Tainan and Kaohsiung

The next morning, we were waved off by a platoon of hotel staff and continued on our journey to Tainan city, 4 hours away. Tainan is Taipei as Kyoto is to Tokyo. Tainan is the oldest city in Taiwan and is known for its careful preservation of the Chinese culture and traditions.

Tainan was established by the Dutch to control trading activities in the area. They ruled from Fort Provintial, now in the middle of the city but 200 years ago faced an inner sea. The Dutch colonized Taiwan for 37 years before surrendering to Koxinga who ruled for 22 years.

Koxinga or Zheng Cheng Gong is half Japanese and Chinese. His mother is a Japanese while his father is a Chinese who submitted to the Qing dynasty. Koxinga was a Ming loyalist and hated his father for submission (which helped to preserve the family fortunes). As Koxinga forced the Dutch to surrender to his forces by cutting off their fresh water supply, he is widely known as the founder of Taiwan.

Our first stop was Fort Provintial which the Dutch built and which was later surrounded by Koxinga's army.

Then we went to the shrine for Koxinga. Yes, the government admired him so much there is a shrine that immortalises him. The modern Taiwan government also liked him for his patriotism which was important as reinforcement among the soldiers who had escaped to Taiwan from the mainland.




After lunch, we went to Chih Mei museum, about 25 minutes away. Chih Mei is actually a well known company in Taiwan that does resins for plastics, among other things. The exhibits in the museum was purchased by the owner of the company and has an extensive collection of musical instruments, weapons, stuffed animals, etc. My fave are the automated musical instruments and the stuffed animals. I wished we could take pictures in the muesum but it is strictly forbidden. The automated musical instruments were wooden cases which were 'programmed' to play tunes, like the automaton in the film Hugo. It is amazing to think that these wooden marvels existed long before our time but can be so intricate and advanced. The stuffed animals.. Ok, natural history area had a large polar bear standing up. It was twice my height! And looked most ferocious. It was the most outstanding exhibit in the museum, I thought.

Next destination was the Love River or Liu He in Kaoshiung. Kaoshiung is the second largest city after Taipei. A sort of rivalry akin to Sydney and Melbourne exists between the two. When Kaoshiung built the tallest building in Taiwan, Taipei retaliated by building Taipei 101. We walked along Liu He which frankly, was not that scenic. Then we went to the Liu He night market to catch a bite. We were given some vouchers which were as good as cash. We used one at a stall and ended up not having to pay anything at all for the plate of or chien.

Taiwan is famous for oyster omelette, or chien in Hokkien. It is made from small oysters, eggs and a slurry of rice flour. Unfortunately we did not have the luck of tasting a good plate of or chien during our stay in Taiwan. The or chien in my local restaurant in Malaysia serves a mich much better or chien.

Besides or chien, we had xiao long bao, assorted dim sum, a small cup of deep fried baby crabs and some fruits. Later that night, we saw two attractive models promoting the night market and Gaz had to be satisfied by snapping their picture by themselves (with permission, of course)and not with them because we were so full we would not look good with protruding bellies next to super slim girls.

Sun Moon Lake

The morning we were due to join the local tour, we went down for breakfast so early that the food for the breakfast buffet rode in the same elevator as us.

We had booked a 5 day round Taiwan tour with Edison Travels, a local tour company. The agreed pickup time was 7:20 am and the driver arrived on the dot. Not bad for first impressions. After meeting up with the rest of the group - there were about 20 of us from all around the world, we set off for Sun Moon Lake.

Sun Moon Lake is located in the middle of Taiwan and is the largest natural lake. It is 762 metres above sea level and has an area of around 8 km2. The east side of the lake is like a sun, while the west resembles a crescent moon, hence the name. If one drew an imaginary line across the two we will find at the end of the line Ci En Pagoda, which we will be visiting next.

We were first driven to the pier so we can enjoy the lake at ground level and also to find our own lunch in the town of Ita Thao (pronounced Ita Sao, Taiwan Aboriginal language meaning we are human). There were some boats docked on the pier, used for cruises around the lake. The lake is very clean, so clean we can almost see the bottom of the lake! No swimming or dipping in the lake is allowed, save for an annual swimming contest. I was very impressed with the quality of the water and the cleanliness of the surroundings.

For lunch, we walked up and down the main street and bought two deep fried stuffed chicken wings from a stall with a long queue of people. It was stuffed with glutinous rice and quite dry. Next, we walked into a small clean looking restaurant run by a young couple, their baby in a pram nearby and their elderly mother. We did not know how to read the menu so I had to ask the wife to help read it out to me.

We ordered a fish soup dish thickened with corn starch and had finely sliced bamboo shoots and veges, and mee sua with minced pork. Both dishes were small but very delicous, especially the fish soup. We were not quite full, so we ordered a soy braised three layer pork dish atop rice after we finished the first two bowls.

