Exciting Week of Travel... and unexciting week following

Hey! Sorry.  It's been a while.  Last time I gave a little preview of my travels, but in case you forgot, they will be recounted in vivid detail (and vivid-er photos) here.

Sunday, April 1 was the final day of the big Mazu Pilgrimage.  In attendance were me, three other CIEE students, a few CIEE ambassadors, a bunch of graduate tutors that are somehow linked to CIEE but I'm not sure exactly how, April, Naomi, and Vina (who did CIEE last semester) and her roommate, Betty.  We took the train to 大甲 (dajia) where the streets were packed with thousands of visitors.

For a while we watched a parade where Gods and dragons would come by.  We then took a look inside the temple, which was beautiful.  It was very hot, and very smokey from incense, but the temple itself was beautifully carved and decorated, and most of all, it was really cool for me to see all the people there to whom this obviously meant so much.  There were little kids, young people, old people -- all walks of life.

I got some lucky charms - including one to ward off zombies - and blessed them/shooed away their bad spirits by circling them three times over the burning incense.  I was even approached by a cameraman who asked me to say a few sentences in Chinese for the camera!  Eventually Betty, Vina and I all got filmed (for being American)... so keep an eye out for when we get famous!

Again, the temple was beautiful.  There is a life-size solid jade statue of Mazu, a gold statue of Mazu, many more statues and carvings and adornments, and then a full room of free literature for visitors!  I grabbed a couple of easy-looking books, including one that has beautifully done illustrations on every page that, I later found out, depict different stages of hell.  On one page someone is having his eyeballs taken out, on another someone is being stabbed with spears as his legs are being chopped off.  It's pretty gruesome stuff.  But I swear, from a quick glance, it is a very beautiful book.  Watch how it deteriorates:

We then went outside to wait for the official Mazu to return to the temple.  It was a big party the whole time - different groups of people walking by and performing, or carrying floats of different gods, and firecrackers going the whole time.  Tons of people were there!  Everyone wanted to see:

The firecrackers were sometimes set off in long chains of them that extended 10 or 20 feet.  It was very smokey and I had to shake the debris from my hair.  Plus, sometimes it got pretty loud... not everyone could take it so well.

As the evening wore on, things got more and more intense.  Apparently, this year Mazu was (luckily for us) returning much earlier than usual.  Sometimes she doesn't get back until 10 pm or so, but today she was nearing us at only 7.  So most of the CIEE students headed back for their train, but Vina, Betty, April, and I (all of whom were to spend the next day in Taichung together) stayed to wait for Mazu.  The fire cracker explosions got bigger and bigger and more and more intense...

and this was the point where the whole night started to feel a lot less like a party and a lot more like the apocalypse.  April asked whether we would like to have Mazu walk over us.  Some die-hard Mazu fans line up in the middle of the street and when she approaches they kneel down and the pilgrims march the statue over the line of people.  We all hesitated and then figured, well, hell, why not.  If we're going to be here, why not go all-out, right?  So we tried to get in line right in front of us, but they were backed up until a big line of firecrackers, and no one could stand there.  We walked back farther.  Eventually we squeezed our way into a line and stood there peacefully for a couple of minutes, thinking, "that wasn't so hard!"  Soon people in front of us started telling us to back up, so everyone lazily walked back a few yards and then stopped again. Not long after, we all had to back up again.  Pretty soon we were walking back constantly at a slow rate.  But walking turned into bustling and shoving and pushing.  And at some point, everyone had to clear the street, so once the line needed to be re-formed, all hell broke loose.  The two tidy rows of people disintegrated into a giant mob, grabbing and shoving and competing for the precious space that Mazu would bless.  And then the cries to back the line up grew more and more urgent until people were yelling in each other's faces and everyone was getting stepped on and trying merely to stay upright as we moved in one solid wave, backwards, as fast as we could, but not fast enough.  I think it crossed all of our minds that death by stampede was becoming an increasingly realistic possibility.  Finally, at some point, I knew I had had it.  Our group dropped out and went to the side of the road to spectate rather than participate.  And I am so glad we did.  Mazu really was close by at that point, but the final scramble of everyone trying to get in that line and kneel down looked really awful.  The whole thing was unbelievably intense - and I don't mean in a profound, spiritual way.  I mean in an action-thriller movie way.  I have often joked with my sister that, in movies, the international symbol for chaos and anarchy is garbage cans lit on fire.  Well, Madeleine: 

Yeah.  After Mazu passed us things chilled out a lot, but we took a "we survived" picture to congratulate ourselves.

Vina, me, Betty: We made it!

We then headed to the free dinner provided for all the visitors, which we lovingly called "the refugee tent".  I think we were all exhausted physically and otherwise from the day's events, so we took an extremely crowded train to April's house in Taichung, indulged in some stinky tofu, refreshing orange tea, and sun cakes, and headed to bed.

