Usual hot Sunday

Hot day-more than 30 cels-but I decided to be heroic and go biking. Uhhhh. I went to the closeby Botanical garden near the Baoshan Road.
On the way there, behind the area of my home, are such buildings. I was already commenting funny tops of the buildings-here further example.

On the way there is also the cemetary... I promised to make better pic, here it is:

Note the black goats. Good use of the graveyard, and the appropriate animal.
Botanical garden...echm, pics like this could arouse somebody with strong botanical inclinations:

But not me. As you know I'd prefer beautiful girl in topless below the tree ;-). The Garden itself is not very well maintained, it is more an addition to the "18 peaks mountain" park, which is accross the road. Btw., there are some structures near that entrance, and now I have the task to find what were these tunels for:

It seems as some old mine, with such elements inside the tunels:

I can not offer you some 'exotic' views as after that drive I chosed to escape to my beloved, air-conditioned working place :-). Only one interesting thing: as here is more mopeds than cars, such shortcuts for mopeds (and bicycles :-) ) are wellcome invention

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This gives you a bit of the flavor of Hsinchu in hot spring day. For more today I'd need an air conditioned shell around my bike.

Taichung

This time a short non-pic note. Following some nice contact (via Internet), I went to Taichung (read Taichong, Taidzong) to meet somebody for a LE (language exchange). The city is 80km south of Hsinchu, more space there, and the pace of life seems to be slower. See http://taiwan.wcn.com.tw/en/taichung/ for some general info.

I went there for the 1st time just after the massive rains, and I tried train, for the 1st time here. After such rain in Europe there'd be no trains. Here it was just late, 20min. Later in TV I saw the railroad was flooded between Taipei and Hsinchu, completely.
But BUS is much better solution in Taiwan. Lots of them go in every direction in any city. This is also only half price of the train.

To activate myself by internet in search for friends here showed to be a good idea. People are so wokacholic here that I do not see another way. Pubs in the city I do not find attractive for going there alone, although some are nice places. But I prefer to go with some company ;-).

In meantime I learned - the best possible method ;-) - some Chinese... i recommend http://dictionary.reference.com/translate/text.html , you can copy whole short text in Chinese (classical) and obtain some result from which you will be able to understand the general meaning of the text.

Monsoon

Raining. For few days. And it is to rain for the next week, by 7-day forecast. When I say "raining" I mean RAINING. This means that every day I am at work with completely wet shoes. Fortunately, it is so warm that it does not bring getting cold or so-even at night temeperatures are above 20 cels.

It is not easy to make a good pic of it-usually I just try not to get too wet :-). Here is one of the small 'streams' at the beginning of my street, after heawy raining.

Usually it is only a small water canal near the freeway, as you can see in this pic taken few days later:

When it is really raining, water comes to the street, and it is about 20 cm of water everywhere.

Water pours to the street from every hole.

Raining or not, street dogs hide inside the buildings for night. Here are the dogs from NTHU Campus, sleeping in the entrance of the Library building (where my institute is located).

Nobody expells them. I am interested if they finish as a food some day. In a book 'Culture shock!' about Taiwan I found about dogs: "to sell dogs for food is prohibited. But then, pets still disappear ...". Hm. (mysle ze to bylby dwobritwannik, a?)

Ku Chi!

No, I do not want to go home (as the title, if you read in Croatian would suggest), I just in dismay watch in http://english.hccg.gov.tw/02/12/12-88.htm that they wrote it some new way. I saw at least 4 ways to write it today: Qu Qi, Gu Qi, GauQui or so. Street to lead to it was, changing constantly: Gao Cui, Gaofsui, the other Gaofong or Gaufung or Gao feng Rd, or and some other names I do not remember. I can tell you I learned the Chinese characters and went after them. This way I will really soon learn it!

Not far away from my place, but damn high for the bicycle on 30 cels, is the place where I will return often when here, I think. In the last post I wrote about 'Confucius statue' on the top of the hill, and promised to go closer. So I went to search for it today. And still can not shut my mouth properly. It is quite dangerous to play 'culture game' in China, you could be surprised, it IS a long and stunning history which they can present to you. It makes one feel numb after a while, so I took a small dose today, but will certainly come for more.

I would like to have had here Ms. Ducakijevic, my magnificent teacher of Art in the secondary school in Varazdin, she would have good fun.

So, the statue was not "Konfucius or so", it is Buddhistic. Marshal Guan's statue, 120 meters high, under (or rather inside) which is located Pu Tian Temple. At least that is info which you can find in the net. But I would give to it rather 20m, as is written in the Lonely Planet, and there is also written that it is Guanggong, war god. This much about reliability of the informations here. I will search further, sure. But now I will do it as a real tourist guide, for all of you: When I finally found the place, at once I was greeted by this special Chinese sense of syncretism:

And the big guy itself is worth seeing closer:

Inside the statue should be-according to Lonely Planet-collection of art, but it did not seem to be opened at the time when I was there. I saw the stairs inside the temple, which is below the back of the big man. Temple is crazy as usually they are here, full of deities and colors and scents, but pics from it some next time, it was sunday afternoon and quite a crowd inside, I do not like to play "Japanese" with my camera inside such places. Near the big one is few of the smaller temples or just rooms for "smaller" deities. One (right side below in the pic above) for three buddhas is here:

And it is guarded by this beautiful thing, made of the roots of the tree:

All around the big statue is park with thousands of statues, but not only buddhistic, Egiptian or so, no, there is even...yes, that is the Dame from New York, and around are some Greek guys also, I think I saw statue of Nelson also. Kitchy, but place is crazy and you could wander there for hours and have fun.

