A walk in the park - 27 April 2014

Jenny had offered to take us for a walk on a local hill a few weeks back but we were pretty tired or ill and decided to post pone. We asked if this weekend was good for her and she was happy to oblige. She even fetched us in a car, which we didn't know she had (or had access to). She's a really great CT to work with, always helpful and willing to go out of her way. I guess it helps her to practice her English too.

It was fantastic to get out into a more natural environment. DaJia, even though it is considered a small town is very built up and we aren't near to any parks or green areas. Coming from South Africa, this can be quite depressing. I hope that once we get a scooter we will be able to find some places to chill where it is nice and green and perhaps a little quieter than DaJai itself, with the Mazu temple's fireworks constantly exploding in your ears.

It was also great to get a bit of exercise that didn't involve walking to and from work. Jenny had just gotten over a cold and we were quite worried when she seemed very out of breath half way up quite a steep climb. I was also quite surprised at how easily we made it up, not having done any specific exercise since leaving SA.

Jenny and Renalda

Jenny and Mark (perhaps I should get a different hat)

Gotta dig those Virbams ;)

Really beautiful landscaping

It looks like a vygie!!

Walking in a maze of what looks like jasmin bushes

I can't remember the name of the goddess

Renalda trying her hand at pole dancing... I mean climbing ;)

The only wildlife we saw

Steam train in DaJia - 26 April 2014

We were on our way to Taichung last Saturday when this rolled by. Couldn't resist taking a few pics. It left when we were on our train and we noticed that it had an electric locomotive hooked on the back. All of the joy of the puff puff, without having to build up steam. The train left on time, no need to shovel coal frantically ;)

Perhaps I can convince Renalda that we should take a steam train trip :D

I'd love to take a trip with one of these

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Mazu leaves DaJia - 6 April

One of the Chinese teachers, Jenny, who is originally from DaJia invited us to walk around DaJia during the Mazu festival. We were treated to thousands of people lining up for free food and many interesting sights, sounds, smells and tastes.

A food tent erected in the street to feed the hungry hoards

From left: Michelle, George, myself and Jenny having a free vegetarian lunch

Not having had enough rice and noodles we went to an even bigger tent where the rest of the hoard was eating.

A massive food tent

Apparently when Mazu leaves DaJia the free food is vegetarian, but when she returns it includes meat.
We then met up with some of Jenny's family who showed us a shortcut into the Mazu temple. It was milling with hundreds of people and smelled strongly of incense, so strongly that my eyes were watering and I had an occasional sneezing fit. We thought we may as well go the whole hog, so we lit a bunch of incense sticks. Jenny told us to put three here and there in the proper order. It was very interesting and the architecture was amazing. Very intricate and beautiful.

Inside the Mazu temple, lighting incence

Inside the temple at one of the shrines

One of the shrines outside the temple, and the thousands of people

Intricate artwork

I must admit that while it was interesting I was happy to get out for the sake of my eyes and throat!

These are our new pieces of heaven, they are crispy sweet potato balls. Very yummy

We walked around looking at the foods and other items available for sale. It was pretty, thirsty and hungry work. We bought some of the sweet potato balls above to share with Jenny and George, but George appeared not to like them! We were pretty surprised. Perhaps we have different taste to many western people. Renalda and I are pretty open to trying new things, good when you are in a new country and don't know what it is that you are pointing at. If it tastes good it's all good!

These cyclists will follow Mazu from Dajia South and return with her in 2 weeks

We got to see a few of these dragons whirling around

And I've been corrected that this is a Buddha 

Renalda really wanted to talk to the Buddha

I couldn't resist getting a pic with a black Buddha who has white arms ;)

Another dragon

We then walked around a bit more, got some free supper and some watermelon, before calling it a night. On the way home we saw this game. It's gambling, you buy a bunch of rings and try to throw the rings onto the bottles, if you do you win that bottle. Not unlike horseshoe throwing games or some of the fun fair games we see on American movies.