The next day was full and busy.  We all - Vina, Betty, April, Pam (her sister), and April's parents - piled into the family van and drove to qingjing mountain (or something like that) where we saw gorgeous views the whole way up and the weather looked like it was going to be about perfect.  We stopped for photos at this Old England hotel - apparently a very, very expensive one - that is designed to look like it's from... well, old England.  

April, Vina, me, Betty, Pam

We headed to this spring festival of flowers, where we all took hundreds of pictures of different types of flowers.  I'll spare you the whole bunch, but here are a few:

April, Betty, April's parents, me, Vina

April and me!

While we were in the greenhouse part of the garden place, the weather took a turn and it became quite foggy...

--- on second thought, very foggy.  Where I am standing you're supposed to be able to see at least 6 different mountain tops in the distance.  But the fog made the place beautiful in a more mysterious way, and it was a lot of fun.  We saw flowers, peach blossoms, tasted teas and farm products, I had my first tea egg, and I bought a jar of peach preserves.  They also had a hedge maze which we did half of before taking a shortcut out of there.  Anyway, it was a beautiful way to spend the day.

We then went to another little swiss garden which was full of windmills and pinwheels and a lake with audacious ducks, where we took more and more photos.  (For the record, between everyone's separate cameras, there are probably over 2000 pictures of my trip to Taichung.  I am not even exaggerating.  We took a whole lot of pictures and I am trying to narrow down to the interesting ones.)  There was even a surprise water show!

April, Vina, Pam, me, Betty...  but i'm sure you can recognize everyone by now

We drove back to Taichung and ate some traditional delicacy that was like a large, glutinous, meatball, and then we sent Vina and Betty back to Taipei on a bus.  That night, Pam, April, and their mother took me to the major night market in Taichung where we strolled, nibbled on some 小吃 (xiao chi - literally, small eats, referring to snack-like street food sold at nightmarkets), and tired ourselves out so that sleep came easily.

The next morning, I had my first ride on the back of April's scooter!  It was fun, and not nearly as scary as I expected (probably because we were only going around the corner and no faster than 20 miles an hour).  I am not sure I can keep exactly straight all our adventures of the day, but hopefully I can remember all the essentials.  We started off at this extreme discount/wholesale store, where apparently all the vendors at nightmarkets go to buy their merchandise.  The price tags are written in a secret code with two prices on them - the one you can buy it at, and the one you should sell it at.  It's usually about half as much, although I know I've seen some of the stuff there for more expensive than even the highest prices they listed.  I got a bunch of stuff - a few pairs of earrings, a bag, a cell phone case, two headbands, and a bottle of perfume all for about $12 US.  What a deal!  I will never be able to pay full prices again.  Then we went to a fun touristy spot in Taichung called the rainbow village, where an ex-soldier painted crazy animals and people all over his house.  It was of course, another great photo opportunity, and a lot of fun to see.

The newest addition - on the far right, Jeremy Lin!  April and Pam's cousin!

We then briefly stopped by this high spot where you can see the entire city of Taichung.  It was really cool and a great place to be in nice weather.

... and then we scurried to Tunghai University campus to see Luce Memorial Chapel, designed by IM Pei.  The campus turned out to be stunning, with lots of interesting trees, Japanese-style architecture, and a good floral smell perpetually in the air.  Here's the chapel at sunset:

...and here's a blurry me posing with some pretty orange flowers 

After grabbing dinner, we put me on a bus back to Taipei, overloaded with new purchases, gifts, photos (obviously) and of course, LIFELONG MEMORIES :)  The Wang family was amazingly gracious and generous the whole time I was there - I can't imagine a kinder group of people!  I hope one day I can host them all in the US to pay them back for everything they did for me.

It was Tuesday night that I got back to Taipei, so I spent Wednesday taking a day of rest (soo unconventional that way) and then Thursday morning we set out for Kenting!  Luckily, we didn't take nearly as many pictures in Kenting so I will have forgotten much more of it and this should go a little faster.

We took the High Speed Rail there - and man, was it high speed!  The trip from Taipei to Gaoshung, which takes something like 6 hours by regular bus, was only an hour and a half!  And there was lots of leg room.  Other than that, the trip was unremarkable, and we arrived in Gaoshung in time for lunch, and then we rented the car that would transport us (thanks to Kohan, who graciously drove us around the whole time) to Kenting.  We settled into our hotel which turned out to be just a five minute walk from the beach, and then we went to explore the beach!  We didn't stay there for very long, however, before heading to the street selling snacks and souvenirs to eat street food and browse around.  I was definitely struck by how similar the souvenirs for sale were to any beachy town in the US - bracelets braided from string, loose beachy dresses, sea glass jewelry, etc etc.  Anyway, here we all are:  Kohan and Afore are ambassadors (Taiwanese students) with CIEE, Mahalia did CIEE at NCCU last semester but is now at National Taiwan University, and Victor is one of Avalon's classmates from Spain.  The rest of us are just regular CIEE American students.

