Hey there,
Have been posting a bunch lately cause I am freaking bored. A lot of it is being typed while I am RICEing my leg and not all there as sleep is elusive, so not in the most optimal conditions. I'm just so bored. Not sure how all y'all are doing it with lockdowns since March to be honest.
Today's installment is a travelogue. I miss doing those cause it means we haven't been traveling. When The Boy was in TW, we budgeted a week after New Years to do a family road trip that was a clockwise drive around the island. The kids and I famously did just that the first month we moved here. This is usually the time when we do a family winter break trip to a fabulous destination, but you know...
Betty and I are fond of the area in the southeast around a town called Dulan and I love the drive down to it. Takes 6+ hours, but you go through two different tunnels over 10km long, several other tunnels that look like the Japanese had just finished them using slave labor during WWII and can feel the ghosts, there are some cool mountain passes and the last 2-3 hours is road theat hugs the coast. There are cool turnouts and typical touristy spots to stop, like the Tropic of Cancer marker and a new favorite...the Shiti Fish Port
OK...have never stopped at Shiti Fish Port and this was the first time I remembered to take an in motion photo, which was not very good, but it's called Shiti Fish Port.
This was Betty and my third time to Dulan since August and it again did not disappoint. We did and ate all the same things and I just love the laid back hippie vibe there. On January 4th, the weather was a little over 80 degrees and the ocean water temperature was perfect as it is always here. Anytime getting to toss the pig with The Boy in the ocean is priceless.
We made finally crossing the Sanxiantai Arch bridge a main priority. I've been there myself three times previous and have never been to cross it due to various weather factors, but this time we slotted a nice day where there could be no excuse not to make it across. Except...they just closed it for repair thru June 2021
Side prediction...what B-doll is eating is evolving rapidly. She was a carb loving chocoholic to the point it was worrisome, but over the last year or two, her craving for meat has been plummeting and her appetite for veggies is filling the void. She came home late last night and had to make her own dinner and after, she proudly showed me a picture of it and it was this mountain of raw vegetables. My prediction is that she'll be a full blown vegetarian by the end of her college tenure. Nothing wrong with that of course, just hope she doesn't become one of those judgmental types that has to comment on me eating my juicy bacon topped burger.
We drove them to the trailhead along this really windy tiny one lane road. Their reports after was that it was quite hard...she made it to the top while Boy-o bailed out about 1/2 way through, and that the view from the top was grand.
Nice enough, but Venice? Puh-leeze We spent two nights here and had a solid day and half to explore, which felt just about right. City is a lot mellower than Taipei and we were able to walk to everything on our list from our BnB. Our BnB was well located, but the pictures oversold it. Not awful, but had one of those showers that is just part of the bathroom, it had a place in the floor that had rotted out that was next to my side of the bed so had to navigate that during middle of the night pee runs, and the bed was one of those that tingled my spine for days.
By the way, I talk about this town as Dulan, but it is also written out in English on signs as Dou Lan and Dulen. I wish they'd stop messing with me.
As you enter the road to go up the mountain is this totem, which has to be aboriginal as they figure prominently in this part of the country, with a penis that is rubbed raw. Does every culture do this?
While the kids were hiking, Betty and I headed south a few kilometers to the nicest beach in the area...the one with the longest stretch of sand, etc. On this beachfront is a really big resort they built a decade or so back, but when they finished it (there were curtains already installed) the government found they didn't make code on their sanitation and so didn't allow them to open. This thing has sat there brand new and abandoned on one of the best beaches in the country. I really don't understand all the details why they wouldn't allow them to open or the legal challenges, but see this happens a lot in this country...where things get approved by one administration, but are then blown out by successive ones. Probably has something to do with grifting and is a strange feature to local politics. Our beach walk was delightful though.
One cloudy cool afternoon, the family wanted to vegetate so I took the opportunity for a commune with nature beach walk, which are great on overcast days cause few folks are out. Hit the end of the beach and see a dude balancing on a rock fishing in some rough surf and thought it'd be a cool picture and go for my phone, and can't find it. The jacket I had on is newish and the pocket I put it in really wasn't a pocket and figure it must have fallen out and retrace my steps to no avail. Drive back to the BnB and have Betty look it up on our location app and see it is in Dulan city. We call it and someone had already returned it to the cops. This country is old school as far as honesty and such. Couldn't have been more than an hour since I dropped it and other than the fisherman dude, had not seen another soul. We tool over to the police station and it is a sleepy little station. We are assisted by two very nice officers. After they do their paperwork (and they love them some paperwork in this place), my phone and I are reunited. One of the cops was a cute little thing. Cuff me.
