Category: Personal (Page 33 of 47)

For no reason whatsoever, I decided to close out my trip to Taiwan with a long hike in the Tawianese forest.  I guess I can’t say "no reason."  Vittorio and I had taken a gondola up to the hills to see some pretty big temples, but he had to leave to catch his flight back to Europe.  I still had another 5 hours to kill, so I thought 3 of them could be effectively used wandering around the woods.

Plus, my Lonely Planet guidebook, which hadn’t really been right or useful all week, said there was this crazy temple buried in a wall behind the waterfall.  I had to see it. So off I went, up the rock stairs into the unknown forest.

I’m not sure why I expected it to be less humid in the middle of the forest.  But it wasn’t.  And I guess I forgot about the fact that there would be bugs, because there were.  Otherwise, the hike started stupendously.

It didn’t take too long for me to start talking to myself, mainly cursing how this idea had enetered my head.  Why couldn’t I have stumbled on the page in the guidebook that mentioned an air conditioned museum, or better, maybe a  martini bar. 

But I would carry on.  After all, when is the next time I would be able to see a temple in a waterfall?

After a few km, I reached a key fork in the road.  Unfortunately for me, the brilliantly marked signage did not mention which diretion my destination was.  I would be forced to use the guidebook, which to this point had gotten me lost on well marked city streets in two different countries.  Now I would use it for an unmarked forest trail.  Yippee.

I slogged through the trail when a frightening thought hit me.   Vittorio had left me in a totally different place than I was now.  Literally no one in the world knew where I was.  If I fell, I’d be one of those guys that just vanished off the planet.   Hmmm….

The hike was beautiful, except for the fact that I had no confidence in where I was going, and not very much hope that I was headed toward my mysterious temple.  The path kind of disappeared, but I finally found a creek, which seemed like a pretty good thing to follow if I was looking for a waterfall.  The bridge I came across did not instill confidence, but luckily the water was shallow enough to cross.

Anyway, after a few hours, I actually found this temple, and it was pretty cool – especially for something built into the side of a waterfall.  I walked through to take some pics from the other side, and there were actually some people inside there, which kind of freaked me out.  And they offered me tea.  Now, I thought it was a funny thing for people who don’t speak English to offer to sit down and pantomime with me.  But I appreciated the gesture, despite the fact that drinking unfiltered Taiwanese forest water before getting on an 11 hour flight seemed like a poor idea.  I passed on the tea, and headed back to the gondola, content with the way the trip was coming to an end.

You can say this for Taiwan – you certainly can’t get bored from a lack of experiences. Consider our range of activities in 72 hours in Taipei and the surrounding areas.

• Gorging on a variety of strange foods bought from street vendors for $.50, in nighttime street markets.
• Taking an elevator to the top of the world’s tallest building.  A 600 meter per second journey that goes 89 floors in 47 seconds.
• Taking a subway out to the Beitou Hot Spring, and getting in natural cold, warm and hot pools with 50 people who didn’t speak a lick of English.
• Wandering through a giant temple in the middle of a downtown park.
• Bussing out to a natural park on the country’s north coast.
• Taking a gongola ride up 2,000 meters to reach some temples, then hiking a few hours to find a nother temple carved into the wall of a waterfall.
• Nearly getting run over by one of the 198 million scooters that dominate the roads.
• Shopping at computer markets getting incredible deals on memory cards, USB drives and other small accessories.
• And then, eating more food from more night markets.

I’ll slowly get the pictures up to illustrate some of these activities, but the basic story is one of Taiwan being one of the most diverse places I have visitied.  After the fury and fervor of Hong Kong, Taiwan could easily be termed disappointing or unexciting.  But when you look at the wide range of activities, it really is quite a fantastic place.  5 million residents is nothing compared to Hong Kong or Tokyo, but it’s still a major city with more to offer than you can do in 3 days.  Plus, Taipei represents the very top of a long island.  There are another 18 million people in the rest of the country, in areas we didn’t even contemplate visiting.

When you consider how close it is to all the major Asian hubs, like Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc… it really becomes a place that could easily be the start and end points for my next Asia vacation.  

With Hong Kong as the only Asian country I had visited, I expected Taipei to share the same frenetic energy.  Perhaps it was because we arrived at out hotel after midnight, or because of the rain, but we walked around downtown Taipei trying to get our brain adjusted to the more reasonable pace.

It became obvious quickly that while Hong Kong was very westernized and street hawkers wanted to sell us watches, suits and cameras, Taipei markets were mainly about food.  great great food at every little booth, all for $.50 to $1.00.  Barely any English was being spoken, even in the most popular markets, so ordering or asking questions is more a game of charades than actual speaking.

if Hong Kong is New York on steroids, I don’t know what Taipei is.  It’s certainly big (5 million people) and spreadout, but it’s buildings are generally 10 stories, not 80.  (Except of course for the tallest building in the world, Tower 101, which is essentially Taiwan’s shout of, "Hey, we can build tall stuff if we want to.  See?")

Temples, gardens, parks, and hot springs abound, so the city feels like someplace someone can actually live.  we are doing the area at breakneck speed, including tour buses (something we would never ordinarily do) so we can cover more ground.  We’ll get some pics up soon.   

I guess I’m really off the marketing track here….

When the chaos bcomes overwhelming, there is Lamma Beach.  A quick 30-40 minute ferry ride to the southwest, and you land on an island with no cars or rodas, just walking paths from side to the other.  A few beaches are located in strategic points.  

