This Terrific Taipei

The language course at Kaohsiung ended and I decided to visit Taipei. I have only 3 days, so it is an intensive and tiring trip, but well worth the effort.
The funny thing is that the owner of the hostel (JVS Home) that I stay in is Polish. We started talking in English at first, but we cought on very soon that we're both Polish. The guy had a T-shirt that said "Społem".

Taipei is varied, busy, interesting. There is modern architecture, but you can also find some old houses squeezed between the skyscrapers. There are also temples - they are, in my opinion, is the most picturesque things in Asia. Yesterday I visited Longshan temple and sat at the entrance for a while to look at people praying. I was quite surprised when one old man approached me and started talking to me in quite fluent English - it turned out he was volunteering as a guide and he gave me a detailed tour of the temple. He was also a scholar and a master in I-Ching, so we talked for over an hour which was very educating. He explained basic Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian ideas very clearly and also told me about his interpretation of I-Ching (which, he claimed, is the most difficult and at the same time the easiest book in history). That's what I meant when I wrote that you can meet interesting people when you travel alone... 
I also met a girl from Couch surfing, Fanny, who showed me the younger people's Taipei and we had a long walk across the commercial streets in the city centre.
Today I decided to make it "museum day" and visited the National Palace Museum. It is huge and packed with tons and tons of interesting stuff, but unfortunately the crowds that gather there are crazy. I ignored the normal visitor's route and went where I wanted to avoid queues and thousands of people. I think it would be better to go there on a weekday, but right now I didn't have a choice.
The second museum I visited was the National Fine Arts Museum. It is said to be the biggest modern art museum in Asia and I could see why. There are 3 floors packed with good art, so I was in my element. I saw a very interesting exibition  "Women Adventures: Five Eras of Taiwanese Art" that showed a few genertions of women's art. I also liked Jen Wei Kuo's "Yi Shan" - paintings that incorporate traditional Chinese art and modern architecture. There was even one Polish detail: I saw one of Paweł Althamer's works in the "Parkett" exhibition.
All in all, the museum is worth a visit if you're into modern art.
My plan for tomorrow: Taipei 101! I don't want to go to the top (it costs 500 Taiwanese Dollars, so - no, thanks), but I read that there's a nice mountain nearby and if you climb it you can have a nice view of the city and of the Taipei 101 itself. We'll see if it's true tomorrow...
Not many pictures today, because it seems that my camera is on strike. I made these with my cell phone which also died along the way, so I apologize for the bad quality and quantity.

First, Longshan temple:

 Palace Museum:

Organise this

I've alwyas been a fan of organising my travells myself. I never buy "all-inclusive" trips where everything is presented to me on a silver platter. Food in the hotel, parties in the hotel, hotel bar, hotel pool... I guess I'd feel a bit like in a cage. I like my freedom and I like to decide where and when I go. Of course, sometimes I can't get where I want, I get lost along the way, meet weird people or eat something awful, but I have more chances for adventure. I can get somewhere awsome, I can meet fantastic people, eat marvelous food, so in the end I think I'd choose freedom over security.

The above said, most of our Taiwanese friends and teachers probably think we are terrified and lost in this scary foreign country. When we go somewhere with them, they divide us into groups and every group has to stay with it's "guide" during "free time" who seem to think that we will get lost on one street. The other day we went to Tainan city and I wanted to buy some souvenirs for my students back home and two ther girls in my group wanted to check out some traditional dresses in the next store. I went in the sweets shop and our guide panicked. She literally breathed down my neck and followed me around saying we should go to the other store and rejoin the group. I ended up not buying everything I wanted and was a bit irritated by the whole situation. The other two girls just wanted to run away.
Of course, those are our cultural differences that make us act this way. Usually (but not always), Polish people like to everything their own way - which makes us more creative, but less able to work in a group. From my observation Taiwanese like to have a pattern and a group. The mix of our characteristics sometimes causes problems. They try to be nice and caring towards us, we see it as annoying babying. That is why I think it's so important to meet as many people from different cultures and possible and at least try to see the world the way they do. We may be able to overcome our differences and combine our good points, no matter how naive it sounds.

