April Tour - Taroko National Park

In April, Annmarie came to visit, and on Monday morning we got up early and went to the train station.

We traveled for two hours, part of the time along the Pacific Ocean which is outside the window but you can't tell, to a city called Hualien on the east coast of Taiwan.

Along the way I noticed some dry river beds coming out of the mountains, and before long it dawned on me that these would be filled with water at the times of the monsoon rains.

At the train station we were met by a man who would be our driver and guide for two days. He didn't know us and we didn't know him, but he held a sign which had my name on it and so we got "connected".

This is his yellow taxi, the kind you see all over the island.

Our first day was spent at Taroko National Park, also referred to as Taroko Gorge. This is the gate at the entrance of the park.

Our next stop was at the Shakadang Trail. Our guide didn't speak too much English, but we got along fine, and he did a good job of choosing interesting places to visit.

This trail (as viewed from a red bridge) is carved out of the side of the mountain and goes several kilometers to where descendants of aborigines live. They get back and forth to their village by motorcycles on this trail and we were told to watch out for them. But we didn't see any until the very end when we saw a couple leaving from the trail head to go in.

You have to watch out for low hanging rocks.

Here you can see the red bridge as we make our return.

We went part of the way, and then turned around.

We next stopped at a shrine and temple where we were encouraged to drink the spring water.

We went on several hikes this day, but we did not climb up to this temple.

Instead, we walked over to this shrine and had a sip of the water.

Farther up the mountain canyon we came to places where there was running water from the mountain springs. This place was called the Swallows Gorge because of the holes eroded in the rock by the rushing water of the monsoon rains, which might remind you of swallows nests.

It was here that we were supplied with free helmets to protect us from falling rocks. (We didn't meet any.)

Taxis, cars, tour buses and a few bicyclists travel this mountain road and go through the tunnels.

Of course, when there is a cable bridge, you have to stop and cross it. Mom wasn't interested in that experience, but Ann wanted to be able to say she had done it.

Here she is making the return trip. But she said she wasn't stopping.

If you do stop, this is your view.

As you go up the mountain, there are many switchbacks, of road and river.

At the end of the day, this was our last stop at a temple. We almost got locked in because we didn't understand their instructions to us that they would be locking up soon.

As we climbed steps up to the temple we saw this river bed with large stones carried down by the monsoon rains. At the base of the mountain we saw even bigger stones "harvested" from the rivers beds and collected in lots (for sale, I guess).

Here was one statue.

And another.

Here is the inside of the temple where they burn incense.

Nearby is a pagoda...

...which is meant to be climbed, right?

Inside, this is your view looking up.

And this is your view looking down.

And this is the view of the temple from the top floor.

The Zapper

For those of you who haven't given up on me, I have another post. When we first arrived in Taiwan, it seemed pretty hot and we opened our windows. For a few weeks we didn't learn how to operate the built-in screens and we seemed to have no problems with bugs, flies, or mosquitoes. For about five months we were going along fine, and then in March we started being bothered by mosquitoes while we were sleeping, buzzing in our ears and keeping us awake. Alma got bit a lot, but I didn't seem to. We mentioned this to some company one night and a woman said she would help us get a zapper. She immediately left and went to a nearby grocery store where she bought a heating device that puts fumes into the air and kills the mosquitoes.

This is the device with some used cardboard wafers which contained the poison. Annmarie was not anxious to come visit if we had mosquitoes. We got this about a week before she arrived and it seemed to work. However, we didn't like the smell of it.

Then about a week after she left, a fellow senior missionary was buying an electric zapper at Costco and I said, "I want one of those," so he went and got one and I bought it.

This seems to work good, although they can survive if they are in a different room. The interesting thing about this is the noise it makes when they get zapped. I was told that you would hear it when they got zapped, but I was skeptical. But it IS really loud. The nearest thing I can compare it to is the toy cap pistol -- it can make you jump if you are near by. It has a little tray at the bottom where you can see the remains of their demise.

Miscellaneous

Our observation is that the greatest number of franchises for any chain store in Taipei is 7eleven. There seems to be another one every three blocks or so.

It's a very useful store. We pay our bills there (electric, gas, water, telephone), it has an ATM machine where we can take money out of our checking account, and we can check the balance on our "Easy Card" and add money to it if needed. We use the Easy Card on the buses and subways. And they have a special one for seniors which charges us only half the fare. The card has a small chip in it which automatically keeps track of the balance and subtracts the appropriate amount each time you slap it down on a card reader.

They also sell an assortment of stuff. One night the fruit stand was closed, so I asked the 7eleven if they had any fruit. Sure enough, they had some bananas, which is what I had in mind.

These three stores are all on the same street. This one we pass every night on our way home, and is the one I use most frequently.