Aside from the neat pier of seafood restaurants (that aren’t as cheap as you’d expect), there really isn’t much to do besides hike and relax, which is absolutley what you ant to do after a few days in the city.

A small disappointment, though not totally unexpected, is the beach water.   While the sand is quite lovely and the surrounding foliage leafy and green, the water is not the clear blue Mediterranean water Vittorio was expecting.  And really all you need to do is stare at the horizon to figure out why.  Instad of a row of sailboats gently bobbing on the sea, you see a line of freighter ships and tankers steaming to Hong Kong Piers.  I think Vittorio had visions of South Pacific in his head which were shattered by the sight of mammoth, double hulled transports.

Maybe worse, was the fact that the power plant that provides the juice for all of Hong Kong is sitting in the bay.  On one angle, pretty view, on the other, a giant monstrosity.  Very unsettling. 

But if part of the purpose was to explore a little and find a different area of Hong Kong, then we succeeded.  Plus how can you complain about a  place where you lunch on the fish that are caught in the seas under your feet.  

Off to Taipei tomorrow.

So after the initial shock wears off a little, you start thinking, "Well people can’t live like this 24-7.  There must be areas where people actually live."

Our trip to Hong Kong was inititated by a friend’s wedding, so we had to navigate our sightseeing around ceremonies on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.  But that has given us a few opportunities to branch out to the outer regions.

The first trip was out to the Northwest, near the airport, where we expereinced the world’s largest sitting buddha.  While it is very cool, it is also obviously a designed tourist spectacle that would make even the most commercialized American proud.  I’ll say this – they could not have made it any easier for white guys like me to hop on a subway/train out to nowhere, then hop on an amazing 20 minute gondola, to hike up the stairs and look over the bay.  It was amazing.  And yet, you have to chuckle when just under the buddha, you see a Starbucks.  I mean, when you can order a double tall latte on your way to the world’s largest buddha, then you have made it as a company.

Another little jaunt included a 25 minute bus ride down south for dinner in Stanley.  It’s a nice quiet little part of the island, and you get to travel through a number of nice neighborhoods to get there.  The Stanley Plaza is actually 100% British, and you don’t even feel like you are in Hong Kong.  Maybe this area was carved out by Brits living here as a place to live in relative peace.  or maybe it’s just a tourist area. But we enjoyed a nice relaxing meal on the water. 

Today will be a day trip out to Lamma, a beach island and place to eat seafood.

Hope to get more pictures up in the right spots soon. 

 
Stories to come…. 

In a time crunch, so just going to throw out some bullets.

• The time crunch is caused by our need to find another hotel.   We were both very disappointed in what Hong Kong describes as a "Double Room."  The only way two people could stay in there is if we took shifts sleeping and showering.  So we either need to keep renting the dump we are in individually, or come up with a good Plan B.
• (NOTE: We moved into the greatest hotel ever.  I will have to think about whether or not I let anyone else know about this place.)
• Man, this town smells.  I mean, you smell the stench(es) everywhere you go.  And it just permeates your clothes and skin.
• And it’s humid.  Unbelievably so.  Stinking and sweaty.  
• If it sounds like I’m complaining, I’m not.  But with all the excitement and madness you get from the city, you get a few other issues to deal with.
• I still haven’t bought a suit, watch, knock off shoes or anything interesting.   But they have been pffered in abundance.
• I am generally a good map reader, but I still have yet to find anything I have been lookign for on the first try.  It’s really becoming comical.  I know exactly where I want to go, I have the directions written out, and when I get to where I think I should be, it ends up being a meat market with ducks hanging upside down or something equally ridiculous.   I simply can’t figure it out.  I think they just ccreate new streets to confuse me.

More thoughts after we get out fo our prison cells and into something more livable…

I’m 72 hours into the "Hong Kong Expereince" now.  Here’s a quick description of first impressions of the nightlife.

As I walked around the popular Lan Kwai Fong area, the first thing that came to my mind was, "This is what it look like if Bourbon Street was in Times Square."  Just bars and people an dbars and more people everywhere.  And adding to the effect is the fact that the area is on a pretty substantial hill.  The hill is so steep, actually, that there’s an outside scalator that carries people up about 4-5 blocks.

People literally spill out of the bars into the street. I suppose, in fairness, that one reason there are so many bars is that most of them are pretty small.   But it makes for a scene where lounges, meat markets, rock bars, English pubs, wine bars and Irish pubs all live next door to each other.

You do see everyone from everywhere – locals, tourists, expats, street vendors, taxi drivers, buses, security – really the whole gamut.  And some of the most luxrious lounges have the added kitch factor of being next to a broken down dilapidated building.

There’s another area called Wan Chai, which appears to be more suited to those people looking for dinner, drinks and a date all in one price of admission.  In fact, one bar proudly advertised, "Welcome Navy." We walked around and saw a few bars that looked interesting, but also noticed an uusually high number of Hong Kong women in skirts walking around by themselves.   Which probably wouldn’t mean anything if there weren’t 40 strip clubs in the district.  I don’t mean to be judgemental, but that scene was likely catering to a slighlty different group of people.

In the end, our best option in Lan Kwai Fong was to find a nice lounge and observe most of the chaos from a window ledge seat.  After seeing millions of people during the day, millions of people at night are best enjoyed from a slight distance…