Rafting the Xiuguluan river, views of mountains and ocean

This weekend I was happy to join the party of young people for the Hualien county, on the Pacific side of Taiwan, to go rafting the Xiuguluan river. Well, you can write it, as usual, also as Siaokuluan, Hsiukuluan...webpage
http://202.39.225.132/jsp/Eng/html/travel_tour/
journey_content.jsp?journey_id=220
says something more about the river and the area. On the way there from Taipei we went through the mountains-Northeast Coastal Highway-steep and curwy road, something as driving through Velebit in old days, but higher and longer. When you arrive to the Ocean, near the city of Suao, views are really magnificent! Road is carved into the marble rock up to 1000 m above the Ocean. Connect this to the manic pace of driving in Taiwan, and buses and trucks which on some curves hardly can pass each other...quite a ride!
But let me go slowly. Thanks to Meiyunn, a brotherly (sisterly!) soul I found in Taipei, I had an opportunity to join the party. I met with her in vicinity of her working place, which is near the most prominent place in Taipei:

No, Meiyunn is not working in New York...although the statue could suggest it. It is near "101" [name comes from the number of the elevations], instantly the tallest building in the world. It IS high, I can tell you. Some 560m or so, two heights of the Warsaw Daewoo, or more or less 2 to 3 times higher than this what you usually see as 'tall' in Europe. Impressive, really. It was not easy to catch at least this part of the building in the pic. The statue below just confirms my feeling this is 51st state of the USA and the building near the statue, accross "101" is "New York New York" store house.
Jack "Seven", one of the organizers, posted on his blog full photo record of the rafting trip, see http://spaces.msn.com/members/optiontaiwan4/ and pics posted 6/27/2005. Here only few of his pics, as my camera is not waterproof, and I knew there will be some swimming... Preparations were serious:

Start was like this:

Water was sometimes quite white, but not really BIG, this is only for tourists, anyway:

As I said, on Jack's page above is more pics, here I just post the final view:

The next day we were slowly returning towards Taipei, following coastal road, stopping to eat in virtually every place where possible :-). First for the sightseeing was a Lyu (=Carp) lake, come there when retired but not before, kind of Trakoscan in Croatia. Here are some of my companions in the trip, Jack "Seven" was an engine for the party, and also for the pics-here in the middle:

In the next pic, in a black shirt is MonLisa, who coordinated the organisation with Jack, and explained everything so wonderfully in our bus...in merry Chinese ;-), I like very much her Chinese, brilliantly clear-cut, almost that I'd understand everything even without Meiyunn's translation!

Big thanks to them, together with Meiyunn-here left to me! She provided, as a professional, lots of info about local food and customs. She also learned something about Taiwan from my example of Lonely Planet during the trip, ;-).

Travelling further northeast, some more stops, chances for pics. In the Hualien harbour, near the army base, with Mirages cutting the sky and ears, remembering me to some "nice" sounds from 1991 and 1992...

But coast was a bit different than on Pag:

Magnificent view...unfortunately no swimming as waves sweep everything towards the deep water. And Taiwan is not near the continent shelf, so that water is at once DEEP. For those who do not know Pacific, please note how high is the steep part of the coast in the second pic.

Anyway, if I'd be alone, I'd for sure go to swim! Water was quite pleasant. Stones on the coast were so hot that I could not walk barefoot for more than few meters. I like Pacific, it is more pleasant Ocean that Atlantic, for my taste. Resembles biiiiig Adriatic, because of the more pleasant color, in a difference to Atlantic which more resembled Balaton lake. But, then, I never saw Carribean seas, ask me after I see them :-).
In one temple along the way, this big guy was guarding the "money" (fake money used to be burnt in the ceremony which is to relate that "ghost money" to the deceased relatives). Usually big guys are "having" the money...sigh.

In front of the entrance...somebody said something about the red lanterns?

Food was one of contents of the trip, certainly! Taiwanese LOVE to eat! And it is justified: food is really good, it is true what is written in Lonely Planet: heaven for those who like SEasian kitchen(s). (Za 'rvate: skampi tu kostaju ko girice!)

In the city of Suao, small beach:

In the right side of the pic visible are the anti-desant blocks-Taiwan is always ready...
In front of Suao there is a small vulcanic "Turtle island", it was in the edge of the possibilities of my zoom, so sorry for the "Lego" effect on the boat in the front plan of the pic...

The small port of Suao:

Jack was insisting I should sing kala-ok (karaoke) with him, so we joined to ruin the Sinatra's "My way". We managed, hehehe, enjoy the pic, not the frequent one! And be happy I did not add the audio file :-}

Heading east, I was taking some pics from the bus:

It IS jungle!

Curves are sharp:

Walley and mountains...waste, rather empty area. I would like to hike these mountains.

.

Art, rain, and flowers

Just some rather dispersed impressions of the last weekend.

Weather was on the verge of raining, so we decided to stay local, and visited marsh near the harbour of Taichung. Most of the coast here looks similar to this. Lots of people is picking different stuff in the mud. Also, lots of crabs are making their way through it. It goes hundreds of meters in the direction of the sea. Protection of the coast-line (does the water ever come up to here?) seems good for jogging.

For the bikers there is a bicycle track:

At the horizon I saw the white crests of the high waves (it was qite windy), that was the only hint of the sea, visible from the coast line.