Throw to win

It was a good, but tiring day.

A little bit of DaJia madness

Last weekend (29th and 30th of March) there was a festival of some sort in DaJia. We thought it was the buildup to the Mazu Festival, where Mazu, the Chinese goddess of the sea, takes worshipers on an annual pilgrimage to the south of the island. We woke up to loud music and more fireworks than usual and when we looked out the window, this is what we saw.

Pimped up rides downstairs

I know what you did last summer! You pimped your ride!

Interesting

Hellraiser. Note the Momo shop in the background!!

Talking about Momo, it is a toiletries/pharmacy store which is about 40m from us as the crow flies. We live above it and they play the most annoying song over and over and over again!! It's about 30s long and they seem to have it on repeat! I found myself humming it in one if my classes.

Other than the captain South Africa on the car...what the!!?

This is usually the street leading past the temple

I think this is one of Mazu's general friends, they were demons she defeated

The other general/demon

Dancing and fireworks are the order of the day!

So it turns out that this didn't have much to do with the Mazu festival. They just had some puppet shows and other performances on the week before the festival. I wish I could read Chinese, because a lot of information is missing and it's not always possible to ask someone.

And even then, when you ask a Chinese speaking teacher, you aren't sure if you got the correct answer or if they understood your question. Very frustrating! 

Renalda and I will start Chinese lessons soon, but we are using Anki to learn vocab, both spoken and written at the moment.

Fruit salad and yoghurt. Without a fridge the leftover watermelon went bad :(

Renalda felt my pain regarding something fresh and this is what we made! A fantastic fruit salad with drinking yoghurt. Not quite double cream greek, but it was awesome!

The view from our apartment...not exactly beautiful, but it's home

This is the view of the little town of DaJia from our bedroom window. Not so little really, a lot going on with a small town feel.

Fried naan bread thingy

Interesting pancakes, that reminded us of naan bread, really yummy, with lots of oil!

Too much fried food!! ;)

Supper, fried chicken, fish balls and pancake naan...scrumptious! I promise we do eat veggies!

Can I have some familiar food please!

We watched Treasure Island yesterday and Orlando Bloom's character, Ben is stranded on the island for three years. He has an unnatural desire for cheese! "Cheese is like a piece of heaven!" That's how we feel right now! I want some decent cheese with my omelette, and some real cream in my coffee and what about something fresh and raw?! Don't get me wrong Taiwanese food is fantastic and it IS fresh, but it's not raw. It's not that crispy cool salad with nuts and peppers and crunchy carrots. It's all cooked! 

So what? Make yourself a salad then! Well we don't have a fridge at the moment which means most of the ingredients to make a decent salad will go off! Did I mention double cream greek yoghurt?! So we can't make a salad! 

We tried a Korean restaurant the other day, and I ordered a "salad." It consisted of, onions, spring onions and sweet corn! Renalda had a bibimbap, which was actually pretty awesome, it comes in a thick steel bowl and is still sizzling when they place it in front of you. The rice at the bottom congeals and gets fried into a crispy delicious crust which is a little crunchy and a little chewy, but fabulously tasty. I had serious order envy! I had a few bites ;)

We also had a Korean hotpot at our downstairs food vendor, and tried a 1000 year old egg. The hot pot was something like a moerby stew, with everything under the sun in it. We ordered one with beef, but found pieces of fish, shellfish and other unidentified morsels in it. The egg varied in colour from translucent turquoise to black and grey. It's consistency was a little chewy, runny in places and powdery in others and it tasted like strong blue cheese mixed with stinky egg and is something I won't do again. 

We found out last night that all "barbecue" places aren't barbecues! We quite enjoy the Taiwanese barbecue shops. You get a little basket and choose some meat and veg which is then chopped up and fried or just mixed with some spices. We were walking around town last night when we saw what we thought was a barbecue. The options were the same, the baskets were the same, we just failed to notice the cardboard bowls that everything was served in. We made our selection, and were then asked what kind of noodles we wanted. We selected some, and then were handed a huge bowl of soup and a bag of cooked noodles. All quite delicious, but cooked, and now we know some barbecues are soup places, which is great, because we quite like soup! 

