Hualien & Taroko

This will be a brief report of a short weekend trip to the East Coast of Taiwan that Noora and I undertook for a change of scenery from Taipei. The destination was Hualien, the biggest town on the Eastern coast, and nearby Taroko Gorge, noted to be the Number one natural attraction of the island. The original plan was to go on Saturday morning and return on Sunday evening. However, as we were trying to book the train tickets (booking can be done on the internet, and the tickets paid for and collected at any post office - extremely convenient), there were no free seats on any of the 10 trains running from Taipei to Hualien between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. on Saturday. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, with the amount of traveling that goes on here on the weekend. No problem though, we simply postponed the trip by one day, leaving on Sunday, coming back on Monday.

The East coast of the island is quite different from the rest of Taiwan. Because of the mountains spanning over the whole island in the North-South direction, the East coast has historically always been very isolated. Apparently, some places were until mid-20th century only accessible by boat. Historically, the area has been inhabited by the indigenous (aboriginal) people. Since then, great efforts were made to build several roads and a railway, which lead to faster development. Nevertheless, the population density is still much smaller than in the West. Maybe also partially due to the frequent earthquakes and exposure to typhoons coming from the ocean. Check out the pic of downtown Hualien below - Starbucks and Playboy are proofs that globalization has caught up with this place already.



If you ask me though, this thing below is million times better than Starbucks. A juice stand. They are everywhere in Taiwan, offering the chance to order one of a myrriad choices of delicious juices prepared from fresh fruits for no more than 50 NTD.



Most of the East coast is formed by a very narrow plateau, crammed between the Pacific Ocean and the mountains, which soar right up to altitudes of over 3000 meters. We rented bicycles and rode to this beach about 10 kms North of Hualien. While this picture looks quite idyllic, not all of the area is: the main industry on the East coast is mining for marble. The marble comes from the surrounding mountains and is processed in one of many factories down on the coast - these are nowhere as scenic. Actually, the bike trail from Hualien to this beach leads mostly through a industrial wasteland - factories, sea port with piles of stone waiting to be loaded on the ships, barbed wire fences - together with the fact that on the day we visited, it was a Sunday (hence no people working), it was cloudy, strong wind was blowing from the ocean, carrying around the dust from the factories, the only living things around were stray dogs and several cows.



The beach itself was a bit more lively, with children fooling around in the waves and friendly shopkeepers selling BBQ squid and stinky tofu off of their portable food stand (in a back of a mini truck).



On Monday, we were off to the Taroko Gorge, perhaps the most famous natural tourist attraction in Taiwan. It is a long, very narrow and very deep canyon, with cliffs on both sides soaring up 1000 meters or more. I don't have any pictures that can express the magnitude of the canyon. It is quite amazing and definitely worth a visit.

Unfortunately, many people share my opinion that it is indeed worth a visit. That's why even on Monday, dozens of tour buses travel up and down the gorge, as well as cars and scooters (the buses are by far the worst though, as they are too big for the narrow roads and there's so many of them). I don't even want to imagine what this place looks like on a weekend.



Throughout the canyon, there are also the temples, pagodas and statues, so typical for Taiwan. Not too many though, so they don't spoil the natural beauties. We took a bus from Hualien to a tiny village deep in the canyon, then walked back through the canyon to the entrance. It was a pleasant 19 kms trip and a great way to see it all - they only drawback was that we had to walk on the road (there's no other trail) and occasionaly dodge the aforementioned buses.



When we were almost at the end, a car full of elderly Taiwanese people stopped (all by themselves) and offered to give us a ride back into the city. We gladly accepted, then had to convince them that we really don't want to go with them all the way to Taidong, another city about 100 kms South of Hualien on the East coast. Perhaps next time. The staff at the train station promptly swapped our train tickets from the 7 p.m. train to a 4:40 p.m. train, and then it was back to the normal Taipei life again.

It's all weird. Weather, activities, people..

The last 2 weeks have been quite intense, with 5 presentations, a paper and several small yet annoying homework assignments. Now that I'm done with those, there are only 3 final papers to write and 1 book to read. Piece of cake (or maybe not).

I also got to try several rather unusual activities here recently. Well, they would be pretty normal in Europe, but not so much in Taiwan. First of all, after months of preparations, we finally got to go ice-skating. They have a really nice, big, new arena in the center of Taipei, with an ice-rink which is always open. Going on a weekend turned out to be impossible, as there were so many people that I couldn't even see the ice. Literally. But there was almost nobody on Monday evening, other than the few children involved in their figure-skating practice and a group of young adults, who apparently saw ice for the first time in their lives. As representatives of ice-hockey nations, we fit nicely in the middle between these two groups in terms of the skating ability. Upon renting the skates, we also had to rent a helmet (mandatory) with the option of also renting knee and elbow pads. We frowned upon these, but immediately after stepping on the ice, a member of staff came to us, insisting that we do wear the helmet.

What's even weirder, I got to play floorball here in Taiwan! For those of you who don't know, floorball is a game a little like hockey, played with a stick and a ball. It is very popular in several selected countries of Europe (Sweden, Finland and other Nordic countries, Switzerland, Czech Republic), also played in some other European countries as well as Singapore and Japan, and virtually unknown everywhere else. Taiwan belongs to this everywhere else group. Obviously, the equipment for the sport is also not available here. However, I discovered through my contact in the local Swedish community that they do have several old, broken sticks (many of them repaired many times) and balls and occasionally get together and play. Having played every week for several years, but not at all for the past year, I missed the game a lot. Got to join these Swedes few weeks ago and it was indeed a lot of fun.



