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.