Taiwan Trip Day 2 - Taroko National Park

Taiwan Curious Fact : Taiwan is a mountaineous island. The entire middle area is taken up by mountains created by the collision of the Pacific plate with the Asian plate. If you travel from east to west in Taiwan, the roads go through many a tunnels bored into these moutains.



Once the temple visit is over and done with, we continued our way to Hualien. Our destination is the Taroko National Park - home to the magnificient Taroko Gorge.



This gorge is carved out by the rising land mass that towers up to the sky while the Liwu river slices it way below through to the Pacific. Known also at the 'marble gorge' due to the fact that the mountains houses some of the finest marbles in Taiwan, this wild terrain used to be home to one of the aboriginal tribes in Taiwan.



It is said that the name was derived from the aboriginal language word 'Taroko' which meant 'magnificient' or 'splendid'. This was uttered by one aboriginal chap when he made his way out of the gorge and saw the Pacific ocean for the first time.



If you were to travel to Hualien from Yilan by road, please do not sleep in the bus. The road itself offers some truly beautiful vistas as you approach Hualien when you see the mountains meet the Pacific ocean. Steep, towering limestone mountains on one side, the turquoise waters of the ocean on the other and the road you are one is the only thing separating the two.



As we enter the National Park, our tour guide pointed out the 'Chang Chun' or Eternal Shrine to us. The shrine was built to commemorate the soldiers that lost their lives building the highway to traverse the island, cutting through this beautiful place. Below is a picture of the shrine.





Our first sighting of the gorge shown below. There are numerous foot trails that you can take if you are the more adventurous type. In the pic, you can see one of the bridges of one of the trails.

Our bus stopped and we were let out to explore one of the more accesible routes through this gorge by foot. The pic below shows our starting point - the Swallow Grotto trail.

Some scenery along the Swallow Grotto Trail.

In case you are wondering about the size of the gorge, here's a picture to show you the scale below.

As you can see, the road is literally carved out from the side of the mountain. The tour guide told us that the road was built using mostly manual labor. Hard to imagine the magnitude of the task.

Below : A shot of a small waterfall from the cliff side that ends in a curious aquamarine colored pool at the bottom.


A closer shot of the blue pool.

Along the Swallow Grotto Trail, you will come across this site. Can you see the head of an old Red Indian man in the picture below?

If you cannot see if in the picture above, below is a closer shot of the Indian Man. Hint : He is in the lower portion of the photo. You can clearly make out the side profile of his face with his mouth almost touching the river.

More pics from the Gorge.

Below: Temple pavilions and pagoda. If you disregard the bridge and other modern man-made structure, does this scene not remind you of the settings in many Chinese Wuxia movies?


After completing the Swallow Grotto Trail, our guide led us to this suspension bridge. It leads over the river and into some footpath that follows some old aboriginal trails. We just crossed the bridge and came back. Did not have the time nor the local guide to show us the trail.

Below : A pavillion located at one end of the suspension bridge.

Below: View from the other end of the suspension bridge.

More ramdom pics.

Leaving ths suspension bridge, we come to another trail that can be covered by foot : The Tunnel of Nine Turns. From the picture below, you can see that the busses are dwarfed by the immense scale of the gorge. It's a long way down and those cliffs are steep!

More pics taken at the Tunnel of Nine Turns:

Hard hats are provided by the park attendants when you enter the Trail. Falling rocks are a constant danger here. If if has been raining or there is a storm, it is advisable not to visit the Park.

After completing the Tunnel of Nine Turns, we left Taroko. Mother Nature's art stroke here in the gorge is simply breathtaking. Given the chance, I would like to return to Taroko and venture out into some of the more off the beaten path trails and maybe climb up to some the peaks that are accessible here.

Upnext : From a completely natural to completely man-made attraction. Fun in the sun with dolphins and sea lions!

Taiwan Trip Day 2 - Hualien

Taiwan Curious Fact : It's a bit difficult to find dustbins in Taiwan. Even in tourist hot spots! When you want to throw something away like, candy wrappers or used paper cups after buying drinks, you'll be hard pressed to find a dustbin. The reason offered for this lack of dustbins is that they want to encourage re-cycling and want to discourage wastage and the habit of generating too much thrash. It's a noble cause but I don't see any re-cycling bins either in place of dustbins!


The second day of our tour saw us heading to Hualien after spending a night at a leisure farm in Yilan. Before we reached Hualien, there is a stop for us. It's the Nanfang-ao port in Su-ao. One of the bigger fishermen ports in Taiwan.


Of course we are not there to specifically tour the port but rather to visit a temple where the deity statue is said to be completely made of gold. The bus dropped us some distance away and we took a walk to the temple. Along the way, we saw many of the fisher-folks selling their sea bounties - like salted fish in the picture below. While Malaysians are used to having their salted fish looking rounded, the Taiwanese salted fish are long and skinny!




Among the salted fish, we found a shark's jaw hanging there. I am not too sure if it was for sale or for show.

The Temple of Mazu, the goddess of the sea is located at the end of a peir where many a fishing boats are docked. Below is a shot of some of the boats docked there.