Ok, no more musings, time for some travel updates!
As I mentioned before, we went to Tainan with our hosts: we saw some old temples, the Anping Fort (a naval base built by the Dutch), a tree house (a warehouse that was literally swallowed by a huge tree) and something that apparently a salt museum (we couldn't figure out what it was about and why did they take us there). Needless to say, that was not the best trip of this course.
During the weekend we went to Kenting and Fuguangshan by ourselves. Kenting is a beach resort, so we spent the day swimming in the sea (or more like fighting the waves) and hiding from the sun (still got a sunburn though...).
Fuguangshan is a huge Buddhist monastery on the outskirts of Kaohsiung. It was bulit in the 70's of the XX century, so it's not very old, but it's quite spectacular and you can really feel the peacefull atmosphere. The people there are very nice, offering tea all the time.
My camera's batteries died at some point, so I don't have so many pictures.

Kenting beach:

 A little guest I found under my recliner. The heat was nearly unbearable, so I tried not to wake her as I sat down:

 Great Buddha in Fuguangshan:

 Main temple in Fugunagshan:

 

Mountain trips and more!

So, as I mentioned before our hosts take us on a field trip once a week. This time we climbed Shoushan (壽山). I'm not writing "Mt. Shoushan" because I would repeat the word "mountain" two times; shan means "mountain" in Chinese. Just like in Japanese, you really can't say Mt. Fuji-san (san also being a "mountain" in this case. But it's tricky because in Japan you can only call Fuji san. All the other mountains are yama) So I guess you could say Mt. Shou...

But enough with the translation musings! Adventure awaits us! Or maybe monkeys throwing their own poo at unsuspecting tourists...

Shoushan was called the Ape Mountain by the Dutch who came to Formosa (old name for Taiwan which basically means "a beautiful island") in the 17th century and it REALLY is the Ape Mountain. We hiked for about 45 minutes and we encountered a few packs of them. Some were totally ignoring us, some were mildly interested, one young one even tried to touch on of my roommates. The locals warned us not to touch them, give them food or irritate them in any way; they may be small, but in a group they can take down a grown person. So we just took photos.
When we reached the viewing terrace, we could drink some tea and admire the view. I was brought up in a cold-ish climate, and mountains are far away from the sea in Poland, so the view was quite exotic to me. We could look down on a thick jungle which met with the ocean at one point, so for me that was something.

Speaking of climate, you just feel like you're swimming in a hot soup all the time. Except when you are indoors, then there's air conditioning, which is also quite nasty, because suddenly you go from 40C to 23C in seconds. Plus the AC makes the air dry, so I cough and my eyes are constantly dry. Also, the locals like to set their AC really low. So in our room we have 27C, but the classrooms are way colder, so for class we have to dress in long jeans and long-sleeved shirts. Some people didn't even bring long pants, so they try to sneak to the AC remote controller and change the settings. Unfortunately some teacher always notices and stops them before they can change anything.

Our hosts are really cute, nice and helpfull, but sometimes they are clueless. A good example is that last weekend some of the girls in our dorm who are our assigned "bodyguards" took me for a trip in the city and got lost. Fortunately on our way we found an abandoned district which is now a street art gallery (the government wants to tear it down, but the locals like it very much). We went around the barricades made of old furniture and we found ourselves in an abandoned neighbourhood with some really cool art pieces. After that I managed to set us on the right track again and we could return home...

The street art "gallery", near the Lotus Pond and Old City of Zuoying:

 Mini art that really surprised me: those are Pokemon figurines on Mahjong stones. Hard to notice, but really cool.

Shoushan hike: humans and monkeys coexisting.

 A monkey chillin' on the tourist trail, totally ignoring us:

 

A field trip

Yesterday our kind hosts took us for a field trip to Hakka Museum (Hakka are one of the minorities in Taiwan). The museum itself was not very interesting, because it was still under construction, but afterwards we had some DIY activities and we painted traditional Hakka umbrellas, so that was fun.

