A glimpse of Toroko Gorge

A moment of morning light on cliff faces that tower over the Liwu river below.  A taste of the many more shots coming waiting on the sidelines.  More to come on this glorious trip over the Thanksgiving weekend...

Camping in a tropical paradise

Three Days Beach Bumming 

After a shower, I'm ready to give ya a quick view of sleeping next to crashing waves on a surfer's paradise point.  The water is iridescent turquoise with hints of green and blue.  So warm I can't remember a summer day in New England that came even close to being so mild.  A perfect place between hot and warm, that didn't have me sweating from water temp and exertion.  Looking out at the great Pacific on that first late afternoon I really believed I was in a dream of impossible quiet with just friends considering the new year was inches away from our day-most Taiwanese started their trips from their homes on this Monday.  The roads were glutted with vacationers as we swiftly past them on our way home on Monday, so, oh my, what a freaking gem of a weekend of almost tropical solitude next to such a beckoning holiday ocean.  

Coconut Palm trees looked down on our simple camp site.

That's right, in a hammock on January 21st. just moments before taking a dip.

 There was only two other tents up the beach line from our haven.  We went with a couple of adventurous friends and a pooch.  Spent most of the weekend in shorts, and in the surf.  Even went surfing, but Johanna with give ya the low down on that in the next blog.  Had supper over our campfire on the first night, found a treat the next day in a local home offering-amazingly so- honest to goodness North American-style piazza. 

My goofy, but great gal.

Mituo, quite a happy companion to join our crew.

 On Saturday and Sunday, we got lucky with mild winds resulting in perfect beach bumming days and we took full advantage.  It wasn't until Sunday night that the fame of the windiest point in all of Taiwan proved itself so.  Somehow I slept pretty well through the night, even with the sides of the tent beating me in the face with each major gust.  Actually sounded like some giant creature stomping its way through the palm tree groves as the wind forced big breaths of amazing strength across the point. By Monday, a few of us were a little weary from the previous night, but due to a fair amount of exercise and a little drink by a late fire, I slept just fine.  Woke well rested, a lovely end to quite a week of things to do.  A weekend of nothing to do...

A Break to the South

Day 4 Makeup

Headed towards the windy and beautiful south of Taiwan on Saturday.  This post didn't make it up since the beach town/national park has limited internet and since we were going to camp, a little more difficult to find, so me and Johanna are posting a couple ditties to catch up to day five of our Taiwan reminiscence. So here is one of the many grand weather heads off the southern tip of Taiwan...

A gloriously amazing and ever hanging peninsula, Kenting is a haven for vacationers, surfers, campers, and foodies. 

 

Last Day of College Classes

Students and teachers alike look forward to the end of a semester.  At the National Taiwan University of Chiayi it was a little more bittersweet as it was my last day working and sharing with great groups of students.  Whether sleeping or speaking in class they were always assured encouragement from me somehow.  These are a few shots on the last day of classes, one just a group shot of the business presentation class, and then a few shots from the Culture Theory class.  The culture class's final assignment was to create a short play revolving around a particular cultural event in Taiwan, whether over a holiday, at home, or abroad.  They approached this with creativity, and mostly humor, resulting in frequent laughs.  As you will see from the shots, the peace sign is a common addition to group shots; I have yet to meet a group of Taiwanese who are not instantly willing to jump into a group photo at the drop of a hat.  As you will see, university classrooms are pretty much alike the world over, but not the students.  Quite a creative bunch, Taiwanese English students choose their own names, I've heard quite a few very interesting ones with equally fascinating reasons behind the nome de plume: Imperinator, Joying, Apple, Gallen, Surprise, and Thumb to name just a few.

Group shot love

Particularly like the wonder twin powers duo in the back

The culture gang

A ghost in his shirt

If you couldn't tell they are at a cafe at an amusement park

Aaaaahhh yeeeesss

That's a sleeping foreigner about to be bothered by a juggling youth

Script reading practice

Presentation class power

My illustrious and unbelievably tall teaching assistant makes himself know in this shot.