Unfortunately no food photos this time. Tuesday is payday and we have decided we will buy a little piece of heaven to satisfy at least one craving. Matsusei, the expensive, Japanese supermarket in DaJia, does have decent cheese, at a decent price. However we are still living on savings, so we haven't bought any. That will change soon. Cream? Not so much, and definitely no decent yoghurt, if I could find a cheap source of milk I'd make my own for sure, but it seems like dairy is not very important here.

Some sickly rest 27 March 2014

Sometimes getting sick has it's upsides. After school on Monday night I was pretty exhausted and I had a scratchy throat. By Tuesday morning I was feeling significantly worse, sore body, more runny nose than usual, mild headache. I decided to go to work anyway, but did manage an hour nap around 12. By the end of my second lesson I was toast! Seriously toast! I knew I was running a fever. All I wanted to do was lie down on a bed. Selena was talking to Renalda when she saw me and suggested she take my temperature. She did and it registered 38.8, which I think is relatively high.

She insisted that she take me to the doctor, immediately. It was 20m away, literally on the next corner. When I told them about the cardiac medication I take (quickly translated by Google), they bumped me closer to the front of the queue. They gave me a face mask as soon as they took my temperature. Finally they took a nasal swab and did a lateral flow test (think pregnancy test) for flu. They found that I had type A or B flu both of which can be quite serious. I got put off work for 5 days (3 days + weekend :( ) and was handed a mountain of medication. The medication includes a 5 day course of Tamiflu, and 12 individual packages with 5 tablets in each package, 3 per day for day time and one for night time to help me sleep! Then there's also a bottle of cough syrup. It cost me NT$1680 (~R580) in South Africa I suspect I would have paid closer to R1680!! And that's not the end of it. When I get my medical card it will be much much less! I think the consultation fee is NT$200 and the rest is free!

So ultimately this is allowing me to get some much needed rest. Unfortunately not the same for Renalda :( And to catch up on my blog, which is now as up to date as it's been in a while. See, getting sick has it's upsides ;)

Another week bites the dust - 23 Feb 2014

Wow, time flies! We have almost been working here for a month!! There have been ups and downs but we are both getting better at it. Renalda took some pics of one of her science class projects. They looked really great!

The solar system

I think the best part about being in Taiwan at the moment is the food! We are certainly giving everything a try. Below is some blood curd soup we tried, and below that is some beef soup, something of a staple for us at the moment.

Blood curd soup - not as bad as it sounds, quite yummy

Beef Soup - definitely yummy

The lady at the place where we got the aforementioned dishes was somewhat upset that we hadn't ordered her oyster omelettes. We gestured that we would order one next time... we had had oyster omelettes before and were somewhat underwhelmed. She was however not to be deterred and minutes later an oyster omelette was on our table, gratis! It was indeed for us, the best oyster omelette in Taiwan as she was trying to tell us. She is Indonesian and speaks a little bit of English. 

We chatted for some time and decided to go back the next night to order some omelettes proper. Mistake. She took this as the queue to regale us with stories we didn't understand about her family and the Mazu God's whereabouts. We tried in vane to go home as by this time it was after 11pm, but she wouldn't let us go politely. We have had to avoid the place since then, hoping not to damage our guanxi. 

Rita making oyster omelettes

One of my new colleagues, Derek asked us to join him and some of his friends in Taichung for dinner on Saturday night. We went to the Little Tibet Restaurant which served both Indian and Tibetan dishes. It was in Taichung so we took a train and a bus. It took us 2 hours to get there!! We definitely need to get a scooter asap.

Most of us decided to opt for the Tibetan food as no one had had any before. It was super yummy, in true Indian style we shared all the dishes we ordered and split the bill equally. And some of us ate with our hands. The only Indian food we had to have was the garlic naan, I struggle to resist naan bread.

From bottom anticlockwise: Garlic naan, Tibetan deep fried bread x 2, Tibetan stir fried beef, butter chicken (I think), vegetables in blue cheese sauce (YUM)

Left to Right: Emily, Ping su, Renalda, Me and Derek (Colleague)

After dinner we went to the nightmarket literally down the next street, where they were selling the usual allotment of goodies, except it looked more upmarket that the other night markets we had been to. The lighting was brighter, the signage newer. Even the people seemed to be different, I can't quite describe how, but they were. We heard that the last train for DaJia would leave at 10:30 so we'd better move. We got on another bus, which was painfully slow and headed back to the Taichung Main Train station. Derek seemed to think we were super late and started running. Turns out we had a good few minutes to spare, so we stood on the platform catching our breath. Renalda bought some water from a vending machine, which turned out to be tea...they had used an empty tea bottle and filled it with water. Of course everyone who buys anything from a vending machine can read Chinese!

On Sunday we had planned to go to the Dakeng Scenic Area, a nature reserve of sorts where you can hike and cycle, but it was close to where we went the night before and we didn't really feel like travelling for 2 hours again before getting to our destination. We decided to give the mountains a rain check and we headed for the sea. 

I hadn't read the map very well so we got off at a random stop pretty far from the ocean and we had to wind our way through rice paddies to get to the sea. And wind we did! I'm not sure how they decide to cut up land for rice paddies, I guess it must be to do with the contours but they do seem quite random. Rice paddies are clearly hard work and there were a number of people in their paddies on Sunday morning. 

Triple story building...rice paddy. 

DaJia is known to produce the finest taro in Taiwan. Taro is a sweet potato like plant. We get a version of it in South African called the madumbi. Taiwanese taro is purple where madumbi is white. There are tons of sweet dishes made from taro around. The plant has an elephant ear leaf, which I realised was identical to the madumbi leaf I planted in Pretoria. So below is a field of taro.

A field of flooded taro - big brother of the African Potato

Symmetry among chaos

The symmetry of the rice paddies was quite striking. The paddies themselves were quite disorderly, but the actual rice was planted about 10cm apart in a row and the rows were seperated by about 20cm. I've seen it in vineyards and fruit orchards, but never on this small a scale.

Random cyclist sculpture

Factory farmed geese :(

We finally got to the ocean, but there wasn't much to see. Just a large expanse of brown sand and some small breakers further out, so we decided not to take pics. But there were tons of windmills. Taiwan appears to take renewables very seriously! And they really want everyone to recycle.

Renalda trying to slow down the turbine

Me trying just to touch it ;)

The scale of these things is unbelievable. I went to stand on one. The wind was blowing quite strongly but they were only doing 20-30rpm.

Where's Mark?....on the stairs at the bottom of the pillar!

We then looked for some food before getting a bus home. We couldn't communicate so we just settled for a bag of nuts and some beef jerky (not very yummy). The bus ride home was surprisingly quick, it would have been much quicker for us to have ridden down, but it was still a good day out.

We got home and took some laundry to the laundromat. Once that was done we went looking for a nearby highschool where we could do some exercise. The DaJia highschool has a tartan track and pullup bars, what else do you need ;) While walking around the track we noticed a group of kids playing volleyball, but the teams were 3 - 2 so we asked if we could join. They didn't seem too upset, so we got a half hour's worth of volleyball in too!! A really good day for the body.

We then bought some supper and went home to do some more cleaning. The floors needed to be vacuumed and washed. Just before bed, we both realised that we had made an elementary mistake, neither of us had sunhats or sunscreen on for the whole day in the tropical sun! My face looked like a lobster, Renalda looked a slightly lighter shade of pink ;)

We woke up the next morning and it was a little better, and no one gave us a hard time at work. No harm no foul.