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.

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

Wow!

Pretty close, right?!

Horse of a different color...you're doing it wrong!!

RAWR! Rhino!

To get to the penguin exhibit you have to walk

through an ice tunnel

Going up a mountain in the Maokong Gondola...

...and coming down!!

Here's some videos of the elephants and the hippo, just because my Mom likes them. And what is up with this hippo?? Is he chewing something?

Sun Moon Lake

I finally made it to Sun Moon Lake today, the largest body of water in Taiwan and one of its most popular tourist attractions. It's located at about the middle of Taiwan, and with the high speed rail and bus it took about three hours to get there. There's a shuttle system to take you to attractions surrounding the lake, and with a one-day pass ($2) you can get on and off at whichever hiking trails, temples, or scenic overlooks you like. I used the Landscape option on my camera for a few shots, as well as video, and I'm pretty happy with some of the results.

Sun Moon Lake

View of the entrance to Wenwu Temple and the Lake

Wenwu Temple

One of my favorite parts of Wenwu temple...these raised, dragon sculptures on the flat inclines between flights of stairs.

Climbing to the roof of Wenwu Temple

Across the street from Wenwu Temple is the Nianti Trail, it has 366 steps representing the days of the year. Each step has the date and the names of famous people born on that day. It starts at the top with December and you descend all the way down to 1.1, and yes, I went all the way down and climbed back up, cursing the months with 31 days all the way.

I was pretty excited to head to two temples--Xuanzang and Xuanguang. They house relics and the remains of Xuanzang or Tripitaka, the Buddhist monk who went to India to retrieve the Buddhist scriptures for China. Anyone who studied China in college and had to read Journey to the West or Monkey multiple times knows what I'm talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_West

Here's a sweet wall map at Xuanzang Temple with Xuanzang

and wooden placards showing where he stopped in his journey

(India is a big part of the mural but it's a big wall...).

Outside of Xuanguang Temple--turquoise dragons!

Sunset over the lake, that's Lalu Island in the middle.

Seeing the Heights

I climbed a mountain today. And then it poured. The below link has some good insight on the Four Beasts mountains, but I dispute the author's claim that the mountain can be climbed in 15 minutes. That may be true (although even then I doubt it) if you take the main entrance he's talking about, on the side with the stairs. The other side of the mountain comes with dirt trails, broken steps, large boulders over which you can gambol (or try while huffing and puffing), and one large section where the only way to ascend is to hold onto the cable nailed into the side of the mountain. Why we chose this side to climb up the mountain is beyond me--I wasn't aware there was a well-maintained, stair-ed, and even hand rail-ed side to the mountain until the pouring rain came, and then my guides said--"Maybe we should take the safer side down?"

http://taiwan-photography-blog.com/2009/05/15/hiking-four-beasts-elephant-mountain/

Taipei and Taipei 101 from Elephant Mountain

The top of the mountain--it took some effort

and endurance to carve all these names here.

I gotta say, even to me, getting to the top of this

mountain is not that impressive.

Look! Stairs! Handrails!

Cooking Class - Jiaozi and Baozi

Another awesome cooking class tonight! An epic 4+ hours hand-making boiled, fried and steamed dumplings (two varieties, different fillings) and sweet steamed buns. I only have one actual picture of something I made, because I was too busy furiously cooking to snap pictures, but I will post something similar. This is some serious hard work, which is why usually you would have the whole family, or at least several people, helping out. There's cutting all the vegetables, and mixing in seasonings, and letting the filling rest and then draining the excess water, and hand-making the dumpling skin and rolling it out into small circles and then the stuffing and sealing, oh God, the sealing. I can safely say that after some 40+ jiaozi hand-crafted by yours truly, I can produce a passable dumpling shape, and most important--none of them fell apart, even with three different cooking methods. I can also passably stuff a bread bun, which if you're familiar with the tell-tale twirl mark, is no small feat.

Jiaozi / Dumplings from smittenkitchen.com:

http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/02/on-obsessiveness-and-ollies/

Baozi / Steamed Bread Buns from thefreshloaf.com:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/7994/baozi-steamed-buns

Something I made! Steamed baozi with black sesame paste.

Longshan Temple

I went to Longshan Temple because it was recommended no fewer than four times in the guidebook. It was a good time walking around in the temple, and around the streets outside of it, and I even thought to take video!

(Ed. Note: Is that me humming in the second video?! What. the hell.)

99.10.10

Tomorrow is 10.10 day--Taiwan's National Day--and the area around the Presidential Palace is getting done up for a big show.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ten_Day

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minguo_calendar

Also, saw this outside of Longshan Temple and had to google to figure out what the heck is going on...yes, you're looking at "ear candling"...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear_candling