Taichung and Sun Moon Lake

After New Year's in Taipei, Mandi, Nell, Virginia and I boarded a morning bus to Taichung, a city on the west coast of Taiwan. We were hosted by friend's of Mandi's parents who are professors in the English department at Tunghai University. They graciously showed us around the campus and put us up in their house and a room in the guest house on campus.

Unfortunately, almost as soon as we got there I became sick with a stomach bug I picked up from the babies at the orphanage. The result was a steady diet of water and bread and plain rice, as well as a lot of sleep in the guest room and on car rides and any place else I could manage. So my first memories of Taichung are tinged by stomach pains and a fever. (We went to a small village and saw a man's private museum and attempts at preserving local Aboriginal culture and language. Very fascinating from a professional stand point and gave me some ideas for some future research.)

On our second day in Taichung, though, we went Lugang, a small town that was once the second largest city on the island. The harbor gradually silted up, though, and thus development and trade moved away from the village. It is a great place to visit, though, as the architecture is very beautiful and it has retained a lot of traditional flair. (Even the area where I live, which is arguably the most rusticated of all the counties in Taiwan, is still rather developed. Lugang, on the other hand, has retained a lot of traditional architecture.) We spent the day wandering around through temples and up and down the main street. My stomach mostly recovered by the end of the day, but I also came across one of my new favorite Taiwanese foods, 麵茶 (rice tea). Above is a picture of a door frame surrounded by signs for Chinese New Year, Nine-Turns Lane which is said to have gotten its name and characteristic shape so people could escape from pirates back in the town's hey day as a shipping town, and an engraving on a wall in the Tianhou temple. This temple, dedicated to Matzu, is one of the oldest temples in all of Taiwan. If you look closely at some of the engravings like this one, you will notice that some of the meaner characters are wearing clogs: they represent the Dutch who colonized and exploited Taiwan (and especially the Lugang area) around the time the temple was built.

The next morning we awoke early and, after a quick breakfast, got on a train to head to Sun Moon Lake where we were spending the rest of our trip. The weather was beautiful, especially after the windy coldness that we met in Taichung. We took a train to Shui-li, a little town on a river, before climbing on board a bus to Sun Moon Lake. It was nice to just sit in the sun by the river in Shui-li and share stories with each other.

The weather was just as nice in Sun Moon Lake, so we decided to rent row boats and head out on the lake. In fact, they turned out to be the jalopiest boats you could possibly imagine. They helped us into the boats and directed us out into the lake, but warned us not to stray far from the marina. We ended up being two of maybe five boats out there, but what seemed like a great adventure turned into a rather frightening enterprise as we tried to maneuver the rickety old boats around and through the wakes of the huge cruise boats that were pulling into the same marina. Plus after about a half hour on the water, Nell and I both had to pee in the kind of way that is only made worse when you are completely surrounded by water. We managed to bring our boat into the dock and went to find a bathroom. Virginia and Mandi, though, who decided to stay out a little longer, were not as lucky. They got stuck in whole bunch of other boats as they tried to dock, and we had to go help them as none of the employees of the boat enterprise seemed too concerned or helpful.

We stayed at the Teacher's Hostel which was actually a very nice hotel that gave us a discount for being teachers. Our room overlooked the lake and the sunset was just beautiful. The whole area, in fact, was well worth the trip. It was such a nice break to be some place sunny and somewhat warm, as Yilan has been very rainy and cold lately!