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: