Matsu

Thinking about how many pictures I want to share and stories I want to tell all of you that actually care to see them and hear about is just to much to think about. Each Weekend brings a new adventure that I want to show all of my pictures and tell you all about. I am behind however because 1. I don't think that many people really care and a blog makes me feel slightly narcissistic and 2, I am BUSY. Okay, that is enough of my sob story. Thank you for caring to take time to read this.

We have bikes. We love them.

 

We make friends everywhere we go. They love us. We love them. (maybe the girl on the right does not love us so much)

On this particular Saturday we headed to an old town called Alishan. It wasn't what we expected. Nothing ever is. The funny thing is we had actually been here before but didn't explore much and there was 1 million people there, literally. We still liked it. We bought some things, saw some temples, the usual.

All of these pictures... missionaries. We had heard of this 'fan man' but didn't think we would actually find him. Amazingly, strangely, we did.

He paints beautiful fans. Lauren bought one. I may need to go back to buy one as well. Maybe to give Alishan another try as well. 

I have had many adventures while here in Taiwan, few I have blogged about. But Friday eventing on March 30th and Saturday morning of March 31st 2012 will for ever be one of the greatest adventures I will ever have in my life. Unfortunately pictures and words could never adequately describe this experience. I guess you will all just have to come to Taiwan for the pilgrimage of Mazu.

Matsu (or Mazu) is the goddess of the sea I could Wikipedia it and give you more accurate information but you can do that if you really care. From what I understand every year 'pilgrims' who believe in Matsu follow the goddess (a statue) for 10 days. Most of them walking, some riding bikes. They sleep anywhere they can, 7-ll's, temples, anywhere. They visit 3 city's along the way and the whole time the people that live in those city's are out side passing out food to all the travelers. It started as just a religious ritual but over the years has become more of a cultural event.

On our way home from Taipei, a week before, we saw large crowds of people and followed them to find a massive firework show. Not sure why this was happening at 1 in the morning, but we liked it. We learned it was Mazu and also learned it would be coming back through Chunghua (the city we live in) in a few days.


Friday night after enjoying our taro icecream we started hearing more and more fireworks (which is not that uncommon actually) but went to figure out what it was. We saw lots of people walking with these flag type things in there backpacks with lots of pieces of yellow fabric at the top. We jumped on our bikes and followed them. All along the way people we putting food in our baskets and giving us all kind of food. We weren't sure why we just laughed said xie-xie (thank you) and rode along.... 

After an hour of riding out bikes, mostly on the freeway (which was scary), we ended up in a different city not even sure what city it was. People were everywhere. We went into a large tent type thing where, yet again, people were giving out food. A girl who spoke some English started talking asking us if we 'worked for 9 days' we were really confused what she was asking us. (by the way, every person in that tent was looking at us) Anyways, we realized she was asking if we had 'walked for 9 days' we felt dumb saying we had just been on our bikes for 45 minutes. People were not as interested in us then, and we were ashamed. But not ashamed enough to not take some bread. Then the kindest women and her 4 sons told us to follow them on there bikes to the next city. (all of this being said with no verbal communication) We started to but we felt bad ditching them, and dumb saying we were not actually following matsu. We tried to lag behind but they were to kind and would wait for us. After another boy joined us, who did speak English, we explained we had just come from Chunghua. He explained to the mother, we thought they would be upset but instead they gave us the lights off of their bikes and told us to ride back safely. I truly admire that women that I never even spoke a word to.

We went back to our apartment to check out what free goodies we had been given. This is what we got, and this isn't even all of it actually. We were so perplexed by what had just happened. Free food, following people who had been walking for 9 days, being shamed, following a family that we couldn't talk to, riding our bikes on the freeway, and by this point it was 1:00 AM.

