Bayan Hot Springs

Taipei, despite being a sprawl of concrete, swarms of scooters and masses of people also happens to be completely surrounded by lush, green mountains. So no matter where you are in the city, it is never too difficult to leave the hustle and bustle of city life and escape into the countryside.

This Saturday, my work colleague Eliza and I decided to visit the mountains, heading north to Yangmingshan National Park. Here, among many other things, is the Bayan Hot Springs. Taipei is known for having many hot springs in the North, particularly in its Beitou district, but whereas these can supposedly be crowded and touristy, the Nayan hot springs offer a slightly different experience. This is because they are technically unofficial, being illegal to visit. The path to them is marked with signs reminding visitors of the NTD15,000 that they can be liable to pay for visiting the springs. However, the springs still do have a regular number of visitors and from what I have heard, even on the off-chance the police do come to the springs, the fine always fails to materialise. So we thought we'd check it out!

Unfortunately I forgot the battery for my camera which I had left to charge the night before, but I did manage to take some photos with my phone.

At the end of half hour bus ride which spiralled up a mountain, we found ourselves in a completely different world. At the beginning of the path to the springs there was a small collection of modest houses surrounded by farmland and vegetation.

And there was also a very scenic pond!

Along the path we frequently came across markers that we were nearing the springs. The path was littered with these clusters of burning hot, bright yellow rocks of sulfur which filled the air with steam and a faint smell of rotting eggs. 

Here's one of the warning signs surrounding the springs. You have to go around a gate to get into the area which leads to them.

But that doesn't stop people from going anyway! The springs consisted of various pools of varying temperatures which flowed downhill from different streams. Some of the pools were boiling hot and impossible to sit in whilst others were ice cold. However one or two were just the perfect temperature and were like sitting in a really hot bath or a hot tub. Very relaxing, especially with all the jungle surrounding!

When we got to the springs, loads of people were covered in a silvery mud. This Taiwanese guy led us up a steep hillside to find some which we then covered ourselves with. Here we are, covered in the mud, at a waterfall near the top of the springs.

Another view of the mountains. There's a small pretty derelict looking collection of buildings in the distance, but we never got close enough to check it out.

Part of the path to get to the springs (all in all, it only took about 15-20 minutes to get to and from the bus stop area). 

Finally, after heading back down into Taipei city, we came across this pretty cool looking park close to the MRT! Taipei has a variety of small 'parks' throughout the city, of varying degrees of interest, but this one looked especially attractive so we checked it out and took some photos.

In other news of Taipei life, I have officially moved into my new apartment! Watch this space in the next few day for photos of the apartment and also Fuzhong, the area where I live.

Longshan Temple

Today was a national holiday, celebrating the Moon Festival. The Moon Festival is a day where families celebrate togetherness and people have barbecues and eat mooncakes (cakes with a salted egg yolk cooked inside-it sounds a little weird, but we got given one at school which also had pineapple in it and it was surprisingly tasty!) People also worship the Moon Goddess, Chang'e (you can read about the story of Chang'e online-we did a skit for the kids at school for this during assembly on Friday). 

The Moon Festival is typically a more intimate holiday and not widely celebrated publicly. However, I read that many people go to pray at temples and bring offerings and burn incense, so I thought I'd check out Longshan Temple, which is arguably the most famous in Taipei. It was originally built in 1739, but the temple has had to be rebuilt numerous times because of bombings, earthquakes and fires. The temple itself is dedicated to the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy but also has dedications for other Buddhist Deities as well as Taoist deities inside and is shared by both religions.

I got a little snap-happy, but there really was a lot to look at!

The front of the temple

Inside the temple itself.

The roof was decorated with loads of ornately carved dragons, animals and people.

The temple was filled with people carrying around incense and walking around bowing to the various depictions of deities. About ten minutes into my visit, everyone also broke out into song and this, along with the smell of incense, flowers and fruits which filled the temple really gave the whole place an amazing atmosphere!

People brought flowers, fruits and cakes as offerings to leave at the temple. The big green fruits are pomellos which are typically associated with the moon festival.

People brought flowers, fruits and cakes as offerings to leave at the temple. The big green fruits are pomellos which are typically associated with the moon festival.

At the front there were fountains filled with koi and covered in greenery.

This depicts the Fool Holding Up the Sky. Apparently the 'fool' is meant to represent the Dutch settlers who occupied the island in the 1700s.

At the back of the temple, there were lots of chambers which had statues of gods, where people would go with their incense sticks to pay their respects. I couldn't get a great look at these and didn't want to linger too long trying to get a picture since the temple was pretty busy and I didn't want to disturb the people worshipping, but here's one I managed to take.