After the marsh, we went to the Taichung county seaport art center, where was an exibition of the contemporary art-not much different from what you could see in Berlin or Warsaw. In the courtyard I found this family...style almost like in Potsdam, Germany, on the Brandenburger str.

People come here to enjoy Sunday with the family

BIG lotus leafs and flowers

Flower, which opens only for one day-this one is still waiting for that day to come, but is already beautiful

After it opens, very fast it goes into seeds, which are then used as e.g. stuffing material for medical pillows. Whole plant of the lotus is possible to use for various purposes.

After a looong walk, deserved rest:

Hills behind Taichung

Thanks to friend-of-a-friend, this Sunday I had chance for my first meeting with the hills here. We went to some farm-restaurant atop the hills behind Taichung. Roads steeper than in Slovenia, new Mazda jeep-like sweetie of a car did it without any bad sound.

Food in the La Fatte restaurant was mmmmm! Only be careful with putting the red powder on the pasta, it is not sweet but quite hot paprika powder-at least for my palate, not used to spicy food. I learned to eat sea-food, it seems, I can eat some things which I probably would not touch in Croatia. Taiwan is really heaven for food delicacies!

We came up to 1000m above the sea level. Nature scenery: that of a Wietnam-war movies. Beautiful. We were lucky with the weather, and although it was cloudy and raining all the morning, during our visit hills remained dry, and view was magnificent.

Forest is full of betel-nut trees, which are, unfortunately, not good for the soil, they have too shallow roots, and in the rainy season landlides are often there where people plant it. But it is 2bln US$/year bussiness in Taiwan, and nobody would leave that easily!
Restaurants atop (there is more of them) are eagle's nests:

Pictures of Taichung from the tops here were too dim to be shown here, I'll add some views of the city from another walk around-or rather ride-around the city:

It is really line which is almost continuous to Taipei, some 150 km north-eastwards. Lots of buildings, lots of people. Here lives population of former Yugoslavia (23 mln) on the area of a bit more than half of the Croatia! Here you can see how it looks.

From one of the parks above the city, you can see the sea:

In the park some bunker, yes, Big Brother is never far enough...

People go out to catch some fresh air, here above the city, where pollution is not so big.

Well, see me in quite an unusual 'edition', I'd never expect myself sightseeing some city called Taichung on a scooter!

Flavor of local life-Taichung County

As you all know, I do not like tourism [viva la 'Usi gore Winnetou', anti-turistica Istriana!], so when my friend from Taichung asked if I'd spend sunday morning with her in the 'party' which her hospital organised , I accepted with joy. The best chance to see how they do such things here-it was about collecting money for the people who can not pay medical care, as I understood. Hospital staff wass selling food, beverages and different small things which you can usually meet in such places. Behind me in that pic (please, no comments that my eyes got chinese-like, it was because of sun :-) !) you can see the usual setup for such events.

It was a hot day, but enthusiasm was high. Kids also had their part.

Somebody was complaining that I am not giving people on the pics I post. So I'll correct it a bit now. Little cutie here seemed to be uneasy about strange white man taking her pic.

Not too strange as I was the only Western man there... Kids are cute everywhere.

Behind the kid you see nurses from the hospital, 'uniform' of the fest was white T-shirt with some hospital inscription...I had my 'Komarep' T-shirt which matched the spirit of the day :-).
Some had other animals, my host had dinosaurs :-)

These girls were waiting for their turn on the stage

But now I should stop with the kids not to join Jackson in front of the jury ... as we know it is dangerous these days to make even the pics of your own kids.
After the duty-fest (people were very kind to me; nurses are cuties, mmmm!) we went to enjoy Taichung County (thanks Meiyunn for the correction, it is not the Taichung city itself, but one of the towns in the outskirts or Taichung) on our own, sharing the portions of every food Janice thought I could manage to eat :-).Well, almost everything I managed at least to try.

It was beautiful day, we went to the campus of the old Tunghai (東大) university, which is a nice park

Janice said it is quite crowdy around the church for the Christmas party, and this church is a landmark in the Campus.

I was delighted to see old classic pavilions, obviously from the "fan era" of education here (i.e. before air-condition), classrooms around the courtyard, as in the colonial era movies.

After the campus, we went to the town. Sunday afternoon, crowdy streets, but pleasant crowd, mostly 'on hunt' for some delicacy, and choice was really rich.

This street was uphill, I would not like to drive car in that crowd.

Flavor of 'architecture':

This one I named 'cardak', for 'turkish' speakers :-).

Here is view of the Taichung city from the hill. It is different than Hsinchu, more pleasant, as streets are wider and there is more place. It is built more recently, during the Japanese rule, 1895-1945 (usually it means much better infrastructure than in the old Chinese towns).

Greetings from the passage over the street:

ps. about health care and retirement system here. Hestia, Alliance and similar will just start to take their share here, until this year there was no ANY retirement insurance. It is in fact part of the culture here, people take care that their kids would be well educated as then when they are old, kids are able to take care of them. It matches also the Chinese family ties, which are much stronger than in present West. But also constraining, I must say, and often I found it frustrating for the young people. They expect to have the style of life similar to what they see in TV (they really LEARN from TV, for them it is not redundant as we are used to think about it, my dear friends), and model for that is not Chinese, but Murdoch-like. Hair up, yes, but that's St. Reality. So, just about now government enforces some retirement system, as there is more and more cases that people do not have anyone to take care for them when they are old (action in the hospital was mostly for older patients). But I am sure here'll be lots of perturbations still about it. I wish them luck.