Taiwan

I went to Taiwan with my family for our long awaited family holiday for 7 days on 16/8-22/8 (7 days). I know its the typhoon season but somehow we still signed up with CTC hols for the package haha. So heres the photos!

P.S. Due to my lack of direction, I may not know where the place is nor its name...

1st Day
We arrived at Taipei on a bright sunny afternoon. Infact, the sun is much stronger than S'pore. Tour guide warned its the silence before the thunderstorm (since typhoon was arriving the very next day). First stop is a site undergoing renovations. It used to commerate Chiang Kai Shek's glorious days but was changed to one condemning his wrongdoings. Anyway its sealed off so we just took some photos outside.

Then we proceeded to Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall (I think its called that, else the memorial hall might be referring to the 1st venue... mixed up of names argh). What I know is that this place was one of their homes (Mr Chiang and his wife Ms Song). The below is the guardhouse: incase of intruder, the guard will slam the window shut and jump into a hole inside the guardhouse to shoot at the intruder (theres a small opening below window to aim the gun out).

This was their car: super long and bullet proof. They changed it about every year in the past I think.The tourguide mentioned that Taiwan is one of the top fengshui practitioners. Even Mr Chiang followed fengshui in his house. The below is an angled bridge, reasoning being that corpses can only walk in straight lines, hence they cannot cross the bridge.

Me and my mum. The house had a very nice park etc as Ms Song loved roses.

3rd stop was Yeliu Geopark to view the results of soil erosion. The tourguide mentioned that the soil had alternating hard and soft layers, so usually the soft layer will be more eroded, resulting in unique shapes (I think the hard layer is larva). First off, "Fairy's shoe".

"Elephant rock" (view from the right). If you see from the left, its more like a hippo.

"Queen's head". Those who want to see it better hurry. It is eroding pretty fast at the neck.

Dinner was spent at Shihlin Night Market. Shihlin is made up of 2 parts. One is like the hawker center built for tourists while locals usually frequent the pushcarts across the road from the hawker center. Well we stuck to the hawker center, tried fried chicken, oyster omelette, big sausage wrap small sausage, big biscuit wrap small biscuit and xiao long baos. I think the last was not bad (its a stall right at the back) and prices was cheaper than S'pore.

2nd Day

Arrival of typhoon. We had plenty of venues changed throughout the tour due to the typhoon, especially those mountainous areas. Oh well... Lunch was spent at this hill top eating fantastic fishballs with fillings and beef noodles. Yum!

Taiwan gave the locals day off to make sure they reach home safely before the typhoon arrives. Luckily the performers at Hualien: A-Mei Aboriginal Cultural Village was willing to perform for the tourists for 5pm show. All other shows were cancelled. During the show, I received a call from S'pore saying I was accepted into the company. Yay I have a job!

The typhoon arrived at night about 2am while I was asleep. Hm... I remembered the rain hitting against the window; its very loud. My mum was freaked out but I was too tired to bother.

3rd day

Morning came with signs of bloated rivers and collapsed lamp poles and signboards. Shicai said newspaper reported that this was Taiwan's worst typhoon this year... Hm actually my trip was ok, except that driving in the mountains was abit worrying, with the slippery roads and fears of landslide (worrying mainly done by the tourguide and bus driver).

In the evening we went to Master Bear Resort at Taitung. All the other tourists cancelled their trip to this resort on a mountain, but not our tour group. Infact we were the only group who didn't cancel: the travel advisory said not to travel to hilly areas. Night activity was spent setting up a kong-ming lantern and small fireworks.

4th Day
We proceeded to Kaoshiung's Fo Kuang Shan Monastery. My mum was really excited by it. We saw Buddha's se li tzi and climbed up to see the gigantic statue of Buddha. It was raining; got our shoes and socks wet....

Then we went to Spring and Autumn Pavilions: Tian Shangdi Temple. The tourguide said the temple's "qian" or slips of predictions are really accurate. Furthermore it is dispensed by this machine. Drop a coin in and this fairy would go into the model temple to retrieve a mini scroll. Well I gave it a try, and asked for my future. On the paper it said something about stop hesitating and focus and things will turn out well. The tourguide related it to me finding a job. All in all I do feel its quite accurate. wow... :)

5th Day
We visited Taichung Wu Chang Temple. Taichung was the worst hit during 1997 Taiwan 7.3 earthquake. Below is my mum with a dog who followed her around. The dog somehow knew its a camera and posed infront. It literally paused there for 10seconds hahaha... Anyway dogs in Taiwan like my mum.

This was the old temple that collapsed. A new one has been rebuilt across the road. After the earthquake, the deity statue on the 3rd floor remained unharmed. The locals believed it was a miracle and moved the statue to the new temple. They clamied that the beard of the deity grows longer every year. The tourguide said a temple worshipping the same deity on a Taiwan's mountain experienced a more miraculous annual event. 1 week before the deity's birthday, big moths would fly in and rest on the beard. After the birthday, they would then fly away. Up to you to believe or not.

We went to Peacock Garden. The peacocks were kept in their pens as they would suffer colds from being under the rain. Below is the blue bird, only found in Taiwan. The peacock was huddling miserably at the back of the pen when we came with its 2 female mates. But I had the bright idea of using my orange umbrella as a "rival peacock" and I happily strutted the umbrella infront of the pen. Then the peacock casually strolled to me and opened its feathers. Yay! This shows that you should watch more documentaries haha.

Wen Wu Temple. Check out the clouds on the mountain.

6th day

We went back to Taipei's Martyr's Shrine. In it lies the tablets of people who had sacrificed for Taiwan, more recently were the doctors and nurses who died during Sars period. There are 2 immobile guards stationed outside and inside each and they changed shifts every hour. Its a solemn process lasting 20min, as shown below. They are marching to the outside to change guards. Guards selected had to be >1.8m and shouldn't wear spectacles. Btw you cannot touch the immobile guards. Its a sign of disrespect. If you do so, they will slam their guns down to make a sound. Then nearby guards in white uniform will come to warn you. If the immobile guards bang twice, then you will be taken to questioning. Tour guide mentioned that this Korean had hit the guard's butt and was brought to questioning. So hands off people :P

Dinner was in this very special/weird building called five dime. The restaurant does not follow the normal building's structure, even inside the building. Pretty nice decor and food. Do go if you are in Taipei. They have other outlets too. Check out http://www.five-dime.com.tw