At the end of the pier, just across a road is the temple. It is not one of the more famous Mazu temples in Taiwan but it is one that houses a golden Mazu deity statue. The picture below shows the entrance to the temple.

Below : A view of the Nanfang-ao port with its numerous fishing boats from the third floor of the temple.

The golden statue of the goddess Mazu shown below.

A close up shot of the dragons on the roof of the temple. I don't think I've seen so many dragons squeezed together in such a small space!

Above: The lion and the dragons. After a brief tour of the temple, we continued our way to Hualien where the magnificent Taroko Gorge awaited us in the Taroko National Park. Pics and post coming up next!

Taiwan trip - Yilan

Curious Taiwan Fact : The days in Taiwan during autumn is fairly short. The sun starts to set around 5pm and is gone by 6pm. Coming from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where the sky is still bright at 7pm, I find that I like longer days.

Back to our trip - After walking among the rocks in Yehliu, we headed for Yilan. Our stop for the night is at the Shangrila Leisure Farm. The drive there is quite a long one and along the way we passed through a lot of tunnels.

One of the tunnels is 13.7km long! It is the longest tunnel in Sheh-shan. When we arrived in the Yilan county, the sun was already setting and that's when I snapped the picture below from the bus.

Yilan presents quite a stark contrast to Taipei. While Taipei is all modern with high rise buildings, Yilan is all rice fields with few tall buildings.

The bus then wound its way up some hill. Frankly I find Taiwanese roads to be much too narrow for my liking. Looking out the window to see the bus inches away from the sides of a downhill slope is not my idea of a nice ride. Fortunately the tour bus driver is very skillful and we reached our destination safely.

The picture above shows the block where our rooms are located. It was quite a distance away from the main building where we are supposed to have dinner. We were given half an hour to freshen up after our bus ride and meet at the dinner hall shown below.

To get there we passed by some other blocks shown in the pic below. The place had a wooden theme that goes with the concept of a farm much better than concrete I guess.

Once dinner was over and done with, the Farm had some programs arranged for us to keep us entertained. Part of it was a top spinning competition.

They had small ones and big ones like the one shown in the pic above. The workers there gave a demo on how it's done and then the competition was started.

This young lady in the picture above was from another tour group which was from Malaysia also while the elderly gentleman in the pic below is from a tour group from Hong Kong. Despite being 77 years of age, he is very sprightly and competitive.

Apart from spinning tops, we were also giving 'Kung Min' lanterns. You write your wish on the lantern and then let it fly away to the heavens. It's claimed that your wishes will come true. I don't know if any of the wishes did come true but the lantern did take to the skies quite easily. Some shots of the lanterns floating away:

Below :Ducklings race about to start - yet another program at the Leisure Farm.

There were also fireworks and below are some of my shots. If you're wondering why the pics are so narrowly frame it's because all shots taken with a 50mm lens and handheld -Now isn't it obvious why it's recommended that a wide angle lens mounted on a tripod be used for fireworks? Since I did not have any prior notice that fireworks was in the itinerary the 50mm will have to do. Besides it was the only lens I had with me at the time.

After the fireworks, we were left to our own designs and some of my tour mates tried their hands at this peculiar bowl. I don't know what it's called but if you rub the handles the right way, the water in the bowl will jump out like shown in the pic below. It has something to do with resonance but I do not know how it works exactly.

It was fun seeing all those who attempted to get the water 'jumping'. Some can easily do it while some fail to even create a ripple! No matter what, it's guaranteed to create laughter.

After mingling around for a while, I thought it was quite late into the night already but when I checked the time, it was just about 9pm. Since the sun went down before 6pm, the long hours of darkness created the illusion that it was late into the night.

The next morning, we were scheduled to leave the farm and head for Hualien after breakfast. Before we got on the bus however, we got a brief tour of the farm/orchard there. Below are some shots from the walkabout:

Above and below : What the place looked like in daylight. The above is the main building where we had dinner the night we arrived.

The Forest House - just opposite the main building, across the road that led to the farm. Below: What the Forest House looked like as seen from the main building.

Above : The path leading to the orchards from the Forest House. Below: A view of the plants in the orchard. No fruits at the time unfortunately.

Below: A view of the town from the hill slope where the orchard is located.

And finally - steps leading to a hut in the orchard. Since there were no fruits on the trees, we did not spend much time there.

After the tour, we were once again herded onto the bus and off we go again to Hualien. On the way, we stopped by a temple - coming up in the next post!

Taiwan Trip Day 1 - Yehliu

Taiwan Curious Fact : There's a lot, and I mean A LOT of 7-11 outlets in Taiwan. You'll see one at the start of a block and another at the end. Just like Hong Kong has its Watson's stores, Taiwanese have their 7-11's!

Once we leave Jiu-Fen, our next stop is the Yehliu Geopark in the Wanli district. This geopark is located on a beach filled not with sand but with peculiar shaped rocks. Known as hoodoo rocks, their odd shape is the result of erosion from the wind and sea.

The pictures below will show you some of the scenes in Yehliu but before we visit the park, we stopped for lunch. During our walk to the restaurant, I took this shot of the harbour where the fishermen dock their ships.

