Chinese Proverb: He who returns from a journey is not the same as he who left.
My Photo Links
- Most of a day in Taipei
- I-Lan Exploration
- A different kind of cold
- Taroko Gorge - Saturday
- Hualien - Friday
- I didn't want to leave
- Taitung
- Interactive Map
- Kenting is a good thing!
- Leaving Kaohsiung (after I learned to spell it!)
My Taiwan Adventure
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Taipei by Day
Greetings All,
Well, I've tackled Taipei by day and it isn't all that bad. Polluted like Kaohsiung, but at least it is easy to get around with the MRT. I've decided to stay another night, having located a cheap hostel. I have disposable towels from one of my previous stops so this seems like a good opportunity to use them. What changed my mind about staying? Well, it goes a little like this... I like the cultural activities here. I didn't half way even get to the National Palace Museum and it is definately on my list of things to do. Plus I want to see the Paper Museum too.
Today I stumbled on the Lantern Festival by accident. I was on my way to the tallest buildings in the country (101 stories tall). And thought that if I went to the base of the building I would see absolutely nothing. So I got off the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) one stop early. This is the Sun Yat Sen Memorial station. Once I got off I could tell I had made a good choice. Yesterday I thought I had missed the Lantern Festival because there was only one enormous dragon at the Chaing Kai Sheck Memorial. Turns out I was at the wrong memorial! There were even brochures in English. Looks like the Taiwan governement wants to increase tourism through these kinds of events. Yay for me!
The event site was really quite neat. I can't wait to go back tonight and see everything lit up! They had artists there carving watermelons into lanterns. Much like we do pumpkins at halloween. There was also a famous calligrapher from mainland China who was there and because I caught the promoters eye he wrote a special "good luck" scroll personally for me. Don't worry, its safely in my luggage. And of course, I got pictures! *s* He is exhibited at a big museum in China... I felt very honoured to recieve such a wonderful gift. It is times like this when this country really impresses me with it's generosity. It almost makes me forget the prejudice that I sometimes experience. There are some events I haven't told you about where it isn't always nice to be white here. However, they don't occur often enough to really make a blanket statement about the country.
I was so humbled to have been picked out of the crowd to talk with and interact with the poet. It really impressed me for some reason. I was going to head off to the museum, but insanely I decided to try and get one of the promotional chicken lanterns that they were giving away in half-an-hour. I don't know how many have been to the world's fair or some other similar event. Picture people line up around the city block to the point where the line actually almost meets itself. That is the kind of line there was for this paper chicken lantern. Not just people with kids either. Tour groups of children, japanese, full fledge adults running to get to the back of the line before someone who was strolling! It was kind of funny. And to think I was part of that crowd. I took the opportunity to write in my journal while I waited. Now I'm the proud owner of an official 2005 (or 1994 depending on which calandar you're on) chicken. FYI - the chinese calander is still used here for a lot of purposes, so it means that I get to relieve the 1990's. And from the fashion here you wouldn't know we had left the 80's.
I swore I wouldn't take work in Taipei when I started this journey. Yet, I see how easy it is to get around and the range of things to do on my time off and I start to wonder. Of course my throat is closing up from all the pollution in the air. It's terribly noisy outside and crowded too. The teenagers all seem to have some kind of attitude problem, but it's probably because they see me as a foreign English teacher. Most of them don't want more school work to do! But now I'm also seeing the good in the big city. Primarily convenience is a big factor here.
Well, I'm off to find my hostel. I've reserved the room without seeing it. Wish me luck. *crossing fingers that the roaches will be minimal*
Anybody who wants to follow in my footsteps teaching english in Taiwan:
http://www.geocities.com/allhou/teachtai.htm
Well, I've tackled Taipei by day and it isn't all that bad. Polluted like Kaohsiung, but at least it is easy to get around with the MRT. I've decided to stay another night, having located a cheap hostel. I have disposable towels from one of my previous stops so this seems like a good opportunity to use them. What changed my mind about staying? Well, it goes a little like this... I like the cultural activities here. I didn't half way even get to the National Palace Museum and it is definately on my list of things to do. Plus I want to see the Paper Museum too.
Today I stumbled on the Lantern Festival by accident. I was on my way to the tallest buildings in the country (101 stories tall). And thought that if I went to the base of the building I would see absolutely nothing. So I got off the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) one stop early. This is the Sun Yat Sen Memorial station. Once I got off I could tell I had made a good choice. Yesterday I thought I had missed the Lantern Festival because there was only one enormous dragon at the Chaing Kai Sheck Memorial. Turns out I was at the wrong memorial! There were even brochures in English. Looks like the Taiwan governement wants to increase tourism through these kinds of events. Yay for me!
The event site was really quite neat. I can't wait to go back tonight and see everything lit up! They had artists there carving watermelons into lanterns. Much like we do pumpkins at halloween. There was also a famous calligrapher from mainland China who was there and because I caught the promoters eye he wrote a special "good luck" scroll personally for me. Don't worry, its safely in my luggage. And of course, I got pictures! *s* He is exhibited at a big museum in China... I felt very honoured to recieve such a wonderful gift. It is times like this when this country really impresses me with it's generosity. It almost makes me forget the prejudice that I sometimes experience. There are some events I haven't told you about where it isn't always nice to be white here. However, they don't occur often enough to really make a blanket statement about the country.
I was so humbled to have been picked out of the crowd to talk with and interact with the poet. It really impressed me for some reason. I was going to head off to the museum, but insanely I decided to try and get one of the promotional chicken lanterns that they were giving away in half-an-hour. I don't know how many have been to the world's fair or some other similar event. Picture people line up around the city block to the point where the line actually almost meets itself. That is the kind of line there was for this paper chicken lantern. Not just people with kids either. Tour groups of children, japanese, full fledge adults running to get to the back of the line before someone who was strolling! It was kind of funny. And to think I was part of that crowd. I took the opportunity to write in my journal while I waited. Now I'm the proud owner of an official 2005 (or 1994 depending on which calandar you're on) chicken. FYI - the chinese calander is still used here for a lot of purposes, so it means that I get to relieve the 1990's. And from the fashion here you wouldn't know we had left the 80's.
I swore I wouldn't take work in Taipei when I started this journey. Yet, I see how easy it is to get around and the range of things to do on my time off and I start to wonder. Of course my throat is closing up from all the pollution in the air. It's terribly noisy outside and crowded too. The teenagers all seem to have some kind of attitude problem, but it's probably because they see me as a foreign English teacher. Most of them don't want more school work to do! But now I'm also seeing the good in the big city. Primarily convenience is a big factor here.
Well, I'm off to find my hostel. I've reserved the room without seeing it. Wish me luck. *crossing fingers that the roaches will be minimal*
Anybody who wants to follow in my footsteps teaching english in Taiwan:
http://www.geocities.com/allhou/teachtai.htm
Posted by T. Destiny in Taiwan at 4:51 PM 