The Kenting Gang - Kohan, Victor, Mahalia, me, Grace, Avalon, Emily, and Afore

Later that night we headed to Spring Scream, the big, five-day outdoor music festival.  We hadn't bought tickets for it in hopes that we could score some cheaper one-day tickets from scalpers outside the door (as opposed to being forced to buy a five-day pass), but unfortunately, we had no luck.  So instead we all sat on the beach and told ghost stories and jokes, and I think we all had a nice time.

The next day we took a look at a few spots for sightseeing - this was the first one:

Then we headed to a park with a famous lighthouse, and we strolled through there.

View from the lighthouse

At the exit of the park there were a number of touristy booths that we spent a while looking at, and one of them had (not for sale) - a pig on a leash!  He was so cute and friendly and I got to pet him, and his nose was all wiggly...  it was amazing.

蘋果 - Apple, the pig.

Emily and I also shared a drink of coconut water straight from the coconut, which then turned into a fun (for me) game of trying to get the inside coconut out... successfully!  It was delicious.  When we tried to leave the park, we encountered a little difficulty... 

our car was surrounded on all sides by tour buses!  I guess that's what we get for parking in the wrong section.  Luckily, after a few minutes of waiting, the bus driver of the bus in front of us returned and let us out.  Anyway, after that we went and did go-karts (although I elected not to participate, so I became the photographer).  Next we went to a really nice beach with much softer sand than the last beach.  It was just starting to rain, so we thought we might just peek our heads in, but then the group decided to go on an inflatable water ride, since we'll be getting wet either way.  So we changed into our swim suits, rented an umbrella on the beach, and did the ride.  It turned out to be a lot of fun, even though I fell off and it was oh, just a little embarrassing.  But the weather cleared up and skies were blue and we all lounged happily in the water for a while, which might be my favorite part of the trip.  It was peaceful and beautiful and good to be with good people.

Immediately after the beach we started the drive to Gaoshung, where we were to spend that night and following day.  We got in on the late side but still had time to check out the huge and impressive night market and then lounge and chat by the Love River (oh yeah) that runs through the city.  And I do believe while there we grew to love each other a little more, if only platonically.  After getting back to the hotel, some of the gang fell asleep and the rest of us played hotseat, a game where you alternate who is on the "hotseat", and everyone can ask them questions - about life, themselves, their past, etc.  I think we all had fun getting insights into each other and ourselves, with questions asked ranging from "what quality do you like most about yourself?" to "what is the best trip you've ever been on?" to "do you believe in God?"

The next day we had to find a place to store our luggage after returning the car and checking out of the hotel but before our 8 pm train back.  This turned out to be rather complicated - we schlepped our stuff across the city and went to a big stadium/arena that had a number of storage lockers.  However, that same day there were several meet-and-greets with celebrities (including SHOW, a popstar that some people have been going crazy for, and Jiro, my favorite character on the Taiwanese show I've been watching, as well as a member of the band Fahrenheit - both of whom we saw from afar!) so all the lockers were taken.  At least, on the first floor.  So we went to the second floor and hunted around until we found another spot with storage lockers - also all taken.  Finally, on the eighth floor, we finally found some empty lockers and dumped our stuff off to start our day.  We went to an art park with a lot of sculptures and shops selling artists' works, and spent a while there.  Then we headed to the banana pier (don't ask) and enjoyed tea by the water while chatting and playing games.  We went back to get our stuff and eat dinner, and had a very exciting last half hour in the city as we dashed to not miss our expensive train, but made it with several minutes to spare.

I have a few pictures from the trip but I feel like this entry has been overloaded with pictures, so I'll just share my favorite one, from one of the main subway stations in Gaoshung:

Anyway, we returned to Taipei safely and happily on Saturday the 21st and it was a very nice trip.

Since then, things have been pretty laid back for me.  I got some stuff with my visa figured out, which took several hours on Monday and then several more hours on Friday.  On Wednesday I found out some sad news - our family cat of 14 years, Volt, died.  His health had been deteriorating and so we all knew it was coming, but this was still an extremely sad moment.  I grew up with him.  We played together as kittens, racing up the stairs and sharing ice pops lick by lick, and whenever in my life I have felt sad or lonely, he's the guy to go to for snuggles.  He slept in my bed pretty much every night I was at home for the past 14 years.  He lived a long life, full of love, but we'll sure miss him.  

Hate to be a downer, but that definitely had an impact on my week.

Anyway, I have my first midterm this next week.  It's for Chinese class and for the oral part of the exam I need to perform the song 童話... I am not a singer!  I don't think I'll be graded on vocal quality so much as Chinese pronunciation... but maybe that's wishful thinking.

Okay!  I'm off!  Will update again soon!