffee, and wine - all free.

Julie and John met us at the airport in Taipei. We started on a 4 hour drive to Daliao - John's hometown. Along the way, we stopped at a rest area. They had lots of food shops. We bought a fried taro cake - tasted good but not too flavorful. Scott bought an almond juice drink (he liked, I didn't). I bought CC Lemon, a lemon soda that I came to love in Taiwan. We arrived at John's house at 3 AM.

John's parents live in a rowhouse off a busy street in Daliao. When we drove up to the house, there were already people in the nearby market, preparing for the busy New Year's Eve. The house is narrow with 3 floors. There are at least 4 bedrooms. We took our shoes off outside the front door and put on plastic slippers. Mine were bright pink. The first floor had a living room, narrow kitchen, small bedroom, and bathroom where we took showers. The bathroom had a sink, toilet, and bathtub without a shower curtain. We showered using a pull-down hose. In Taiwan, people do not flush toilet paper. They put used toilet paper in a basket next to the toilet - the pipes can't handle toilet paper. The second floor had three bedrooms and a bathroom. The third floor was used for storage and as a shrine to their ancestors.


My house slippers

We bought breakfast at a local market. We had a rice ball filled with pickled vegetables, pork, dried fish powder, and fried dough (delicious); Chinese omelet - egg with scallions and ham rolled in a crepe (very good); peach juice and apple milk.


Guava juice, apple milk, peach juice, rice ball, Chinese omelet

Rice ball

Chinese Omelet

After breakfast, we watched John's family go through the traditional New Year's Eve ritual of worshipping their ancestors. John's mother set up a table on the third floor and covered it with food, paper money, and incense. The food included stick cakes, candied peanuts, tangerines, pork, a chicken with its head on, two kinds of fish rolls, smoked squid, filled squid, and rice wine. The family held incense sticks and bowed while John's mother said prayers to the ancestors. They then put the incense sticks in an empty can on the balcony and said prayers to the local gods. After the incense burned down, the family took the paper money and burned it in a kettle outside. Every house in town had a kettle set up outside and we saw many people burning money.


Traditional New Year's flowers

Everyone decorated the outside of the houses with these papers

Shrine to ancestors; see stacks of paper money (John's brother and sister-in-law)

Shrine to the ancestors

Saying prayers to the ancestors

Worshipping the ancestors

Shrine to the ancestors

Incense on the balcony

Whole chicken dedicated to the ancestors

Burning paper money

Trying to burn paper money

Me burning paper money

Scott and I burning paper money


Prior to lunch, we snacked on fried pumpkin seeds and watermelon seeds (tasty, but hard to peel). Lunch was delicious: rice balls stuffed with meat wrapped in bamboo leaves (great); smoked squid dipped in soy sauce and wasabe (very good); boiled squid (not as good); salmon fish roll (good); green fish roll; beef stew with carrots and daikon (very good); picked bamboo and pickled cabbage with pork (pretty good); cod with soy sauce (unbelievably good); sauteed cabbage (excellent); eggdrop soup with egg and tiny fish (good); jujubes and tangerines.


Stuffed rice balls

Wrapped rice balls; beef stew; cod

Rice and eggdrop soup

Beef stew; cod; sauteed cabbage

Smoked squid; green fish rolls; squid rolls; boiled squid; (back) picked bamboo and cabbage with pork; sauteed cabbage; beef stew; cod

After lunch, Scott and I went for a walk while everyone else took naps. We walked along a few streets near the house. Every residence had a table outside with food set out for the gods and the paper money kettles. We received numerous stares - there is really no reason for westerners to come to Daliao. We walked by some rice fields - the fields were flooded with water and had long strong grass sticking up. Every spare inch of land seemed to be use for rice fields. There was a small temple a few blocks from John's house that we walked around. We returned to the main shopping street and went into a 7-11. These are ubiquitous over Asia. It looked like a typical convenience store. It had candy (even M&Ms), Slurpees, magazines, drinks, etc. One of the snacks available was hard-boiled eggs soaked in soy sauce and tea. Before returning to John's house, we went into a supermarket near the house. It was more like a small K-Mart. It had food staples including peanut butter & jellow, but no fresh produce or meat. It also had lots of household items.


