Adventure
Near the end of my second week alone in Taiwan I decided to make the most of my day off and do something Justin would probably hate. I got up early and went to Guandu, which is a town just south of Danshui that may or may not be part of Taipei City. I went first to see the 17th-century temple (these are not my pictures, by the way, since I don't have a camera):
Justin's attitude towards temples is "you've seen one, you've seen 'em all" and I generally agree, but this was pretty special. The front building is the old temple, and in the back you can see part of a giant, newer one. There are many parts of the temple you cannot see in the picture, however, like the weird long caves full of god statues, the gardens, and the creepy GIANT ANIMATRONIC moving dioramas of Matsu and her helper-gods saving people from things, which were like ghetto religious "It's a Small World" set-ups. Complete with actual water falling down as rain and unusually loud music. The picture also doesn't show the local ladies on the bus freaking out about seeing a white person (I only saw one other foreigner in the town) and accompanying me to the temple (they were headed there anyway) where they aggressively "helped" me do the incense praying thing. Well, the temple was very amazing, and the cherry blossoms were starting to come out and it was beautiful. I also went to the Guandu Nature Park:
Which was fantastic and really huge. It preserves the wetlands along the river (and the last remaining rice paddies in Taipei County) and has tons of great birds and flowers and etc. I really enjoyed walking around in the park on such a sunny, breezy day, and going to the Education Center, which is that big building, to learn about Nature and History. One weird thing is that a lot of the marsh/wetland birds at Guandu are the same ones we have in the Bay Area wetlands parks (although Guandu has many special ones, too). My fantastic trip to this park made me want to do more outdoors things here, since Taiwan is known for it's natural beauty. However, it's very unusual to get such perfect weather.
I've also been cooking a lot more since I've been alone, specifically trying to find out the abilities of our toaster over. Last night I made an apple crisp in it that was SO GREAT. I also made breaded chicken a few days ago and took some with me for my picnic lunch today, yum yum. My biggest toaster-oven failure was drop biscuits, but I think that was more because I don't have measuring spoons than because of any problem with Mr. T.O. I think I'll make a tuna melt and maybe even more apple crisp tonight. Stickin' with what works.
I really miss Justin but I am making more of a success of my bachelor life than I feared I would. Nevertheless, I can't wait to join him in the US and see my hometown and Bean and some of you! Only a week and a few days left to wait.
Justin's attitude towards temples is "you've seen one, you've seen 'em all" and I generally agree, but this was pretty special. The front building is the old temple, and in the back you can see part of a giant, newer one. There are many parts of the temple you cannot see in the picture, however, like the weird long caves full of god statues, the gardens, and the creepy GIANT ANIMATRONIC moving dioramas of Matsu and her helper-gods saving people from things, which were like ghetto religious "It's a Small World" set-ups. Complete with actual water falling down as rain and unusually loud music. The picture also doesn't show the local ladies on the bus freaking out about seeing a white person (I only saw one other foreigner in the town) and accompanying me to the temple (they were headed there anyway) where they aggressively "helped" me do the incense praying thing. Well, the temple was very amazing, and the cherry blossoms were starting to come out and it was beautiful. I also went to the Guandu Nature Park:
Which was fantastic and really huge. It preserves the wetlands along the river (and the last remaining rice paddies in Taipei County) and has tons of great birds and flowers and etc. I really enjoyed walking around in the park on such a sunny, breezy day, and going to the Education Center, which is that big building, to learn about Nature and History. One weird thing is that a lot of the marsh/wetland birds at Guandu are the same ones we have in the Bay Area wetlands parks (although Guandu has many special ones, too). My fantastic trip to this park made me want to do more outdoors things here, since Taiwan is known for it's natural beauty. However, it's very unusual to get such perfect weather.
I've also been cooking a lot more since I've been alone, specifically trying to find out the abilities of our toaster over. Last night I made an apple crisp in it that was SO GREAT. I also made breaded chicken a few days ago and took some with me for my picnic lunch today, yum yum. My biggest toaster-oven failure was drop biscuits, but I think that was more because I don't have measuring spoons than because of any problem with Mr. T.O. I think I'll make a tuna melt and maybe even more apple crisp tonight. Stickin' with what works.
I really miss Justin but I am making more of a success of my bachelor life than I feared I would. Nevertheless, I can't wait to join him in the US and see my hometown and Bean and some of you! Only a week and a few days left to wait.