We then got back on our bikes to see what was happening in our city. I have seen some pretty impressive firework shows in my life, including the 4th of July in Washington DC at the Washington monument and the one I mentioned from the week before. None of them come close to the fireworks we saw here. I have always been a fan of fireworks but never have I been almost brought to tears by them. I have also never stood so close to them that I actually feared for my life. It would have been completely illegal in the states if we had stood that close to these size fireworks.

After the firework show, working our way through the crowds, that are not in the picture unfortunately, on our bikes (kind of a joke) a random man asked to take a picture of us (not the first time it had happened tonight) so I asked him to take one with my camera. I am glad I did because I feel like you can see the true joy on our faces that we were feeling. It was 2:00 am now, the roads were lined with people and fireworks that were going to be set off soon and we had just witnessed an amazing display of fireworks.

We were ready to call it a night at that point completely happy and satisfied with the nights events. As we were walking into our apt. our friend Lison told us Matsu was going to be on the street right in front of our apt in an hour. We decided we could wait till 3:00.  Naturally at this point, we went inside and ate our free cold noodles(that were surprisingly delicious even thought I'm not sure why it was a surprise ALL food here is good), bread, and sports drink. We were slap happy and everything was hilarious, especially all the noodles that ended up on Laurens lap. Well an hour and a half later 4:30 people started lining up for Matsu. It was pure chaos! First we were running for the line, then we were shuffling backwards for forever, being stepped on, pushed, stepping on other people, Lauren and Lison holding hands through 3 or 4 other people, people yelling things at us, us just looking at them in confusion and shock. All while fireworks where going off all around us, notice how smokey it was from so many fireworks I just wished this picture showed how many people there really were.   

The tradition is to crawl underneath Matsu, one at a time, and wish for something and then you will have good luck all year. Well, while we were kneeling on the street in that chaos, unsure of what we were even doing, waiting to crawl underneath this staute I was picked up yelled at and pushed aside. Lauren was able to crawl underneath with lison. I had never experienced such chaos.  (see the blurry red and gold thing? yep, that's Matsu herself, I guess) I love that this picture is blurry It wouldn't be right any other way.

Notice the time, 4:57 am. Telling my family was so exciting they said that this is what I looked like telling them all about what had just happened. Lucky for them it was only 2 in the afternoon, but it was so much fun being able to tell them about it right after it happened.  I even got to show them some of the fireworks that were going off down the street. Bless Skype! If Skype were a goddess I would follow it for 9 days. 

So what is the best thing to do at 5:30 am? hike up a mountain to a giant Buddha to see the sunrise of course. It was so cool to be above the city watching the fireworks go off where we just were.

Turns out the sun rises behind the Buddha, oh well. We watched some people doing tai chi and sat and reflected on everything that had just happened.

The picture before this one I am standing on the walk out area right about that random red thing in the middle of the picture (there is a skinny black bar on the railing where I was standing.) The pictures are facing each other. It is a pretty spectacular place.

This is on the walk back down to our apt at 7:00 am. The tall redish building on the far left are our apt. buildings. The track is at the university that I run on everyday. (okay, almost everyday)

7:30 am, completely high on life.

Some days

 So far Lauren and I have been very lucky to have so many days off and long weekends while we have been here but we only have one more Monday off in April. We are not letting that stop us from seeing what this wonderful country and is all about. We have every Saturday planned from now until we leave just to make sure we go to all the places we want to see. Having 3 more months left still does not feel like enough to see and do it all but we only have so much time, and money so we are going to make the most of it.

Most of our adventures start here, the Chunghua train station. We are both quite proud of our ability to figure out what train we need, how to get tickets, and how to adjust our ticket price at our destination if needs be. 2 Saturdays ago we headed to Taichung. This was not a new city to us, we go there every Sunday but we always see places we want to try and never can given that it is Sunday. So we dedicated a Saturday to doing all those thing we can't on Sunday. It just so happens Taichung has some of the best night markets in Taiwan as well.