John's house

Rice fields

Banana tree outside John's house

The temple

Inside of the temple

Temple exterior

When we got back to the house, John's mother had the table of food set outside for the local gods and was saying prayers while waiving incense. Scott and I were a little tired, so took a short nap. Our "brief" nap turned into a long nap - John woke us up four hours later to tell us that dinner was ready.


Food for the local gods

Dinner on New Year's Even in John's family is hotpot. This is a large pot set on a single burner filled with broth and various meats, seafood, and vegetables. Throughout the meal, John's mother kept adding more food - fried tofu, raw tofu, shrimp balls, fish balls, fish dumplings, squid, whole shrimp, beef, corn on the cob, mushrooms, cabbage, spinach, rice noodles, and many other items that no one could identify. We seasoned the hotpot by dipping each item in a spicy barbecue-like sauce. It was very tasty. Dessert was Asian pears.


Hotpot

The hotpot with only some of the fillings

Scott and me with the hotpot (icky picture of me)

After dinner, Scott, John, Julie, John's brother, John's sister-in-law, and I drove to Kaohsiung - about 30 minutes from Daliao. This is the second-largest city in Taiwan, with about 1.5 million residents. Until recently, Kaohsiung was mostly known for its industrial economy and pollution. It was re-developed in an attempt to become a tourist destination. It is a harbor city - the largest port in Taiwan and the fourth or fifth largest in the world. As we drove into the city, we saw large building and fancy hotels. One large building lit up in a rainbow of neon lights had Prada and Louis Vuitton stores on the first level. We walked along the banks of the Love River, the main focus of Kaohsiung's re-development. This river was once full of pollution but is now a lovely riverwalk. Lots of people were strolling along the river bank with friends and family. Several musicians were playing on the sidewalks. The trees and bridges along the river were lit up with light and Chinese lanterns in preparation for the lantern festival starting in February. There will be a water show on the river (like the Bellagio in Las Vegas). About a dozen figurines were sticking out of the water as decoration. They resembled Teletubbies or large waterdrops with faces and were called Waterdrop Babies. They were the festival mascots. John's brother bought us all fried cakes from a sidewalk vendor. They were small pieces of fried dough in various animal shapes. I saw them all over Taiwan. They were great. We finished walking along the river and headed back to Daliao.


Upcoming Kaohsiung Lantern Festival

The Love River at Kaohsiung

Scott and I at the Love River

Taiwan Day 2: Lichou Island and Daliao

Scott and I woke up this morning around 4 AM. Our bodies aren't quite accustomed to being in Asia. Around 6:45, Scott left the house to go jogging. He ran down the main street and then down a side street for about an hour. He got a lot of strange looks (Daliao doesn't get many Western visitors), but made it back in one piece. I chose not to go running while we were in Taiwan - I preferred staying alive to dealing with the insane Taiwanese drivers. While Scott was taking a shower, I watched the TV in our room. John's family has over 100 channels. Most were in Chinese, but some were in English with subtitles. I flipped through Sister Act 2 and Friends. I watched Dora the Explorer on Nickelodeon. It's in Chinese and teaches kids English words rather than Spanish as in America.

For breakfast, John's mother had cooked daikon cake: fried daikon (Asian radish) mixed with rice flour and some mushrooms, steamed, and then fried again. We poured soy sauce over the cakes. Absolutely wonderful. A nice sweetness to the cakes. I had some guava juice with the cakes.


Daikon Cake (picture from website of novice-baker.blogspot.com)

After breakfast, we left for our outing to Liuchiu Island. First we went to a nearby town to pick up Yen Wen, John's 9-year old nephew. Yen Wen's father is a vendor of steamed dumplings, and he gave each of us a box filled with pork dumplings. Yen Wen was a nice little boy - excited about everything and had endless energy. Thanks to him I learned several new phrases: "Bu yao don" - "Don't move;" "Bu Yao mol" - "Don't touch;" "Shao Shin" - "Be Careful;" and "Bu Shin" - "No."