Dr. H. Kitty and Jewish Doritos

Day 2 of 30 Taiwan Thoughts

Oddities of living/visiting abroad happens to us all.  They can be quaint, charming, alarming, frightening, and most of all embarrassing (come on, we've all done something, and every culture fudges something up when they combine foreign and home culture).  So here's a couple.

Eventually everyone gets sick overseas.  Can't help it.  But here you get the help of Pokemon and Hello Kitty, oh I mean Dr. Kitty...  After a few days of maybe I can get over it, off to the doc for a $5 US visit, so I don't suddenly kick it.  You always get a colorful array of meds (and luckily an actual list of the names so you can look them up) that are sealed in this machine every doc's office has, wax wrapping each day's dose into tiny little pillows of pain relief.  These cartoons are pervasive in East Asia, so why not on a pill pack...

In the US Pez colored pills and cartoon collaborators would be one step from stomach pump. 

 These may likely be in the stores in the US by now, but I don't think with these flavors.  Love the neon, but somehow I think the "Late Nite" ad is really saying tomorrow is gonna be painful, cause the reasons you choose to buy these late at night are usually not going to mix well.  Yes, I have tried one of these, can you guess?

I don't think anyone on the ad campaign was Jewish, they just liked stars and BBQ pork...

Lime Thai BBQ shrimp, and yes the chips are "lightning" shaped.

Buffalo wings flavored and some other flavor too.

30 Days of Taiwan

Whoa! The winds of time blew right through us, plopping the two of us just two weeks away from leaving Taiwan.  Then two weeks travel more till we reach our old home.  Where we go from there, we will see.  Rather than try to sum up or condense this journey into a mere couple final blogs, I'm going to draw you down the path of our lives here for the next 30 days posting every day; some longer, some short shots, but constantly adding a new side to our lives here.  We will be back in some form or another.  The next 30 days will show some of the reasons why, with the last day, being the first back in the states as a resident since August 2010.  Here goes with the first...

Tefuye

This is the mountain village our friend Joyce is from, who took us up here last year for the Tsou tribe's annual ritual/ceremony.  Instead of the ceremony we went up to hit an ancient trail out of the terraced valley of the village over the saddle of the surrounding mountain range.  A trail used by the Tsou (pronounced Joe) to search for game in the mountains, trade with other tribes, or like life today, just to get the heck out of the home you spend so much time in it drives you bat shit crazy.  We traversed the route twice, in and out off of the main road winding our way through the camphor and cypress forest.  We left Chiayi early to make it to the base of the trail at daybreak.

Life starts at the Family Mart, or any other convenience store.

Sunrise over the Alishan Mountain range.

The one mountain  in Taiwan with snow Yushan.  Tallest on the island nation at 3952 meters, pushed up by plates colliding from multiple directions, this is still a growing giant.

There is a little fall here...  in January.

Yeah, and are they into the Macarena?

The beginning of the hike warned us of large groups of dancing bears as we hit the gradual climb out of one valley over a mountain saddle.  No surprise, during their occupation of Taiwan, the Japanese followed the wisdom of the Tsou using the ancient trade route as a basis for their rail line.  This rather narrow set of tracks was the key to their battles against the aboriginal tribes and to cart large amounts of lumber (cypress and camphor) out of the central highlands to Japan.

The width of the rails is barely two feet.  Imagine trying to haul ancient (2500 years plus) and huge trees out on such a tiny support system.

Not a bear, Johanna.

Group stops to check on some berries that look similar to coffee beans, which are also grown in these mountains.  Pretty tasty java too.

Then comes the second half of the trail which veers off from the rail line, and down into the valley.  Pretty steep, and...  the arduous way back. 

This is just the beginning of the next thirty days.  So many diverse moments of food, travel, and the mystery of this great country...

Life on one of the old glories the Japanese forgot to take with them.