After the museum, we went to a small town called Qishan for our lunch break. As I said before, people here are really serious about their meals, so there always has to be a meal break. We wandered on the old street of the town for a bit and finally settled in a place that offered roast duck. I had an amazing soup with noodles and pieces of roast duck for 50 NT (which is about 6 złotych or 2 dollars)  and later a huge iced mango tea (which had chunks of mango floating in it). Needless to say, I was satisfied with my meal. We also saw a small taoist temple in Qishan, where we burned some incense (yes, I did sneeze a lot) and bought some "protective charms".

At the end of our trip we visited the Shanhe Brick Kiln, were we could see the place that they fired ceramics and we could make a clay picture of sorts there. They took it for firing, and they will send it to our University, so we'll have to wait a while for the results.

On the bus we sang karaoke - of course, a good bus trip in Asia cannot be without karaoke. Still, I haven't been to a karaoke place here yet and I'm looking forward to it.

I'm also happy that my Mandrin is slowly getting better and better. I hope I can communicate more fluently by the end of this month...

                                            Umbrella painting:

                                           The Taoist temple in Qishan:

 

 

Night markets

One of the most important things in Asia is food. They constantly ask me "have you eaten already?" "let's go eat something together!" or tell me that I have to eat this or that. Main topic of everyday conversation is food, and if you compliment their cuisine they are very happy. On our course's placement test I told the teacher that I liked Taiwanese snacks and that is probably why I'm in the advanced class now (there can be no other expanation...).

The reason I'm writing about food is because yesterday we visited yeshi 夜市 - a traditional Taiwanese night market. You can buy a lot of stuff there, but it is mainly about food. A lot of food.

First I tried jiaozi 餃子- dumplings with pork filling, which were delicious (and cost only 4 Taiwanese dollars a piece. In the photo below you can see how they are made). Next came papaya coctail with soy milk and some sweet pumpkin. I wanted to eat a lot more, but unfortunately my stomach has it's limits. I'm glad that I'll be here quite long, so I can taste a lot of stuff.

The atmosphere is also typially Asian - it's crowded, loud, colorful, fun and overwhelming. When people see a "white" (mine is usually red due to this temperature) face they try to talk to you, ask you where are you from ("America? No? Oooooh... Poland? What's that?"). The most persistent ones are old ladies who (beware!) touch your face or your hair and comment that it's "like a baby!". Personal space does not exist.

Last thing I wanted to write about today is bubble tea, which is becoming more and more popular in Poland. Here everybody drinks zhenzhunaicha 珍珠奶茶. Basically it's tea with milk and little tapioca balls. I'm a big fan of tea and I have to say that bubble tea is really worth trying!

Dumpling making on the market:

Me drinking bubble tea:

Long time no see

Long time no see, or 好久不見!

This time I'm writing from city of Kaohsiung in Taiwan. I will be staying here for one month and I hope to learn a bit Mandarin.

When I was on the plane (19 hours, two stops in Doha and Hong Kong) I had a million ideas what to write in this post, but as usual nothing comes to mind when I sit down and open a text editor.

The journey was pretty uneventful, with the exception of a very short time in Hong Kong where I had to find China Airlines transfer desk and literally run to the gate which was located about one hundred lightyears from where I was. I kept waving my ticket which clearly stated "boarding 16:10" at the baggage control and fortunately everyone was understanding, as it was already 16:25. I managed to get there on time, but the airport staff checked my temperature two times (probably because of my red face and the fact that it was about 40 C).

When I managed to land in Taiwan, I met a couple of people from the Kaohsiung Normal University where the course will take place and got to the dorm. The dorm is a bit scary,  (maybe I'll post some pictures later), but fortunately I live on the 5th floor so there are no cocroaches (BTW, those beasts are HUGE here).

So now I'm waiting for the course to start... I hope I'll have time to post something pretty soon.