On Saturday, I spent a pleasant afternoon at a foreigners' picnic in a park in the middle of Taipei, sitting in the mud, tasting all the delicious things people brought and getting to know other foreigners living here. Shockingly, the weather was nice that day. Shockingly, because it has been really weird in recent weeks. We've usually had 2 or 3 overcast, rainy days followed by one or two really nice ones. Recently though, it changes about every 60 minutes. Nice and sunny for a while, then a thunderstorm with buckets of water pouring down all of a sudden. We even had a small earthquake last week - about the third I've noticed during my time here; earthquakes are common on the East coast of the island. There were 27 of them since the beginning of the year already. Most are not noticeable in the Taipei area though.

Back to the rain issue though. Seeing how the weather is, I seriously have to question the logic of the Taiwanese people in their love for scooters. Sure, they are cheap, convenient and fit well into the city traffic, but they don't make much sense in this weather. The weather is very unstable. It rains a lot. Often times, it's pouring rain. It's scorching hot in the summer, and buses and subway are air-conditioned, unlike scooters. And yet, people here don't seem to be concerned. When it's raining, they simply put on a wonderful plastic raincoat (usually pink or yellow) and set off for the streets. People also like to wear jackets backwards, when driving a scooter. Perhaps it's more comfortable that way? Not sure. I also have yet to figure over why do some scooter drivers wear oven gloves.

This is a fancy raincoat.



OK, last few notes to point out: People have really strange public transportation manners. When there are two unoccupied seats next to each other on a bus, many locals will sit in the aisle seat, leaving the window seat empty. When another passenger expressed a desire to sit in the window seat, the aisle seat person won't scoot down, or stand up to let them in. Instead, they simply stay where they are, letting the other passenger squeeze past them, through the tiny space between the knees and the seat in front. The more polite ones will push a few centimeters back into the seat or slightly rotate their body to generate an extra inch of space. The high level of propensity to push and squeeze is further confirmed, when, on a crowded bus, passengers from the back of the bus choose to squeeze through the entire bus to get off through the front door, rather than taking the door in the middle (which is also open and which they had to pass on their squeezing mission.)

And finally, the other day I was switching through the TV channels and a golf tournament was on. Tiger Woods was getting ready to tee off.. and the Chinese commentators were calling him
老虎 - Lao hu, which in Chinese means tiger. They translate everything into Chinese! Normally the translations are phonetical though - so San Francisco in Chinese is [Sheng fu lan xi si ke], Prague is [Bu la ge], but I've never heard meanings translated like in the Tiger case. I wonder if they called George Bush the Chinese word for bush too?

A neighborhood which I pass on the way to school.

As for plans for the next days and weeks, we are planning a trip to the East Coast of Taiwan this weekend, a Chinese proficiency exam next weekend and a 4-day trip to Korea two weeks from now. I have to get a close look at what games those North Koreans are playing with their missiles.

Rozhovor ve Studentském listu

A student magazine from my university back in Prague has made an interview with me about life in Taiwan and recently published it. Link is below, but it's all in Czech.

Tohle má smysl stejně jenom pro ty čtenáře, kteří rozumí česky, takže se nemusím obtěžovat s angličtinou. Zrovna nedávno vyšel ve Studentském listu VŠE rozhovor o mém životě na Taiwanu. Respektive redaktorka mi poslala otázky mailem, já jsem jí zpátky poslal odpovědi na tři stránky a ona z toho vybrala pár těch nejzajímavějších. Rozhovor si můžete přečíst v internetové verzi magazínu kliknutím na tento odkaz.

Some good points

Reading some of my previous posts, I'm noticing that the general tone might sound as one-sidedly critical of Taiwan and everything Taiwanese. More than anything, this has to do with my strong propensity for sarcasm and feeling (lacking any evidence) that this just suits me better. That is not to say that I don't like Taiwan though. I do, most of the time. This time then, I'm forcing myself to be positive.

One of the best things about living here is the convenience. Obtaining most necessities, goods or services, usually turns out to be very simple. On my first day here, when I needed to make a copy of my dorm room keys, buy bed sheets and few other essentials, I found all the shops right outside the university gate. When Noora needed to have her heels repaired, we also found a grandpa repairing shoes literally right outside the gate. Staff in a clothes shop were happy to shorten the just-purchased jeans, so as to make them fit perfectly. Getting an appointment in the hospital can be done over the internet for the exact date and time, so that one usually doesn't have to spend the whole afternoon waiting for their turn in the hospital. Traveling to any major city on the island is easy too - all I need to do is show up at the central bus station and odds are that there will be a bus headed to the desired destination within the next 20 minutes. And I'm sure that if I knew Chinese better, I would discover many other ways to make life easier.

7-11 sells just about anything one might need, it has decent coffee, ATM, and utility bills can be paid for there. And it is almost always open. At least until 11 p.m., anyways. Going back home, I'm sure I will have difficult time getting used to the fact that some shops close at 5 p.m., or 6 p.m., and that there is definitely no place to buy any food after 8 p.m. And I'm not even getting started with the weekends.

With that said, a fresh story from the gym. I was doing my excercises there the other day. A Taiwanese dude came in, wearing leather shoes, tight-fit jeans and a T-shirt. He was also accompanied by a girl, probably girlfriend. The guy proceeded to take his T-shirt off, check himself out in the mirror and do some weight-lifting. The girl sat next to him, staring at him with admiration in her eyes. When he switched stations, she followed him. At times, she yelled: "Wow, it's so heavy!" and "You are so strong!!!" At times, to reassure her that it really is heavy and he really is so strong, he let her try to do the exercise he had just completed, watching her struggle with an indulgent smile on his face. Only in Taiwan..