We missed Mazu returning - 15 April

We've started to get the feeling that we have been camping for too long. The sum total of our furniture at the moment is a bed (with a mozzie net tent), a "cupboard", some bedside tables, a small table, 2 cheap chairs, one of which I broke by rocking back and a plastic stool. So with our first pay check we decided to get a couch, at least when we get home we can flop into something comfy that isn't a bed.

Our kitsch DIY cupboard

Mazu returned to DaJia on a Tuesday which was a normal school day for the rest of the country, but because the traffic in the areas is restricted in the area (DaJia becomes a pedestrian town), schools are closed. This means we get the day off...but we have to make it up the preceding and following Saturdays! It's unbelievable for us. In South Africa we would just shrug and skip a day of school, not here!

We did have a little bit of work in the afternoon, some training in Taichung, so we decided to make a trip to Ikea, in the morning before the training. We've heard some scornful comments about Ikea, but we quite enjoyed being able to get everything you need in one place, and then to have it delivered and assembled (if you want).

We set a budget to spend but the main thing we wanted to buy was a sleeper couch, then we have a place for you to sleep when you all come visit! I had seen a cheap one on the Ikea website which turned out not to be too comfy. We settled for one which was still in the budget for the day, but was the entire budget. You can see it below, and it is very comfy to sit on, we haven't slept on it yet. Unfortunately Ikea only delivers to DaJia on Fridays so we had to wait a while for our comfort.

Our new sleeper couch

After training we went to get some Korean style fried dumplings and then took a taxi to a mall where we watched Captain America 3D in IMAX! Very cool, we will try to make it a monthly exercise. 

We were a little disappointed to miss the fanfare and free food for Mazu's return, but at the same time it was nice to have a day out. When we got off the train in DaJia the air was thick with smoke from fireworks and the streets were strewn with litter. Perhaps it was good that we weren't there.

Our mozzie net tent

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.

A day out in Taichung - March 16, 2014

So we actually took a well deserved rest today and decided to go to Taichung (pronounced Taijung) for  the day. We thought the museum of fine art would be a good place to go, but finding it was a little challenging. Taipei was super tourist friendly with MRT and bus maps in English. Taichung? Not so much! Google maps is pretty good at telling you which buses to take, but not so good with what time the bus will arrive or how long it will take.

We had a lazy morning and got out of DaJia on the 10:30 154 bus, which took about an hour to get to Taichung. This was a huge improvement in the 168 which we took last Thursday to do some syllabus specific training. That bus took around 2 hours to get there! On the way there we saw some Christmas decorations!! What the...!! Apparently Christmas never dies in Taiwan!  I asked a kid in class last week what the big winter holiday was in Taiwan, expecting "Chinese New Year" as the answer. I got Christmas!

Christmas in March...really?!

We then had to find the bus stop for the 56 bus which would take us to the museum, except it was a few blocks down from the train station. So we walked down the road past a market and eventually saw some buses at a stop. But there was no 56 on the signs so we decided we were at the wrong stop and facing the wrong direction. We crossed the road and went to another stop just in time to catch the correct bus. 

There was a mother with two young kids who got on at the same stop. We smiled at the kids and said hello. The little girl was super shy and wouldn't look away from her mom's jersey. Random comment to make, you say? Perhaps. Google had told me that it would take us 7 stops to get to the museum... it lied. At about stop 10, we got off the bus to get our bearings. We had gotten a tourist map at the train station which we whipped it out only to find that we were about 5 blocks away from the museum! We started to walk. It seems like you get the best feel for a city that way. Taichung is another big city. But seems to have wider spaces than Taipei. That is my impression from my first few hours in the city, perhaps it will change.

It took us 20 minutes or so to find the cultural centre which was adjacent to the museum. We asked some directions and got pointed to the museum. The photos below are from the gardens surrounding the museum, which seems to double as a park for families to come and have a fun Sunday afternoon. As we walked toward the museum entrance, guess who we saw! The lady with the shy little girl! We had gotten off the bus a few stops early. Oh well, we are certainly getting our exercise.

Some cool looking calligraphy...translations anyone?

Renalda next to a voluptuous sculpture 

Write and Draw in the Fine Arts Museum

The rose cafe - beautiful roses hanging from the ceiling

The museum itself was quite nice. Entrance was free and there were a lot of pictures and art works, although many of the galleries were empty. There was some very nice senior high school art depicting Chinese New Year. Saying farewell to the Dragon and welcoming in the Year of the Horse. 

Mostly it feels like the art on display was quite peaceful. Although one piece I remember, which was a critique of the USA, was entitled something like "The good and the bad." It had images of the Apolo re-entry vehicle and doctors performing surgery with a mushroom cloud in the background and war ravaged landscapes all around. Very thoughtful.

Another piece which took me back home looked like a landscape out of the little Karoo. It looked like a sunset, with a mountain in the foreground which was dark blue and the last sunlight shining on another range  in the background painting it bright pink. Renalda and I both stopped and said "Wow!"

There was a paid exhibit, but at the moment we are still living on saved money so we will rather keep the more expensive outings for when we have a salary.

Lunch at the musuem - lamb curry combo about R70 to share yummy

Finally we looked for a late lunch and found the museum restaurant. We shared a lamb curry combo meal, which was super tasty with the ever present "quing tsai."

We then headed home slowly and took a 168 which we have now vowed never to do again as it is SOOO slow. We will do the train from now on. It feels like Taichung is actually very far away, when it is probably only 30km, but getting there by public transport takes forever.

And now after a rest we are ready for week 3 at Hess. Let's hope it will be an easier one!