Chinese Proverb: He who returns from a journey is not the same as he who left.
My Photo Links
- I didn't want to leave
- Taitung
- Interactive Map
- Kenting is a good thing!
- Leaving Kaohsiung (after I learned to spell it!)
- Never Trust Internet Explorer!
- "Love River"
- A Better Weather Site
- Kicking in Kaoshing
- Tainan continues
My Taiwan Adventure
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Hualien - Friday
Greetings All,
Another 5.5 earthquake last night - jsut 55 miles from Hualien. At 4 in the morning to be awakened by the sound and motion of the earth moving is definately disorienting. I timed the quake at 35-40 seconds in length. There is a noise that comes with the earthquake - maybe it's the building shifting, but it is almost a thrumming... a palpable deep low frequency that seems to come just before the waves of motion. You can see info about the recent quake here: http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ous/STORE/Xuraz_05/ciim_display.html and here: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Quakes/usuraz.htm
About an hour after there was a light aftershock too. This is the first quake of the 3 I've felt that actually frightened me a little. It is also the closest I've been to the epicentre of any of the quakes.
Okay, enough about earthquakes - they absolutely fascinate me but I don't want to bore my audience - that is, YOU. *smiling* So yesterday started off kind of sour. I woke to see the rain pitter-pattering outside my window. After successfully booking a tour for today's trip to Taroko Gorge, I set about to find breakfast. That took longer than anticpated and I was dissapointed to see the floor move (roachville Taiwan, eh) as I sat to await my breakfast sandwich. I ate there anyway because frankly, I was hungry. It stuck with me for about 15 minutes. I made it to my hotel for the ensuing unpleasantness and then, feeling better and seeing the rain had stopped set about to find a scooter. Somebody hit me upside the head for not getting my international license. In most places it would have helped. *snorting* However, here, they wanted even more - a Taiwanese license. I can't get one of those without my ARC. (Alien Resident Certificate) After half a dozen rental places I thought I'd walk for a bit and just enjoy Hualien on foot as I have so far for the entire 30 days I've been here.
The walk: Rain. Light rain, heavy rain, and just plain wet rain decided to accompany me. Feeling rather grumpy about the turn in the weather when I had decided to come explore the famous gorgeous mountains and rather put-out about the unsatisfactory breakfast and scooter hunt, maybe a walk in the rain was a good idea. The alternative was hours in the internet cafe or doing laundry. There is a river that runs down to the ocean here with the Taiwanese rarity of a legitimate walking path in the city. It was covered in dog poop that was slowly disolving in the rain, but I was DETERMINED that I was going to walk. So, digging out my yellow garbage bag poncho which I had purchased in preparation of Taiwan's rain (it is winter here too after all) I continued doggedly on my way.
Not even 10 minutes later my spirits began to lift despite the drizzle. There were herons on the river. Now, I've seen a couple on the warf in Kaohsiung and one or two in rice paddies along the way, but this was (dog poop aside) pretty bonafide herons in an almost wild setting. Not to mention a waterbuffalo a little ways down river. Sorry, no photos, too much rain. Use your imagination for this one. In the middle of this city on a rainy day you can stroll to the local walking path and watch herons and buffalo grazing by the waterside in the deep tall grasses. When my rain gear frightened the herons, they took flight to land in the Chinese pines. I felt like I was in an issue of National Geographic. My spirits began to recover from my incidental morning.
I then continued down the river all the way to the ocean. I took advantage of the little gazebo's when they were available to rest from the relentless wind that was blowing in from the Pacific. (I'm still on the island's east coast.) After a quick walk down the edge of the island observing the surf I had to get away from the wind and water, by this time I was starting to get a bit wet on the legs as the wind was driving the rain into my legs. However, I was in good spirits and decided that rather than take a taxi I would continue to walk as long as my shoes were dry inside.
Despite the rain and, maybe because of it, a marvelous thing happened. I really had a great day.
Completing the day's transformation was getting to watch a spider weave it's web. I've never had occasion to stop and watch this magnificent piece of nature at work. I was so blessed to see the spider work it's magic. In diligent fashion it goes around in circles completing one silken strand at a time. Sincerely, it was very calming and definately something that humbled me.
During the pause in my walk for the spiders I accepted a call from a possible employer, whom I will not be working for. And with a shrug any annoyance from the call was gone, I had spiders to watch. To think that such a creature must repeat this pattern any time someone or something breaks it's fragile web. Not only was I blessed to see one spider at work, but a second one was only a scant foot away creating another web. I've no use for spiders except that they eat less pleasant bugs - but this lesson in appreciating the basic simplicity of life was valuable.
As my feet were starting to get damp, I decided to call it a day. With a trip back up the river to a main cross roads I located a McDonalds. I know - how could I? My rationalization is that I was HUNGRY again - after all I'm talking about 4 hours of walking in the rain after a breakfast didn't stick. I ate one of their rice burgers. The buns are sticky rice with soy sauce and the 'burger' is stirfried onions and beef. And despite the size they are very filling.
Now in a good mood, full of food I decided to do some quick shopping. I've now filled 3 CD's with photos of Taiwan and wanted to be prepared for my trip to Taroko Gorge. I did want to get back before my feet got sodden, but the first shop I went to was out of the CD-R that I wanted. They had CD-RW's but those eat more battery time. So I had to wander to part of the city I was unfamiliar with. Despite the rain I tried red bean ice cream as a treat. Really, it wasn't like the ice cream we're used to - more like shaved ice with flavoring but I found the whole thing rather bland. I also tried peanut ice cream which was equally bland.
A trip to the internet cafe and the laundry mat rounded out my day and at midnight my night was complete.
Read "Taroko Gorge" for today's (Saturday) update.