Under the courtyard of the big temple is (part of the?) collection of Chinese (not so ancient) art which you could not believe they'd gathered in such place. This one is classical thing,

but inside you can find also magnificent wood-carvings (my younger uncle would love this one! Goran and Spela, show it to him!)

Marionettes are magnificent in China, these are classical examples:

Inside you can find stuffed animals and Chinese vases and lots of other stuff, but this I left for the next wanderings there.

In the garden are other temples, I found one empty at the time, so I took some pics:

These temples you enter not from the front, but from the side doors. In front of the deity from above, is a "guard", represented in big, grotesque figures, which reminded me to Kurenti in Stajerska (Steiermark) part of Slovenia:

Right from the main "altar" is this small one, it is the usual appearance of such smaller altars.

I have to check, but this is probably some other deity, as you can imagine in Buddhism. Generally these temples on that hill are for the people who want to pray for the success in business or so.
There is one hangar full of the wooden, stone, jade etc. figures near the temple...literally hundreds of them. It is so full that they have such 'rubbish' in the garden, under the open sky:

Yes, this in the background is tens of them one near another, and this is just small part of the garden which is all around the temples.

As I said, I think I will often visit the place, especially as it is in the road to the backgrounds of Hsinchu, in the hills towards the 3km mountains.

Biking around

Today I decided to take the bike tour to the coast again. Last time I saw small eastern part of it and was not delighted, people said western part is better. Btw. somebody revealed to me in email it's 1st of May (I would forgot)-here I did not notice anything connected with the date. They seem not to go for it. I had ideal weather, around 30-35 cels, windy.
Few clean days-finally-and ocassion to see that Hsinchu is really surrounded by mountains:

Here is view (from behind) to the cemetary-yes, this simple. Usually some hill between industrial facilities or so. There must be something of karmic spirit in this, I mean, this place rather has spirit of some old jewish cemetary in Pariska ulica in Czech capital, Prague.

Following the road through the outskirts of the "18 Mountains Park", which is quite nice (and finally without crowd) I tried to find my way out of the city.

Notice dense packing of the plants...it is jungle. And here again some bamboo

(Yes Jacek, I know it is not very interesting, but, then, not everybody was driving the motorcycle like crazy through the jungles and heights of South Asia as you, so even this could give them some hint what's on here.) Today I understood the Chinese and Japanese obesession with bamboo and sounds: when it is windy sounds in the forest, produced by clinging of these fantastic rods are incredible! You could get scared when alone in the forest, sure! Sometimes it is as whispers, sometimes strong blows...anything alike I ever heard!

That we are in the land of Konfucius, we can see easily, as somebody is watching us-see the top of the hill! Figure must be quite high-I'll try to go closer there in some next tour. Impressive. In fact, Buddha or Confucius or..., I do not know, but seems rather Confucius-like.

Some exotic views just nearby the road:

After some hour-two of wandering (map did not help, I made at least 20 km too much, at the end even I had to climb quite steep hills to come to the shore), again quite disappointing view (it was low water):

Maybe after Pag I am too demanding? This was part of the "famous" (here in Taiwan, by the tourist folders) "The Coastline cycling trail", in some parts it looks as this:

But then, there are very unconvenient parts of it, or even complete missing of the road, path or so in some parts (where it should exist, by the map). It will be complete one day, I am sure, but it is not yet, believe me. Btw. I met nobody on bike there today.
View a bit right from the path...

More enlightened ones will recognize old-fashioned bunker. No, I did not invent teleport and shifted to Hoxha's Albania or Ceausescu's Rumunia. They have such 'defence line' along the coast towards China, probably since 50ies. No comments. Fields are rice fileds, yes.
Back to the city and some exotic again

I again witnessed one of usual processions through the streets-it was near the small temple from one of my previous posts. Petards, fantastic costumes, dancing with giant figures. Something to see, really! But it was too dark to make a pic, next time.

Streets are alive here, in a pleasant way. Here is one pic from the center of the city yesterday at 2PM or so (again beer-drinking meeting of Croatian fellow expat), scuter drivers are like this girl, usually with the mask on the face (pollution!).

Something about climate: 2 hours later a shower outside! Never I would say it could rain today. When I feel day after day that "it will rain, NOW" then there is no rain for the whole week. And today, when I'd give my leg for a bet that rain is impossible, water is just pouring like crazy outside. Completely different set of weather prediction 'signs'!