Trip to Taichung

Hey guys,

unfortunately, I'm far behind with my blog entries. This trip was already three weeks ago, the weekend after I found my new room. I went together with Monica (my buddy), her boyfriend PJ, Nil, Ines and Geoffrey (also exchange students) to Taichung, Taiwan's third biggest city.

 Day 1

We left from Taipei by bus at 11 in the morning, and due to some traffic jams, it took us 5 hours to get to Taichung. After we put our luggage in the hotel, it was already 5, and we were starving. Our original plan was to look at a museum first (it was a very rainy weekend), but since our bus took two hours longer then expected, we decided to go directly to Taichung's most famous attraction: the Feng Chia night market. This night market is said to be the biggest night market in Taiwan.

After we arrived at the night market, we started working our way through the many shops and street vendors:

Left: A typical street vendor; one person prepares the food in the back, another person fries or roasts the food in front of the customer.

Right: The first thing I did at the night market: eat! There were so many different kinds of food, mostly Taiwanese and Japanese snacks, such as rice balls, tempura, squid balls, the usual fried chicken, fried rice and fried noodles, dumplings, glass sweets, cream waffles and of course the ever present stinky tofu.

Here you can see the size of the night market. Because of the tons of people, it was very difficult to move forward.

Next to food you can also find clothes, phone cases, etc. on a night market. Just like the other items, the motor helmets on the pictures are very 'Asian' style.

Taichung has around 1 million inhabitants. In my opinion, the number is higher. All the streets were full of people, and it seemed much more crowded than in Taipei.

After the night market we went back to the hotel. Since we booked only 1 week ahead, it was difficult to find a room. We ended up in a questionable establishment; the room probably hadn't been cleaned in months and cockroaches were crawling out of the shower... It was hands down the worst hotel I ever stayed in!

Day 2

We got up early to take the bus to our next station: the Formosan aboriginal culture village, located in the mountains that surround Taichung. The Aborigines were the first inhabitants of Taiwan and arrived here around 8000 years ago. Later, when the Japanese colonized Taiwan, they were surpressed and hunted. Nowadays, the Aborigines are still living on the border of the society, but they are trying to integrate by showing their culture to tourists.

When we arrived, we were in for a surprise: the so-called 'aboriginal culture village' was not an actual Aborigine village, it was an amusement park. I already noticed on several occasions that 'culture' does not entail the same meaning in Taiwan as it does in Europe. Here, culture is something that you can take a nice picture of and that can entertain you. An amusement park with a kitschy baroque castle next to aboriginal houses, several roller coasters and artificial lakes fits this description of culture perfectly:

As you can see in the picture below, it's cherry blossom time at the moment. 

After spending the day at the amusement park and trying out several roller coaster (despite the constant rain), we took a gondola over the mountains, to our next station: the Sun Moon lake.

This lake is one of Taiwan's most popular tourist spots, and the biggest lake here. On the lake's shores, there used to be several Aboriginal tribes villages, of which some still exist today. Our original plan was to walk along the lake and enjoy the scenery. But since it was raining non-stop, we decided to go to our hotel right away.

Because there was a lot of traffic jams, it took us 2 hours to get to our hotel. This hotel was located in a little village, and it was pitch dark and empty when we arrived. This time we were very happy with the room, which was clean and simple. It was part of a little appartment, so we also had a living room and kitchen to stay in. Other than us, there was a Taiwanese family staying at the appartment. They were very nice, and invited us to our first Taiwanese tea ceremony.

Later that night, Monica taught us how to play Majong, which is a traditional Chinese game. I really enjoyed it and decided to bring a souvenir majong game home.

Day 3

We spent the third day relaxing at the village, which was called Checheng. It was very beautiful there, despite the rain and fog.

The village used to be a big logging producer in Taiwan, but now its main industry is tourism.

There were lots of old, abandoned trains, left behind by the logging companies.

A wood museum presented the history of the village in a very Taiwanese way (the gift shop of the museum was bigger than the actual museum).

Monica and I made our own woodboxes. Feeling like a child again!

In the afternoon, we took a train back to Taichung. From Taichung we took the bus to Taipei. This was our first trip outside of Taipei, and I hope there's still more to come!

My apartment

Hey everyone! Sorry for the late entry.

Two weeks ago I finally found an apartment. But before that, I went through some trouble...

After looking at so many dark and small rooms, and dealing with strange and creepy landlords, I was getting a little bit nervous and made a rash decision: I looked at a room that seemed quite nice and incredibly cheap - for a change - and immediately afterwards agreed to renting the room. The next day I was ecstatic and instantly moved in. After two hours I realized why the price of the apartment was so low: a small layer of mold, almost invisible to the naked eye, covered a whole wall! In my misfortune there was however a stroke of luck: I hadn't signed a contract and it was possible to move out the same day.

And, the day after this, I finally found a nice apartment, in a new, mold-free building! It's a bit more expensive, but at it's a nice, relatively big room with several windows:

By the way, the picture quality this time is not that good, I know. That's because I brought the wrong camera charger with me and have to take pictures from my phone now...

But, back to my new apartment. The most notable thing about the new room is the neighbourhood it is in: despite the dirty little alleys that are crowded with hundreds of motorcycles (something you can see in all parts of New Taipei City), it has its charms. For starters, my house is located between a small, eerie sweatshop (the women only sew the clothes at night...) and some sort of temple that always exhales a strong incense scent. Here you can see my street (on a rainy day). It's hard to imagine a new, clean house in between, but I can assure you, it's there!

The street connects two bigger, parallel streets with each other. The first parallel street is filled with food vendors that sell all kinds of different foods, from dumpling and pig intestines to bubble tea and donuts. Next to the food vendors, there are several restaurants, some small barber shops (something very typical in New Taipei City), at least three temples and even a small park (see on the picture).

The other street contains the Sanchong night market. Night markets can be found all over Taiwan. As the name suggests, these are markets that are only open at night, and most vendors sell local snacks and clothes. I already tried a lot of these snacks, and I will tell you a bit more about them in one of the following weeks.

In the morning, the street contains a normal market, where you can buy fruit, vegetables, fish and meat. I already bought a lot of fruit there, which gave me some opportunities to practise my Chinese! The vendors usually don't speak any English, so I have to communicate with them through hand gestures and the little Chinese I already know. It's not only then that I realize I'm a real stranger here. Sometimes, when I walk through the streets in my neighborhood, I notice that everyone is staring at me.

Finally, I'd like to show you where my apartment is located in Taipei. I already mentioned that I live in New Taipei City. Here, the houses are small and gray, there are not a lot of foreigners on the streets and the roads are filled with motorcycles instead of cars. But this is the 'real' Taipei, were the common people live. Below, you can see an MRT map. The MRT is the metro of Taipei and I use it every day to get to university. Below, you can see the MRT station close to my house, the university, and the start of the city center.

So, this is it for today. I hope I'll be able to write the next entry soon, to tell you about my trip to Taichung two weekends ago (after I found my new room).