Kaohsiung (高雄)

I spent the past weekend in Kaohsiung: Taiwan's second largest city and Sandra's home town. I stayed with her parents after arriving late on Friday night. On Saturday morning we woke up early and they dropped me off at chung hsing lake and let me take a look around while riding along on one of their bicycles. It was great, I ended up taking loads and loads of photos. That doesn't mean I took a lot of good ones, but it was really a nice park. It was actually a rainy day and I was attacked by mosquitoes craving "white meat," despite this it was a great morning to walk around.

Here is the side entrance to the park where I went in.

The first path I went down, before wondering off and being eaten by mosquitoes.

The 7-story pagoda I had to fight my way to the top of. Bruce Lee had it easy, only 5 stories for him.

The view from the top.

My version of Kareem-Abdul Jabbar, he may not look it, but he was no push-over. He was actually very talkative. He told me he had been practicing qi gong here and had just finished. Then he presumed to show me videos of qi gong and tai chi on his i-touch and then talk to me about why it's important to practice Tai Chi slowly and how most people don't know how to use it... then he continued to tell me how people who are around teaching martial arts are usually bad and not needed. In order to learn properly you should watch videos on the Internet, those experts are much better than anyone in Taiwan... so Asia has these types as well: the type who learns martial arts from the Internet and then swears by it . He sure was nice though.

After spending more time at the lake I went out to eat lunch with Sandra's parents, in an apartment owned by her uncle (father's older brother). Currently no one is renting the place but it is amazing, overlooking the entire lake from I don't know how many stories up, but the place was incredible! I will upload all of my photos to a different website later, this blog isn't suited for these kinds of photos.

Afterwards we went back home and relaxed before eating a family dinner with the grandparents. Sandra's grandmother insisted on telling me time and time again that my Chinese was great. No matter what I just said or how well I said it, instead of answering my questions or continuing on the conversation I would get a big thumbs up, a large smile, and a serious compliment on my spoken Chinese. She was so funny.

After dinner it was time to go home and go for a nice walk on "Love River," just outside of Sandra's home. I went with her mom and got some great photos.

The view on Love River at night - this is near the top of Love River so it's only natural that the river is tiny here, but it is much larger downstream.

The view of Kaohsiung from Love River, I'm still learning how to use the camera at night but some of these shots come out great!

Bear pretending to be a Panda, in Eric's room (Sandra's brother). This is where I slept :).

The next day we went to Lotus Lake, here are Sandra's parents leading the charge. Chinese walk so fast...

The Dragon Tiger Pagoda!

View of the tiger side, from the dragon side.

Just showing him who the boss is...

Inside of the mouth's of both creatures was some portraits telling a traditional Chinese story. I will upload them to a picture sharing site later on.

The view from atop the dragon side

Looking down on the tiger

It is a big tiger.

Sandra's Mom with the Tiger.

One of the many Taoist temples across the street.

A different pagoda with a huge dragon, just a bit farther down the lake.

This guy is big

It's big too.

Just chillin' out on the mushroom thingy.

The Confucius temple at Kaohsiung-entrance.

One of the gates on the way in.

A park just outside of the main attraction.

Me knocking on the gate to the Confucius temple... let the white guy in all ready, the front gate had English.

The temple, unfortunately they were preparing for a performance at night so there is all kinds of scaffolding and other stuff hanging around.

Taiwanese Bakeries

On a side note I think I received my first racist comment today. It sounded like something in Taiwanese and I probably wouldn't have know what it meant had I heard the man clearly, but one thing is for sure: he was fat and so was his wife. It's no wonder he was so upset.

Okay so about these bakeries, you should know that Taiwanese culture has an infatuation with cute things: men and women alike. In the US if a girl calls a man cute it's a backwards compliment and the thought is: "What the hell, I'm not cute, I'm a man. Men are not freakin' cute!" Here that is clearly not the case, cute actually has a bit of a sexy connotation, but there is more to it then just that. Anyway, the influences of cute extend far beyond clothing, they are seen in ads, on TV, all around public places, all standard appliances and accessories and food. Taiwanese bakeries, thus, are very unique. The ones I have visited in this small city are not too overboard but the cakes can get very extravagant. Here are a few photos:

Can you believe these are actually cakes? A porcupine and a turkey... lol it's hilarious.

That cake above just looks so delicious.

Sponge Bob is popular here, one of the more fashionable students was wearing a Sponge Bob shirt in class the other day... I think that student is 12-14 years old or so, I'm telling you: it's a different world over here; it's about cute.

Taipei

Last weekend I was lucky enough to meet up with Sandra's cousin Wei and explore Taipei. It was so hot... I didn't want to move unless I was in an AC'd van or home. But anyway I've got to say Taipei is a cool place. I was expecting something kind of like NYC but as I got more used to it I didn't feel like it was anywhere near as big, it is, however, a totally different style city.

Take the traffic, for example. It is nothing like US city traffic. Why? Scooters. They take up so much less room and provide pretty efficient transportation around cities. Virtually everyone drives a scooter so there are a lot less cars on the road.

