It's Monday night again...

... and I'm sitting in my office, updating my blog ...

How are you guys and gals? Thanks for your comments and e-mails! It's really nice to get some feedback after spending so much time writing all this stuff. Thanks!

Last weekend, Christof, Birgit and I went to Central Taiwan. To TaiZhong and LuGang, to be exact. But since getting up early on a Saturday morning is really hard, we ended up arriving in TaiZhong later than anticipated and had to cancel part of our plans. After walking around for a long time and getting ripped off by taxi drivers a couple of times, we decided it would be best for us to just spend the rest of the day in TaiZhong instead of heading out to Changhua. Cheers!


After some food and beer - quote waitress: "You know that that's beer, right?" - we went to the botanical garden which belongs to the Museum of Natural Sciences. It's really quite small, though. There was a fairly large greenhouse with a tropical rain forest - no, they did not need to heat it, the windows were open - which featured a really cool elevator to the tree tops, which was closed, some mosquitoes (I think I got bitten 6 times in there) and a couple of smaller exhibits. Not too amazing, but still pretty.


So we went and bought some terribly expensive Bubble Milk Tea at the cafe which supposedly invented it. Quite yummay!


The quarter of town was called the European District and was a little side street about 100m long. Quite pretty, though. But I guess going to Taiwan to see something European is a bit off, eh?

After having another beer we went to our hotel to get some rest before heading out to Xaga, the biggest nightclub in town. Dominik, another participant in this exchange program, and his Taiwanese friend Naomi joined us. Earlier, we had heard from a Taiwanese waitress that her Dutch boyfriend had been beaten up by the same club's bouncers just a couple of weeks ago and was still in hospital. Maybe that's why, as soon as we got there, the manager came up to us, gave us free admission, free drink vouchers and free shots... And then we were taken pictures of and presented to the crowd - PR... It was a cool party, though and se Tschermens danced until the lights turned on.
Apparently, TaiZhong has a fairly large problem with organized crime and half the clubs are locked down by police at the moment. There even was a checkpoint right in front of the club we went to. Ah well, we had fun!

The next day, we got up fairly early and caught a bus to LuGang, a very old harbor town about 1hr 45mins from Taichung. It's really incredible how many really interesting sites there are in LuGang. And the coolest thing is the relaxed-ness of the town. It's fairly small - I'd guess below 100,000 citizens - and appears very authentic and not at all touristy. It is as if the locals hardly cared about the tourists that come to visit.
Here's the entrance to a larger side street off what appeared to be the main road through LuGang (which, of course, was called ZhongShan Rd.)


Walking around, which we did all day, we came by a bunch of abandoned houses, this one had it's windows conveniently open.


In LuGang, it used to be tradition for the richer families to get completely drunk off of wine, when their daughters married. As a means of 'recycling' and displaying their wealth and the party, the empty wine jars were then used for construction, see below.


That's such a typical picture in smaller town Taiwan.


By chance, we came by an old teacher's house which had been built a hundred years ago or so. I think the guy's name was Qing, but I'd have to check to be sure. He was one of the main scholars of Taiwanese cultures at the time and had a really amazing mansion which consited of several buildings that were arranged almost temple-style. Here's the inside of what appeared to be the office.


As a scholar, he, of course, had to know how to draw!


Outside the building, Birgit was attacked by friendly Taiwanese people who wanted to take pictures with her. I was invited, too, as you can see from the picture...


Then we continued walking. Here's a place called nine turns lane, a really narrow little road with many lanes. The little "skyway" there belongs to the house of the 10 entertainments. There, people used to do all sorts of stuff, amongst which were appreciating flowers (which, in traditional Chinese cultures are presented by hot chicks, pardon my French), drinking lots of alcohol, smoking tabacco and gambling. The Chinese really know how to appreciate life.


This temple is dedicated to MatSu, the goddess of the sea, I believe. It is said to be the oldest such in Taiwan, built in the late 18th century. It was really small and not all too fancy, but really nice.


To the right of the entrance, you could see this dragon...


And right next to the temple, a beautiful example on the dilapitatedness of some houses here


which is further exemplified by this picture:


Then we continued on to LongShan (DragonMountain) temple, the oldest temple in all of Taiwan. It was built in the mid 18th century and then moved to a different location in the early 19th century. In the so-called 921 earthquake of September 21, 1999, many interesting places in Taiwan were severely damaged. This temple is no exception and they are still working on rebuilding it. While we were there, there was a group of old ladies performing some sort of trance singing and praying. That was nuts and sounded so cool! Also, the temple itself is the largest in Taiwan and is sometimes referred to as Taiwan's forbidden city. Just beautiful.



After LongShan, we went to Wentai Academy, the "birthplace of Taiwanese culture", which encompasses a school, a shrine and a temple. Wow, there's too much to say about this place, look it up on Wikipedia or something. :-P



Inside the shine sat the good old god of war, who is also a saint for all people in commerce because of his superior calculating skills and his honesty. There he is, the old fella.


In case you were wondering, what Chinese graveyards look like, here you go.


And if you'd like to install your own little shrine in your living room, I suggest you check out this place. Kinda reminded me of a piano store, the first time I saw it.


And here's a very typical Taiwanes road scenario. Sorry for the shaken picture, I had to be quick.


Later in the evening, we grabbed some food in the nightmarket, which wasn't really a night market. Mmmh, yummy! Note the lack of a sidewalk. Everybody shares the road.


Mhhh, Papaya Milk!


The busride back to TaiZhong was really uncomfortable, the subsequent one to TaiBei a little better. I don't like going by bus. But it's soooo cheap here! 5 Euros to go from TaiBei to TaiZhong! And 2 Euros from TaiZhong to LuGang. Nuts!

Today was very busy again, as usual. Language course in the morning, work afterwards and now some blogging and learning Chinese. I really want to keep it up when I'm in Germany, it's such an interesting language!

I don't really have any plans yet for this week, there's a lot of work to do for my project here and my final presentation has to be done next Friday. So I guess, I'll do some TaiBei tourist stuff this weekend, maybe go surfing, hiking and to some hot springs. They're everywhere here. I also still want to go the the National Palace Museum, the Zoo and take the Maokong Gondola up to the tea houses up on the mountains around Taibei. Should be cool!

Have a good one everybody!