We typically go back to Taipei from here by going back up the coast, but one of the long tunnels that connects the coast to the city backs up in an unholy jam that takes a long time to navigate on an off day, but can be 2-3 hours on the weekends and we have decided that we'll never do that again and continue going clockwise and up the west coast. Takes an hour or two more, but adding in the frustration and jam of the tunnel, it's a wash. The west coast is where all the people are too, so there are cities along the way to explore. We targeted the city of Tainan
Tainan is the oldest city and formal capital of Taiwan. It was the site of the first Dutch colony and where the Chinese General Koxinga based his rebellion against the mainland (if history or geopolitics are your thing, read up on Koxinga as he features prominently in China's 'historical' claim to Taiwan) Tainan has about 2 million people and is the 6th largest city in the country. As far as it's claim to be the biggest/highest/etc. or is the blank of somewhere, Tainan is referred to as the Venice of Asia.
Things to see in Tainan...we went to the historic district that had the old Dutch fort and colonial government buildings, one of which has been absorbed by banyan trees.
Pretty cool to traipse around in/on. They had a plaque talking about the site and banyan trees in general.
The philosophy is that wood from the Banyan tree isn't strong, so they are not chopped and allowed to grow, which provides shade, so 'everything is good for something' and 'being not useful is in fact of great use'. Am gonna have to work that into my coaching philosophy somehow...probably not favorably to the person it's directed at.
We popped into a series of small streets that have little shops and cafes called Snail Street, it was early on a weekday and was pretty quiet, but it looked cool and must be hopping in the evenings and would be well worth checking out in more detail. We also walked past the new art museum that was just finished. Didn't go in as the exhibits didn't tickle our curiosity, but damn modern for this rock. We toyed with the idea of going back at night as they have an outdoor garden that has a light installation that is supposed to be cool, but this happened to be the coldest day of the year and we are lazy sacks.
As you can imagine, as the most ancient city in Taiwan with a history of almost 200(!) years, they have a mess of auspicious temples, a couple of which we visited.
By far the best thing I saw in this town was the Hayashi Department store. There is even a Wikipedia entry on it. Built by the Japanese in 1932, was the first building in Taiwan with elevators! They still have the original ones and they are classic The whole place in fact is really neat looking...reminded me of (my beloved) art deco but with a Japanese twist. It was bombed during WWII and while the restoration was just finished in 2014, they left some of the marks in the walls of the roof from those raids. The stuff for sale inside was quirky and kitchsy too. We spent a good hour or two just looking at all the stuff. Definitely the highlight of Tainan in my book.
Liked the place enough, but my back was barking at me from the bed so was glad to hit the road with our next stop 3 hours away for a night at a hot spring in Miaoli. B-doll mentioned she wanted to do a hot spring but turned out she didn't mean she wanted to do them as a family. We were booked so we went. The drive up the valley to get there was pleasant and we pulled in and got our room. There was no hot spring bath in our room even though we thought there was going to be, and the room was one of those that are considered nice in Taiwan (with four beds in a row like a plush army barrack), but us pampered Americans stuck our noses up at immediately.. We all sorta looked at each other and while we all eventually took credit for it, we simultaneously agreed that since we were an hour and a half from home to bag it and hit the road. We all jumped in a communal but private tub for the hour that was included in our package, and hit the road. We were prepared to pay for the night, but they just gave us back our money and said 'toodle-ooo'. We felt like bank robbers as we drove away.
Hope the kids enjoyed our week...I certainly had a lovely time being able to have a week with both the kids. Have detailed over the years that I trained the Boy to be a great co-pilot and hope he is taking those lessons to be a good pilot now that he is driving. He doesn't bitch about the music, is always ahead with the next direction, and enjoy his sense of humor and observation. One of our family tropes is me and the Boy complaining how we can never say anything in Mandarin in the correct tone, and Betty and B-doll explaining how stupid we are. We're driving somewhere talking about this and the girls are tuned out in the back and the Boy says that the other night he was complimented by his friends by how well he said Xie Xie (Thank you) at the 7-11. That is some pretty basic shit, but the bar is low for us. I told him that whenever I am at the 7-11 and I give them exact change, they always count it and then give me a look like I am a Neanderthal that just invented fire.
Good times...
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