Taichung and Sun Moon Lake

I spent this past weekend in Taichung and Sun Moon Lake which are both south of Taipei in the central area of Taiwan. There were eight of us in the group and I booked the hostel Friday night as the last of the group confirmed their attendance. None of us were fluent in Chinese, one was at least somewhat proficient. We woke up early Saturday to try to catch a bus. The first place told us we would have to wait another three hours, so we went to another company and were on our way. The bus takes approximately two and a half hours to reach Taichung. We had to transfer to another bus on the edge of the city and again to a city bus. Finally on the outskirts of the city we managed to find our hostel. I was a bit nervous as I was the one leading all of us on this journey. I was quickly dubbed the 'mom' of the group, one was the translator and two were the paparazzi (they had really nice cameras and documented the entire weekend, never have I felt so famous).

My buddy, who is assigned to me through the exchange program, is from Taichung and goes back every weekend. I contacted him and quickly met up with him at the main train station. We headed to one of the three night markets in the city and had a dinner I will never forget--it had to be one of the spiciest meals I have ever had. If ma is in front of la for a spicy dish, know that it will be extremely spicy. Almost all of us ordered the middle level of spiciness, but were crying as our lips swelled and reddened from the chili peppers and sauce in our noodles. The papaya milk seemed to reduce the heat a little bit.

After the unforgettable meal Andy met back up with us after his family dinner and we headed to the largest night market in Taichung, Feng Chia. The clothes definitely had a somewhat different style and were a little cheaper than Taipei. Taichung also has an area of town known as Little Europe, and it actually was different and more like Europe than the rest of town. Andy was so excited to have us try a bunch of different foods, some of which I know most would not of tried. All in all we tried rice and pig's blood on a stick covered with peanuts and cilantro, BBQ-ed shrimp on a stick with their shells still on, deep fried sweet potato balls, Chinese hot dog with wasabi sauce, a milk tea type of drink (still not quite sure what was used to replace the pearls, it was some type of seed but not passion fruit), and a couple other things. Andy took the group of us on his motorbike and in his brother's car to the highest viewing point of the city. We could see the Taiwan Strait in the distance and lights all around. I had no idea how vast the city actually was until we were perched so high above. We made it home safely to the hostel just in time to catch a couple hours of sleep and head to Sun Moon Lake in the morning.

Sun Moon Lake is in the Nantu region and quite easy to get to from Taichung. Andy met up with us in the morning out of concern of being able to buy tickets to get there. I am not quite sure when it was arranged that we would ride in two random cars and pay each $200 NTD ($6) to get there. It took us half as much time to reach the lake and about 20 minutes later of trying to refuse a 3 hour tour around the lake we were off. Sun Moon Lake is gorgeous and not used much for swimming or recreation and is only 33 km around. The Lonely Planet said that foreigners should not swim in the lake as Taiwanese do not know how to swim and may jump in and drown if they see you swimming... I'm not sure how true this is, nonetheless it is quite entertaining. After bumming around for a couple hours we found a bus to take us back to Taipei and a short five hours later we were home. Although the island is quite small, only 150 km or so wide, it takes a long time to get city to city unless you use the high speed rail. The trip was awesome and gave me a taste of what I had pictured Taiwan to really be like. Taipei is quite orderly and like most other big cities with a Rail Transport system.

(I thought that this was very cool. This is a picture of a flower that seems to never stop flowering. The small buds in the middle are about to flower, and they start out yellow and turn to a hot pink when they are done maturing and about to fall off).

(This is an Assam Tea Plant. Tea is very important in Taiwan and was one of the primary export goods in the 20Th century. I thought I would take a picture to share with all of you.)

I had my haircut today in Gongguan and I am extremely happy with the result. I am going to go whitewater rafting and study this next weekend, which I am also very excited about. I will be sure to add an update about that as well.