First thing first, treats. We see these little pancake, smiley face, type things right in front of the train station and want to buy one so badly every week, so today we bought 4. Naturally, some commercial was being filmed at the same time. I have seen more movies and commercials and news things being filmed here in these 3 months than I have seen in my whole life. Anways, the treats were good, not great, we feel much better knowing what they taste like and it's a good thing we didn't love them or we would have been even more tempted each week to get them, we have plenty of other food temptations each Sunday to deal with.

Right before the church building there is this sushi express. I have always wanted to try one of these sushi places and of course this one looked extra good. So we finally tried it, and it was good, except for these nasty green cube things. I still can't figure out how Lauren talked me into taking them off the belt, there were so many other better options but it works out fine because, the best part was, every plate was just $1. yep.

I didn't get any pictures of the shopping we did that night but let me tell you, the night markets were a success. Taiwan has the best clothing and it's all so cheep so we bought just a few things....Most of the stores were playing some kind of American music that neither of us would typically enjoy in the states but hearing the songs here it was as if they were our favorite songs. We danced and sang and made fools of ourselves and loved every minute of it. 

So this was not that same Saturday or even a Saturday at all, I think it was a Thursday actually but I feel it is necessary to show what we do with out time during the week when we are not teaching the children. It was 11 pm, Lauren's sweet mother had sent her gram-crackers, so we bought marshmallows and chocolate and made s'mores. The best part was how we made them, over the stove with chopsticks. They were delicious!  and also mostly I just really like this picture of Lauren, I don't care what you say L word. 

Last Saturday, March 17th to be exact, aka St. Patrick's day, even though we didn't realize it was until about midnight.  Anyways, we are always asking people what we need to see in Taiwan and basically everyone has said Sun Moon Lake so we were really excited about going. We both thought it would be great to go to a more remote quite beautiful area. Well our expectations turned out to be very wrong and we were very under-prepared for the day. First we ordered a bagel and orange juice from McDonald's for breakfast. When we said 'orange juice' they heard 'corn soup.' Not the same. Then on the train Lauren's "orange juice" broke out of the bottom of the bag and corn soup spilled all over the floor of the train, strangers were nice and passed us tissues but it just set off the day on the wrong foot. Then we figured by what we had read and heard that from the train station it would be easy to get the bus we needed. Wrong. We went to about 8 different train stations before this random man offered to walk us to the right one. People here are so nice and we were thankful for his kindness. Turns out his kindness was not free and he just wanted money and it was an awkward uncomfortable moment and we felt like we were taken advantage of because we didn't know what to do. It was not that much money or anything but things like that just don't happen here, at least we didn't think it ever did.

After our 2 hr bus ride we arrived at Sun Moon Lake. First thing first, bathroom stop. A sweet little lady behind me says "you take boat?" We knew we wanted to take a boat so we followed her to another older lady who we gave our money to. Normally we wouldn't be skeptical at all but after our first guide we were hesitant. We knew it was fine once she said follow my grandson to the boat. This was her grandson. He was adorable! Just look at that rats tail. I asked his name and he said "ting-boo-tong" luckily I know enough to Chinese to know that  basically means "I have no idea what your saying" or I would have thought I met the cutest boy named 'ting-boo-tong' all day.

As I mentioned we were totally unprepared for the day. First of all it was not a quite remote area. Like everywhere we have been in Taiwan, there were TONS of people and it was another city surrounding the lake not a remote forest area like we hoped for. Also, it was about 80 degrees and I was wearing a long sleeve shirt and boots and  Lauren had on tights and a skirt and we were very uncomfortable. We made some quick stops in some stores. We put together some really cute outfits (I'm sad I don't have a better picture of them) I bought this awesome Linsanity shirt, that I actually love, and Lauren got some adorable shorts, and we got some matching sun glasses, we were looking real good.

Our first boat stop took us here. The view was pretty but it was so crowded. so hot. nothing to do or see beyond this view, and not what we expected it would be. This day was not going great, besides the purchase of my linsanity shirt of course.

