We (two language partners--a guy and his girlfriend--and the girl's cousin) spent a night at a hotel outside of town. There was a water buffalo in a field next to the hotel, this thing was big and even though I really wanted to touch it I was dissuaded because of some big horns and being unable to tell if it was worried about people near it or just mad.
We drove around the town a bit and eventually ended up at the beach. Being of Scandinavian heritage and not being in the sun for a while meant that random place like knees and the tops of my hands somehow got sunburned.
After that, we headed out to a Shinto style temple and then to a Buddhist temple. The Buddhist temple was one of the largest (two floors) and by far the most tourist oriented I've ever seen (snack shops, hotel, bus parking lot, restaurant). We were lucky since they had a HUGE ceremony as we got there. There were enough fireworks to bust some eardrums and there were big drums that were pounded throughout the whole thing. They had dancers in big costumes (about 10ft high) that come in do ceremonial dances and some alter type things as part of a procession.
Then it got nuts. There was a Buddhist priest/holy man who took the sins/evil spirits of the people there into him, well that made him into a maniac and a half. What to do when you take on an evil spirit? Hit yourself with swords and sharp objects of course. He didn't hit himself hard but still managed to get bloody (see the blurry picture below) and then have a nice little exorcism type deal afterward.
From there, we rode through the rain (I had a jacket and a poncho) to a night market for dinner. When eating there were some aboriginal people eating there too, but I was a surprised that they conversed in Chinese and not a native language. I was told the native languages are slowly fading away in favor of Chinese, especially among young people. I had a steak and won some gum for shooting a bulls-eye with a bow and arrow. Then there were people lighting lots of fireworks on the beach for national day. They had some big mortars so it was cool to see that after missing the 4th of July in my neighborhood. We then had a quick tour of the local red light district, which was basically middle aged women hanging out of a window along a dark road. The night was finished with a meal of dumplings at a different night market.
The next day we went to the famous Taroko Gorge (太魯閣, Tàilǔgé). Along the way we stopped for a swim at an aboriginal village (normal little town, if not for being poor). There was a tiny Catholic church there as I was told most of the aboriginals are Catholic. As a note, the aboriginals were obviously the first in Taiwan and they and were followed by waves of migrants from the mainland over the years.
It was there that I had my first try of chewing betel nut, it doesn't taste like anything but makes you salivate a ton and makes all the saliva turn bright red (if you chew a lot over a long time your teeth and gums turn red too). Won't be doing that again.
We then went for a swim in the river next to the village. There had been one little girl in the village that was having great fun playing hide and seek from me before I went swimming (as I got into the water she was standing on a hill above us yelling "The foreigner is going swimming!" but no one really paid attention) and she eventually joined some other young kids about 100m down river from us. After a while, I swam down to where the kids were and got out and talked to them in Chinese. This was amazing to them since here was a white person--something they don't see much--who could talk with them in Chinese. They immediately asked if I was from the US, I told them I was from Africa and let that sink in before telling them I was indeed an American. They all had English names and had studied English in school and they asked me all sorts of questions (how to say monkey, apple, orange, etc. in English).
After some pictures with the kids, we finally went to Taroko Gorge (a big scenic gorge near Hualien) and drove through there and took some pictures. There really isn't much I can say about it. I mean, after 40min it started to all look the same.
From there we drove back to the train station and along the way picked up some Hualien speciality candy made from sticky rice Muaji and snagged some standing-room only tickets on the train back to Taipei.
I'll put more pictures up on Facebook soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment