Earth Made Round

25 October, 2010

Kaohsiung! The Last Weekend

That's all she wrote! Everything is winding down here in Taiwan and I am headed back to the US in less than 48 hours. It has been a very busy and great eight weeks here.

For the last weekend I finally made it down to southern Taiwan to Kaohsiung--ironically I was putting it off until the after-effects of the typhoon were handled, but another typhoon was coming on! All of last week it did nothing but pour day and night in Taipei, but I decided to travel anyway and was lucky in that it only rained once for about 10 minutes in Kaohsiung.

What a cool city, and very different from Taipei. The streets are huge, the Harbor is really impressive and it's always nice being right on the water.

One cool place to watch boats in the Harbor is the former British Consular Residence, completed in 1879 and the first European-style building in Taiwan. For a long time it was thought to be the consular office, but 'investigations in the British National Archives proved that the actual consular office was in a separate building at the foot of the hill, and the building standing on top of the hill was in fact the residence attached to the consulate.' So, a re-naming ceremony was in order! Now it's a cafe and tourist attration, complete with a music gallery honoring the Beatles. (?!)

http://www.culture.tw/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1400&Itemid=157

Down at the water in Cijin--I don't know if this is left from the typhoon a few weeks ago,

or from the one that just passed...

The Dome of Light. This is the largest one-piece stained-glass installation in the world (so says my guidebook, although I haven't been able to verify this online...) and it is located--of all places--inside a subway station.

"The dome, which is made of 4,500 glass panels, symbolizes rebirth and Taiwan’s democratic process. The four parts that comprise it — water, earth, light and fire — symbolize birth, growth, glory and destruction respectively."

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/08/04/2003419373

Down at Kaohsiung Harbor...highly recommend the ferry tour...

There was a film festival going on this weekend, and one of the venues was on the side of Kaohsiung's Love River, and the film was projected on a mist of water! Even up close I didn't think it was clear-enough viewing to make me want to strain to watch it for two hours...but interesting.

Kaohsiung's Love River at night

Cooking Class 3

Third and final cooking class was Wednesday, but this time it was at a community center here in Taipei and there were twelve of us cooking. We made shrimp lettuce wraps, Kung Pao chicken, egg rolls, and a white sesame oil cucumber appetizer that I've made in another cooking class and is pretty good.

Take-aways: Quality of rice wine matters! Never buy synthetic soy sauce! The age of ginger makes all the difference! And finally, sadly, Chinese cook with different versions of the following-celery, cucumber, eggplant and cabbage.

18 October, 2010

Taipei Zoo and Maokong Gondola

I went to the Taipei Zoo on Sunday and I was really impressed!! It's a big zoo with a good set-up and the coolest thing is the scenery--a lot of it is due to the climate, but they let tropical plants kind of grow over the paths! They've also put thought into the design for each animal section--like to enter the Bird World section, you have to walk through a tunnel painted with silhouettes of birds and clouds, but the clouds are motion-activated so when you walk past each one it gives out a different bird call. High Tech!

From the zoo, I took the longest cable car ride of my life on the Maokong Gondola and it was so high up--and long, almost 30 minutes--it was kind of scary after a while. The route has four tower stations where you can get off at different tourist destinations, and if it had been light out I would have stayed in Maokong and checked out the tea plantations there in the mountains.

Walking through the Taipei Zoo