We had originally planned on going to Kenting, a popular beach area in southern Taiwan, but decided it would be too crowded. Instead, we went to Liuchiu Island off the coast of Donggang. It has 13,000 residents, 4 primary schools, no secondary schools, and 80 temples. The port in Deng Peng was about 1.5 hours from Daliao. We took a 20 minute ferry ride over to the island. Our first island activity was another boat ride - on a glass-bottomed boat. Through the clear sides, we could see the ocean floor which was covered in coral. Most of it was a dull yellow color, but there were numerous patches of beautiful purple. There were also lots of fish - schools of tiny purple fish, many clown fish, and sea turtles.

Once we finished the boat ride, we ate lunch at a nearby restaurant. The dumpling's given to us by John's brother-in-law were enough for a meal, but John ordered several other dishes. We had cold chicken with pickeled vegetables (not my favorite); a stirfry of vegetables, squid, and shrimp (very good); stir-fried bok choy (good); fried fish balls which we dipped in salt & pepper (very good); and seaweed soup (okay). The pork dumplings were also delicious, although we thought they would taste even better if they were hot. One thing that has surprised me about the food in Taiwan is that the flavors are relatviely bland - the food is not heavily seasoned or spicy. The focus is on the food itself, which is generally very fresh. Yen Wen bought a bag of baked squid it the restaurant - akin to squid jerky. He said he was buying it for his grandmother but then proceeded to eat the entire bag throughout the afternoon. I tried a bit of the squid - it was excellent, with a sweet, smoky taste.





Several people in the restaurant had their dogs with them. The Taiwanese love dogs. I've seen numerous starving street dogs wandering about (more in Daliao than in the other towns), but I've also seen lots of leashed dogs wearing sweaters. There seems to be no restrictions on where the dogs can go.

We boarded a bus after lunch which took us to a different area of the island. We walked through narrow tunnels and caves. The island has caves and high walls made out of coral. One of the most famous caves is Beauty Cave. This cave received its name from a story about a beautiful woman from China who encountered a violent storm at sea. The waves carried her to the island and she spent the rest of her life in the cave. We walked over to a tide pool and saw starfish and numerous sea plants. The pool smelled like seaweed. Several people were swimming, so presumably the water temporature was not too cold. Our next stop was the Wild Boar Ditch. It was not a traditional ditch - more of a crevice. There were high walls of coral with trees growing out the side. The leaves formed a roof over the crevice - very pretty. We ordered ice cream cones at one stop - soft-serve vanilla swirled with black sugar ice cream. A bit icy, but tasty.


The famous Vase Rock (picture from www.thewildeast.net)


Beauty Cave











Julie



Wild Boar Ditch

Kids were swinging on a tree root at Wild Boar Ditch

Our final stop was the Black Dwarf (aka Black Ghost, Black Devil) cave, a winding coral maze. It is said to have been inhabited by slaves who were left when the Dutch abandoned Taiwan 350 years ago. The slaves used to attack nearby shipowners, who eventually attacked the slaves and burned them alive in the cave. The cave is no longer large enough to be inhabitable due to subsidence. For $10 NT, you could rent a flashlight to take with you through the cave. We found this to be an essential tool. The cave couldn't have been more than 10 feet long, but it was pitch black. The walls were constantly twisting with opening so narry that only a thin person could squeeze through. The ceiling kept rising and falling. We had to lean and hunch one way and then the other. It was a claustrophobic's nightmare. I thought it was a lot of fun, although it would have been nervewracking had it lasted much longer.

After we left the island, we drove back to John's house. Soon, we sat down to yet another feast, courtesy of John's mother, sister, and sister-in-law. There was chicken in soy sauce (very good); whole shrimp in a sweet spicy sauce (wonderful but messy); chopped celery with crab (excellent); green beans grown by John's mother (tasty); leftover bamboo with pork; squid rools; leftover fish roll; leftover beef stew; and fish ball soup. After dinner, we ate cherries, grapes (John's family peels grapes before they eat them), jujubes, and guava. Since it was John's birthday, Julie bought him a cake. It was chocolate with a gelatin/pudding filling with whipped cream frosting. It was topped with fruit. I had a strawberry. Scott had a lychee stuffed with pineapple (very good). We finished eating dessert around 9 PM, by which time Scott and I could barely keep our jetlagged eyes open. We headed off to bed.