When we arrive in Taiwan, we are assigned a Chinese name by the Elders in the mission office. They are the ones who order us name tags, and I think they have fun picking out a name for us. The name tag is written in Chinese and the name has to be a character that people will recognize and be able to easily pronounce. Most people would have no idea how to pronounce a name written in roman letters. Here are the names for the senior missionaries (English - Chinese PinYin):

Frandsen - Fan (rhymes with Hahn)

Walker - Wu (oo, w is silent)

Calvert - Kai (rhymes with tie)

Wheatley - Wei (sounds like way)

Horner - He (rhymes with the)

Hahn - Han (sounds like Hahn)

I do not know the Chinese character for the above names, except for my own. The above character is for "han" and it is on my name tag. Chinese family names are almost always a single character and are written first in a name, followed by their given names. Actually, there are several different characters for "han" but they are pronounced with different tones (high tone, rising tone, low tone, falling tone). I have learned to write this character (there are 17 strokes) and I use it when I check out a card in the temple. The meaning of this particular one has something to do with Korea.

A prominent landmark in Taipei is called Taipei 101. You can see it from many parts of the city. For six years, it was the highest building in the WORLD, 2004 - 2010. Then in 2010 Dubai completed a building that is half again as tall (2700 ft. which is half a mile high). Everybody asks if we have been to "101". It is called 101 because it has 101 floors. The observation decks are on floors 89 and 91.

This building still claims the fastest elevator in the world. It travels at up to 37.5 mph. The amazing thing is that your ears do not pop and you hardly have any sensation of moving.

On New Year's Eve they lighted up all of the floors and planned to set off fireworks, but that turned out to be a flop.

These are called "oranges". They are green on the outside but orange on the inside. They peel like tangerines and are very good. However, I haven't seen them lately. Must be out of season. We still have lots of regular oranges.

I like these peanuts - they are fried. This makes them more brittle than the roasted peanuts, also harder to break, but after the initial crunch, they chew easily.

This amuses me, lampposts in the street. They just paint a red line around them and this is supposed to protect them. I guess it works.

If your car is too long for your garage, this is the solution!

And if you can't park lengthwise, park sideways. We have passed this garage twice a day for six months and I have only seen it open two times. The second time I took a picture. There are only a few inches to spare in front and in back and it would be interesting to see him maneuver this out of there.

Finally, the natives say this is the coldest winter they have ever seen in Taiwan. They don't like it. We foreigners think it is really great. Temperatures in the 50's. Today the temperature in our bedroom was 15 (59 degrees). We estimate the temperature outside by what the temperature is in our bedroom (in order to decide if we should wear a coat or not).

The National Palace Museum

Two days before the Chinese New Year we went to see the National Palace Museum. Most people did not go to work this week, and so ...

the buses and ...

subways (MRT mass rapid transit) were nearly empty (not like the packed in, shoulder to shoulder rush hour we usually experience.

As mentioned elsewhere, every important building has a "gate" similar to the one above.

Once you pass through the gate, you see the two lions standing guard and a long sidewalk leading to more stairs leading to Museum Hall #1.

After climbing the stairs and looking to the left, you see Museum Hall #2. We didn't have time to go there. We didn't have time to see a fraction of what was inside Hall #1. Actually, after two hours I was tired and ready to go home.

Chances are good that you will not understand the significance of this display. It represents a "1" and two "0"s. It represents the current year as measured from the year (1911) that the last mainland Chinese emperor of the Qing dynasty was ousted and independence was declared. So we arrived here in the year 99. I have a National Health Insurance card which lists my date of birth as 26/03/01. They use this scheme of reckoning some of the time, but they also use 2011 as we do.

This is outside, a huge metal pot with four legs and two handles, with Chinese writing and decoration. I'm not sure if there was a practical use, or if you just tried to have one bigger than your neighbor. We saw them in China also. Inside the museum are all kinds of artifacts, brought from China. The Nationalists were in control in mainland China for several decades, but when they were driven out by Mao in 1948-49, they took all of the valuables in the Forbidden City with them to Taiwan. So now if you want to see what used to be in the Forbidden City, you have to come to Taiwan.

Adjacent to the National Palace Museum is a nice little park.

We walked around and ...

then went home.

Chiang Kai Shek Residence

On a preparation day, 1 Feb 2011, we decided to go look at the Chiang Kai Shek Official Residence. It seemed a little cool, so we wore our jackets, but before the afternoon was over, we had removed them.

Near the entrance were some pretty flowers.

There are large gardens in front of the residence.

There was a variety of trees and foliage.

Fountains....

Interesting lanes...

Interesting designs...

trimmed trees...

plants and streams...

a gazebo here...

a fish there...

foliage creatures and...

the residence.

Not as magnificent as I might have imagined. And since it was the week of the Chinese New Year, it was closed whereas you can usually go in.