This was the biggest attraction on our first stop. It was facing a small temple and we figured it had something to do with that and said something religious.

We figured this rock must have been a big deal and said something very important because it had a long line, and a security guard. Ben looked it up when I told him about it, turns out it says "Sun Moon Lake." super cool right?

At this point Lauren and I agreed this day was not going as expected. We decided that we would take lots of pictures looking like we were having the times of our lives and tell everyone it was the best day ever. This was the first pic in our planned lie. It was also the last because the day got much better. Notice the gondola in the back ground (gondola like a ski lift not like a boat T)

Arriving at our next, and final stop, of the boat tour we could tell this stop would be more of a success then the 'rock stop' we had just made.  It started with this random dancing group. Good things always start with dancing. (if that is not a phrase it should be)

This stop was more of a city than just a overview like before. We walked around and found this cute owl workshop with all kinds of hand made owl things, I loved it. The stores actually reminded me of places you would find in Peru, it was really strange. Another thing I am sad I didn't get a picture of was the amazing crepe creation we enjoyed. It was a ginormous crepe with Taro ice-cream, peaches, raspberries, bananas, cream, and a chocolate wafer, it was unbelievably good.

This guy was the best. I mean just look at the basket on his head. He could say about 3 things "hello, very good, and good bye." He also pretended to take pictures of us with these tongs he was holding. We adored him.

We walked along the side of the road that was clearly not for pedestrians trying to get to the gondolas. We were hoping we would get our own gondola because they were not that big and just thought it would be more enjoyable. Well when it was time to get in they were clearly motioning for us to get on one with these two other people. We pretended like we didn't understand and went and got on our own. The perks for being a foreigner not knowing the language.

Playing dumb was the best thing we did all day because while we were here looking at this beautiful view we had a little dance party of our own. I played some music with my phone and we danced. People passing in gondolas on the other side were laughing and staring and taking pics, just made it an even better moment. The moment was too good.

I loved the bright colored little gondolas with the green trees behind them. It was so pretty and we could see why so many people told us to go here now.

At the end of the tram there was an amusement park that we didn't know about but we were out of time, unfortunately; so we went back to catch the gondola to catch the boat back to catch our bus back to catch our train back to find our moved bikes to get back home Here we are with genuine happiness, not faking it this time. We are also on a gondola with 6 other people at this point, we had no choice this time. The day turned out so much better than it started and ended great with a little rain storm more delicious food and some new friends from the Netherlands.

How does the day not end great when you have this view, really.

Spring Break.... Taiwan Style

Once upon a time 4 teachers girls took a little trip to Kenting, a beautiful city in the most southern part of Taiwan.

They stayed in a magical place (aka a cheesy dolphin hotel) it was across from a magical beach (aren't all beaches magical in their own way) it was gorgeous, and a little windy but that didn't stop them from soaking up the sun, as they say. 

They discovered a hidden walking path in a national forest. They saw some lush green land and heard the calls of wild boar(seriously we heard wild boars.) At the same time the best picture of the trip was taken.

They also discovered a private beach area that created a nice setting for practicing their Taiwan's Next Model moves. (directed by Lauren and Natalie, photographed by Ashley, model Kamille. Photo shoot pictures to come later)

For food they eat brick oven pizza from a truck, made by Taiwan hippies listening to Jack Johnson.

For fun the 4 daring ladies rent scooters to ride along the coast. Warning: if you are not a risk taker do NOT rent electric scooters they go almost 20 miles an hour, only for the most daring type.

For hydration they buy drinks that look pretty but turn out to cost more then a typical dinner.

These were very lucky girls. They saw some beautiful things, including a board walk of sorts that lined the ocean from all sides. It was a sight to spectacular to describe.

The large lighthouse on the hill, turned out to be not so large in person.

But this... this is were they spent most of their time. Happily.