Beautiful Pictures from the book "Asia Grace" http://www.asiagrace.com/set.php?s=10
A little about the herons/egrets in Taiwan and other species here http://www.mituo.gov.tw/library/HTML/biology05eg.htm
Another 5.5 earthquake last night - jsut 55 miles from Hualien. At 4 in the morning to be awakened by the sound and motion of the earth moving is definately disorienting. I timed the quake at 35-40 seconds in length. There is a noise that comes with the earthquake - maybe it's the building shifting, but it is almost a thrumming... a palpable deep low frequency that seems to come just before the waves of motion. You can see info about the recent quake here: http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ous/STORE/Xuraz_05/ciim_display.html and here: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Quakes/usuraz.htm
About an hour after there was a light aftershock too. This is the first quake of the 3 I've felt that actually frightened me a little. It is also the closest I've been to the epicentre of any of the quakes.
Okay, enough about earthquakes - they absolutely fascinate me but I don't want to bore my audience - that is, YOU. *smiling* So yesterday started off kind of sour. I woke to see the rain pitter-pattering outside my window. After successfully booking a tour for today's trip to Taroko Gorge, I set about to find breakfast. That took longer than anticpated and I was dissapointed to see the floor move (roachville Taiwan, eh) as I sat to await my breakfast sandwich. I ate there anyway because frankly, I was hungry. It stuck with me for about 15 minutes. I made it to my hotel for the ensuing unpleasantness and then, feeling better and seeing the rain had stopped set about to find a scooter. Somebody hit me upside the head for not getting my international license. In most places it would have helped. *snorting* However, here, they wanted even more - a Taiwanese license. I can't get one of those without my ARC. (Alien Resident Certificate) After half a dozen rental places I thought I'd walk for a bit and just enjoy Hualien on foot as I have so far for the entire 30 days I've been here.
The walk: Rain. Light rain, heavy rain, and just plain wet rain decided to accompany me. Feeling rather grumpy about the turn in the weather when I had decided to come explore the famous gorgeous mountains and rather put-out about the unsatisfactory breakfast and scooter hunt, maybe a walk in the rain was a good idea. The alternative was hours in the internet cafe or doing laundry. There is a river that runs down to the ocean here with the Taiwanese rarity of a legitimate walking path in the city. It was covered in dog poop that was slowly disolving in the rain, but I was DETERMINED that I was going to walk. So, digging out my yellow garbage bag poncho which I had purchased in preparation of Taiwan's rain (it is winter here too after all) I continued doggedly on my way.
Not even 10 minutes later my spirits began to lift despite the drizzle. There were herons on the river. Now, I've seen a couple on the warf in Kaohsiung and one or two in rice paddies along the way, but this was (dog poop aside) pretty bonafide herons in an almost wild setting. Not to mention a waterbuffalo a little ways down river. Sorry, no photos, too much rain. Use your imagination for this one. In the middle of this city on a rainy day you can stroll to the local walking path and watch herons and buffalo grazing by the waterside in the deep tall grasses. When my rain gear frightened the herons, they took flight to land in the Chinese pines. I felt like I was in an issue of National Geographic. My spirits began to recover from my incidental morning.
I then continued down the river all the way to the ocean. I took advantage of the little gazebo's when they were available to rest from the relentless wind that was blowing in from the Pacific. (I'm still on the island's east coast.) After a quick walk down the edge of the island observing the surf I had to get away from the wind and water, by this time I was starting to get a bit wet on the legs as the wind was driving the rain into my legs. However, I was in good spirits and decided that rather than take a taxi I would continue to walk as long as my shoes were dry inside.
Despite the rain and, maybe because of it, a marvelous thing happened. I really had a great day.
Completing the day's transformation was getting to watch a spider weave it's web. I've never had occasion to stop and watch this magnificent piece of nature at work. I was so blessed to see the spider work it's magic. In diligent fashion it goes around in circles completing one silken strand at a time. Sincerely, it was very calming and definately something that humbled me.
During the pause in my walk for the spiders I accepted a call from a possible employer, whom I will not be working for. And with a shrug any annoyance from the call was gone, I had spiders to watch. To think that such a creature must repeat this pattern any time someone or something breaks it's fragile web. Not only was I blessed to see one spider at work, but a second one was only a scant foot away creating another web. I've no use for spiders except that they eat less pleasant bugs - but this lesson in appreciating the basic simplicity of life was valuable.
As my feet were starting to get damp, I decided to call it a day. With a trip back up the river to a main cross roads I located a McDonalds. I know - how could I? My rationalization is that I was HUNGRY again - after all I'm talking about 4 hours of walking in the rain after a breakfast didn't stick. I ate one of their rice burgers. The buns are sticky rice with soy sauce and the 'burger' is stirfried onions and beef. And despite the size they are very filling.
Now in a good mood, full of food I decided to do some quick shopping. I've now filled 3 CD's with photos of Taiwan and wanted to be prepared for my trip to Taroko Gorge. I did want to get back before my feet got sodden, but the first shop I went to was out of the CD-R that I wanted. They had CD-RW's but those eat more battery time. So I had to wander to part of the city I was unfamiliar with. Despite the rain I tried red bean ice cream as a treat. Really, it wasn't like the ice cream we're used to - more like shaved ice with flavoring but I found the whole thing rather bland. I also tried peanut ice cream which was equally bland.
A trip to the internet cafe and the laundry mat rounded out my day and at midnight my night was complete.
Read "Taroko Gorge" for today's (Saturday) update.
Beautiful Pictures from the book "Asia Grace" http://www.asiagrace.com/set.php?s=10
A little about the herons/egrets in Taiwan and other species here http://www.mituo.gov.tw/library/HTML/biology05eg.htm
Posted by T. Destiny in Taiwan at 6:17 PM 