With a full belly, we were taken to Ci En Pagoda where we enjoyed the magnificent view of the lake from the top of the pagoda. We were told that the Lake was a popular honeymoon destination for the previous generation, and it was not difficult to see why. The lake was just so peaceful and calm... just what a couple needs after a few months of stress and pressure.



The view from Wen Wu Temple a short distance away was just as beautiful. The temple is dedicated to two gods - Confucious the god of letters and Guan Gong the god of war. The name of is derived from Wen (literature) and Wu (martial arts) showing homage to Confucious and Guan Gong. The temple is circa 1969, but maintained very well.

At the temple's gift shop, Gaz wanted to buy a little cartoon keychain of Confucious. Being Chinese illiterate made it very difficult for us. We could not just settle on any long bearded, bald headed, kindly, robed figure... there were about 3 on display. So we asked the salesperson and she very quickly picked out Confucious for Gaz.

Our last stop before hotel was Peacock Garden, set up by Chiang Kai Shek's wife. We were lucky enough to see three peacocks showing off their plumage and one that jumped the fence twice, nearly landing on my shoulders. There were also some indigenous birds on display.



Our hotel that night was Fleur de Chine, one of the top 3 hotels in Taiwan. All I can say is that it definitely lived up to its reputation! In each room was a deep bath tub and a shower with Japanese style stool. We were told that the water for the bath is sourced from natural hot spring water. One plus about the water is that it has no fart smell!! The tub was so deep I could float in it if I wanted to.

The rooms were very clean and modern and had little perks like free fruits and cookies. There was a well equipped rec room and the hotel organised a free flute recital and nature walks for those interested. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in the hotel.

Taipei

Our holiday to Taiwan started with a flight delay of about an hour. While I cannot say it was a great start, the rest of the holiday was relaxing and enjoyable.

Our first stop is Taipei. We landed at Taoyuan International Airport around 3pm, and bumbled around before a very kind lady at the bus counter called our hotel up and determined exactly which bus we had to take and where to stop. That's real customer service!!

The bus took a little more than an hour to get to our stop and cost NT 100 each. We got to the hotel at 5pm and all I wanted was a long hot shower. My ambitious plans of going shopping, visiting some attractions were canned. But we couldn't avoid dinner. We found a store nearby the hotel selling noodles. An extremely kind waitress came to our table and read out the menu to me because they didn't have any English menus nor pictures on the wall. I then translate to Gaz who has even less (no, nil) understanding of Chinese language. We ordered beef noodles and wonton noodles with a side order of fried dumplings. The food was simple but tasty and fulfilling.

After dinner we went to Shilin Night Market, the biggest in Taipei. There were some weird and wonderful foods on sale like some corn dog lookalike but was sausage wrapped in sweet bread filled with cheese, soy sauce duck webs etc. And just when we were sufficiently awed by food stalls on display, we stumbled on a basement packed with food stalls selling basins and basins of non-recognizable food.

There weren't just food on display in the market, there were also other stalls selling clothes, shoes, bags. And some stalls selling massage services... massaging their customers with a chopping motion on the shoulder with CLEAVERS (yes, this seems to be the latest trend. I wonder if the customers are fearing for their lives while being massaged), long bamboo strips tied together in a bunch, etc.

The next day, we visited the National Palace Museum. Everyone said we had to visit the place for a glimpse of the famous jade cabbage. Yes, just a glimpse because there is usually a queue, a large crowd and no cameras. Gaz found it to be an anti-climax because the cabbage was about the length of a long finger when he had expected it to be at least 5 times that, just like the ornamental jade carvings he sees in Chinese restaurants. I was more interested in the Tong Po pork jade display next to the cabbage as I felt the piece showed the hands of the Creator, it looks so much like the delicious dish!

After the museum visit, we went in search of the Main Bus Terminal for our trip to Yehliu. We went to one, but was directed to another a short distance away, across the road. We went down what looked like an underground pedestrian crossing but turned out to be a massive underground shopping mall. I think there were at least 100 shops in the mall.

The bus to Yehliu took about 1 1/2 hours and NT 100. Yehliu is a seaside Geopark, its main attraction being rocks shaped by time and forces of nature.

There were little rockpools, rocks shaped like blocks of tofu, pillars etc. The most popular rock in the park is called Queen's Head, a rock formation that looked like an Egyptian queen's head with the big forehead and upswept hair.



We took the bus back to Taipei at around 5:30pm and on the way back to our MRT station, we saw a large crowd at one of the stops along the way in Taipei. So we got out and found out they were going to the Lantern Festival at the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall. Gaz had earmarked the event anyway, so it was lucky that we had now stumbled on the right location.

There were at least 50 lantern displays, all colourful and lighted up and majority of which featured dragons, this being the dragon year.

This is the main dragon display with a water and light feature that comes to live every hour. We were lucky to catch the display by chance when I noticed a whole row of papparazzis lined up with their cameras trained on the display. In the background, Taipei 101.