I took a video as well to capture the singing, but it won't let me upload it at the moment! Hopefully I'll get it up at some point...

Happy Moon Festival!

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall

On Sunday, I went to my first tourist attraction-the Chang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Chiang Kai-Shek was the leader of the Chinese nationalists who fled to Taiwan in 1949 after civil war with the Communist party and established Taiwan as the Republic of China, which is what modern day Taiwan is technically known as. When he died, the country decided to set up this memorial in honour of him. Apparently the huge square in front of the hall is now used for demonstrations and movements for social change. The buildings on the left and the right are the National Concert Hall and the National Theatre respectively. There is also a small museum with the history of the Memorial Hall as well as an exhibition of Chinese watercolours.

The pictures of the hall don't fully do the Memorial Hall justice. The building and the surrounding square is huge and really impressive to see in person. But here they are anyway!

The gate at the entrance to the Memorial Hall.

The Memorial Hall itself. Apparently there are 89 steps to represent the age of Chiang Kai-Shek when he died.

The National Concert Hall

The National Theatre

Once you climb the stairs, you walk into a giant white marble room with a statue of Chiang Kai-Shek with two men on guard. Every hour they have a changing of the guards which I was able to see!

One of the old guards getting ready to leave his post.

The two new guards being led to take up their posts.

First Impressions

So now that I've been here a little over a week, I thought that I'd finally get round to making a blog about my travels. With regards to the name, 'Formosa' is what Taiwan used to be called by the West before the Republic of China established itself there. It is Portugese for 'The Beautiful Island'. So first of all, here are some general overall impressions of Taipei...

• Taipei is very hot. Admittedly not as hot as Abu Dhabi, but there's a lot less taxi travelling and shopping malls, so the heat is much more apparent!
• Taipei is also pretty cheap. One journey on the MRT (Taipei's underground), which is very fast and clean normally costs around 50p. A bus journey costs around 30. Food is also incredibly cheap and it's pretty easy to only spend about 50-100NTD on dinner (50 NTD is about 1 pound).
• The whole city is covered in convenience stores. It's hard to walk more than a few minutes without walking into a 7-Eleven or a Family Mart. According to Wikipedia, Taiwan has the world's highest density of 7-Elevens per person  (one per 4,786 people) and generally one convenience store for every 2,500 people.

       Here's one by my hostel!

• The city is also overrun with scooters. Most people seem to prefer to get around by scooter than car, and loads of the kids (who are only 3-5 years old) get there riding on them. All the sidewalks have huge rows of them and they literally cover the streets in places.

• Along with scooters and convenience stores, the streets here are also covered in food stalls and restaurants. Many people here don't have kitchens and food here is so cheap that people generally eat most of their meals out. There are generally open restaurants and small street vendors on most roads you go on as well as a huge number of bubble tea stalls. Most districts also generally have night markets which are roads that are mostly pedestrian where there's huge concentrations of food stalls, and also sometimes clothes stalls and shops. So far the food has been pretty great, although many places only have menus in Chinese which can make them a little inaccessible for the time being (although I have learnt the Chinese symbol for meat so I can identify what is and isn't fish!).

This is the sign for the Ning Xia Night market which is very near me. It's apparently one of the smaller ones and is a very narrow lane which is crowded with street stalls, many of which have sit down areas too. So far it's my favourite as even though it's small, it's got tons of stalls crammed together and has had the biggest selection of food I've seen.

Inside the night market.

Some Beef Teppenyaki at the Ning Xia night market

Shaved ice is pretty popular here. The ice is almost like snow and covered with syrup and fruit. I had one today which had condensed milk poured on it which soaked through all the ice (which was definitely an improvement), but I didn't get a picture.

This was a wrap with peanut brittle, three flavours of ice cream (pineapple, taro and red bean) with cilantro.

I haven't been very good at taking pictures of my food so far, but will probably make a post at some point in the future once I've tried more things and been a little more adventurous!

Finally, the school has been pretty good so far! There's two other English teachers working there with me-both girls about my age from the states who are really nice and I get along well with. The kids are all really cute and seem to love all the English teachers which is nice (the ones who know you always shout your name and wave when you walk past). Everyday I teach 6 hours of Kindergarten class (I have three classes who have me specifically as their English teacher and then I also teach every class once for their science lessons) and then on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I teach the P-Classes, which are after school classes for slightly older kids (I have one of 6 year olds, and then one of 8 year olds and one of 10). The curriculum isn't always that interesting (they mostly have books with some vocabulary and dialogues which you have to drill every lesson), but we teach them through games and we also sing lots of songs, so the classes are generally pretty fun!

Anyway, that's all on what's happening here for now! I'm currently looking for an apartment, although the hostel is comfortable enough while I wait. Will keep you updated!