Likewise, with significantly less cars around the roads in the more residential areas have no need to be so wide. The main roads are the same but you wouldn't believe that those sketchy alleyways you come across in US cities, are really commonplace and not sketchy at all here. Of course it feels weird, cruising up and down these allies on a scooter, but it's totally done here. Not only that, there are markets selling food and all kinds of other things all around in these allies, just imagine you're walking down set alley, wondering if you will get mugged because you're someplace you shouldn't be, and then you find yourself in a bustling market. Now you are an out of place foreigner so you should probably keep even better tabs on your wallet, although I will say this about crime in Taiwan: it's much much less common than in the US. Well I should say, muggins are less common, other crimes I hear are more common. Things like extortion from organized crime groups, but this is only what I've heard. I've read a bit about Yakuza in Japan being accepted as commonplace by residents and also more-or-less the police forces themselves. It's kind of nice that way, for a tourist of course: you are much less likely to actually be a victim of a crime.

Anyway those are the key differences, of course Taipei has different districts, like the financial district where they have their version of the White House, and the Chang Kai Shek memorial:

For those of you who are more architectually and artistically inclined then myself you would notice that there are several distinctly different influences affecting the building's design styles here. I was told that the building above is a more Japanese style, as it was built during Japan's occupation of Taiwan. I've also heard about Dutch influences and of course the Chinese influence is undeniable and the most overbearing one around.

We continued on to the Chang Kai Shek memorial:

As I said before, it was hot as hell so took most of my pictures from the car, but this memorial is outstanding! When I saw the huge area inside all I could think of was a gigantic square filled with people practicing Kung Fu in sync, it would've been perfect in this spot. I doubt that actually ever happens here, but it was a ncie thought. On one side is a theatrical area and I completely forgot what goes on at the oppositte side (out of view in this photo) but it was something that you would expect from this type of area. In the back is a statue of the man, not unlike the Lincoln memorial:

Again, I didn't want to get out of the car, but the statue is way in the back there.

Next we continued on to make our way to see Taipei 101, currently the tallest building in the world:

It may have been wicked hot, but it was a nice day for photos

Here you see both Wei and I just across the street from this mammoth of a skyscraper.

After visitting Taipei 101, Wei's father took us out to Keelong. A truly beautiful port north-east of Taipei. There we ate a lot of food and visitted some scenic spots. I got a couple good shots of the view of the harbour, and the military turrents/ fortifications that were set up to protect the port in times of war (they don't look anything like they would be used today, it was more of a visit to a historic park that Wei's father was well informed about after having served in the Taiwanese Navy for several years. He had worked in the area years prior.).

This reminded me of CA, US influence is pretty strong in Taiwan as well... I mean those are English characters too.

This port is really a great site to see, although I am not a photographer and cannot capture it's true beauty.

As a final stop for the day, Wei's father took us to a rather interesting Buddhist temple. It was set inside of a cave:

Here I am outside of the steps to the temple.

I'm not Buddhist, I don't know how these things are set up. But when you walk in and you see this my reaction is, "oh that's nice a little shrine, can I take a picture? Okay? Cool, lets go." My friend and tour guide Wei was kind enough to show me that there was much more to this place:

We continued behind the altar and there was a great deal more to be seen. A whole lot of artwork and a tunnel that lead deeper into the cave, in the essence of time I will refrain from posting too many pictures, but you'll have to take my word for it when I say there was a lot going on in this cave and it was pretty impressive. I guess most religions have a tendancy to be extravagant, Buddhism isn't any different.

At the end of the cave we cam across this more impressive altar.

But that wasn't all:

What's that Wei, another crevice? Are we supposed to go through there? It looks kind of tight.

Okay it's really tight but it keeps going so...

The tiny tunnel opened up and there was one more altar to be seen. It wasn't as impressive as the previous one, but it was really nice and a thick and slightly mysterious mist filled the room. It was nice and cool in the cave. I noticed some Chinese carvings on the wall:

I thought they might be important. My tour guide again corrected my ignorant assumption and informed me that they were a bunch of signitures from people that were not too fat to squeeze through the tiny corridor we just snuck through. Of course to me, who has even studied a bit of Chinese for a couple years, it looked cool, perhaps super important and mysterious. Nope, not at all, Wei then starting picking at the wall and showed me that it was soft enough to be carved into by your finger nail. Hehe, we then left and got some Chinese style ice cream outside.

Form

Hey this is a quick post because I am busy with work now. But I received this video of my friend: Po Sheng, performing the form in a martial arts competition, so I decided I would upload it for everyone to see it as it is meant to be pracgticed:

Today I asked my new friend and the teacher's grandson to practice for me: he went through the form as far as I know it. I thought I would share it with everyone:

He was kind enough to do it slowly so that I can use this video as a study guide.

Kung Fu found

Here is the government building mentioned earlier.

As you can see off to the side many people are practicing different forms of Tai Qi. They have staves, swords, spears, and of course practice open hand as well.

But this is just the facade... it is behind the building that I go. To a small and secluded park. This is where I have found a place to study Kung Fu.

The park as you approach from the road is actually set back from the road.

This is the arena:

A nearby playground provides a soft surface for practicing jump kicks without such a tough penalty for failure:

The majestic canopy provides adequate shade from the intense Taiwan sun

It is a nice place

This is Mr. Huang, he is the one who has started to teach me. Today he poked me in the eye and mouth. He threw me by my chin too! He's not actually overdoing anything, I mean he has yet to hurt me, although it is my first week, but he is teaching me very thoroughly.

And this is us together after over an hour of training... notice the dark shade of my shirt near my chest and how it isn't lighter until below my waist.... I was soaked, but today is the birthday of Wong Fei Hong so everybody work out harder!