This is the entrance to the Yehliu Geopark.

After a little stroll through the nicely landscaped garden, you will be met with the sight of the 'Mushroom Rocks'. As per their namesake, the rocks do look like mushrooms with a somewhat rounded top. Mind you these rocks are big - taller than an average human for the most part.

Below is a shot with some people standing beside some of these mushroom rocks to give you some comparison scale. The top of the rocks that are darker colored are dotted with honeycomb shaped holes.

The light yellow colored ground is not sand. It is also of a hard rock like substance and you can see shapes like the one in the pic below scattered across the area. The place is like a big canvas where Mother Nature lays out her artwork.

Another interesting sight are the Candle Rocks pictured below. The waves has shaped these rocks to resemble small candles with a round rock jutting out on top as the wick.

Another shot showing how the waves relentlessly throw themselves against the rocks.

A wide shot to show how how big the place is. Of course this is just one small portion of the whole park.

Another major attraction of the Yehliu Geopark - the Queen's head rock. Her majesty is a no doubt a royalty in the place because the people that you see in the pic are lining up for their turn to have their picture taken with it!

Another shot of the a different area of the park.

The best shot I could manage with my tele lens of the Queen's head. Can you make out the profile?

The sea and the rocks - you can see some formation similar to the 'Candle Rocks' here also.

A rock with a hole in the middle and what's that you see beyond the hole? It's this bridge in the picture below.

Due to our schedule, we could not visit all of the areas in the Yehliu Geopark. We only managed to cover a rather small area before we were ushered back onto the bus for a long drive to Yilan where we are to stay at the Shangrila Leisure Farm.

What did we do there? The next post will reveal our activities!

Taiwan Trip Day 1 - Jiu Fen

So, this is the first part of my recent Taiwan trip. How many parts to follow, I am also not sure but there are sure a lot of pics taken and it will last a while.

The first day is practically just fly in to Taiwan and that's it. The flight was at 6pm from LCCT and the day was already at an end when we landed in Taipei. The flight is 4.5 hours and being on an AirAsia flight, the hours seemed even longer. Budget airlines have nothing for you on board that you don't need to pay for. The seats can't even recline! Movies need to be rented for RM30 and since I have seen most of the titles being offered (and also being a cheapskate) I passed on that.

Any of you planning to fly long distance on AirAsia had best get a good book before boarding or else you'll be bored stiff!

We landed in Taiwan at about 10.45pm and by the time we claimed our luggage and headed to our tour bus, it was past 11pm. It took around 45 minutes to get into Taipei city from the airport. The itinerary for the day was supper at a local restaurant and then to the hotel to crash for the night.

As we neared the restaurant, I took my first pic of Taipei city. It's just a shot of the street with some construction work going on in the middle. It's nothing to look at but I like the colours so here it is:

After that it's off the bus for 'supper' or rather a very, very early breakfast (tehnically it was morning the next day). On the menu was porridge. Plain white porridge but with some dishes to go with it. It seemed more like a proper meal as we had 7 or 8 dishes to go with the porridge. We dug in as we were hungry. The nasi lemak served or rather bought, on the flight don't last you very long. Here's a shot of some of the dishes:

After that we had 'Portugese egg tarts' as dessert.

From the looks it was not so 'Portugese' but they were fresh out of the oven and thus tasted nice. With our belly full, we headed to the hotel and that marked the end of our first day in Taiwan.

A few hours later, we awoke and hauled our bags and ourselves up the bus once again. The tour has finally started. First stop for the day - Jiu Fen or 'Nine Portions' in english direct translation. It's a famous street bazaar in Taiwan located in the town of Jing Shan. What's unique about this bazaar is that the town is located on a face of a steep hill and the Jiu Fen tourist area is spread across a few levels of the hills. Small lanes and steep stairs weave their way across the face of the hills overlooking a harbour with shops selling all kinds or trinkets and curiosities dotting them. I'll let the pics do the talking:

Above: Entrance to the Jiu-Fen Old Street - the most fomous of the streets there.

A shot of a temple there. I find the Taiwanese temples to be quite elaborate no matter where they are. Basically the town is situated like what you see in the shot. One level after another - all built on the steep hillside.
Some shops selling souvenirs in Jui-Fen area. It's a highly commercialized tourist spot but still worth a visit.
Things for sale range from the usual trinkets to some more 'kinky' stuff (below).

A shot of the harbour in the background from one of the many vantage points as you explore the area. The weather is not so good as you can see and makes for a rather drabby shot.
Also dotting the landscape are numerous restaurants, the one in the pic below is one of the more elaborate ones.
You will find many a stairs like this one seen in the pic below, leading you to the different levels of the town.
Another shot of the habour and parts of the town from the end of the 'Old Street'
The end of the 'Old Street' as seen if you turn around from the vista above.
Shops line both sides of the Street and sells various kinds of food and other stuff.
You can have a sample before you buy. In the above shot, the open containers in the foreground are free samples that you can help yourself to. Almost 99% of shops selling food will have samples for you. If you take a sample from each and every shop selling food and/or drinks, you can literally fill your stomach and you won't have to pay a single cent!
Apart from food, you can also find clothes and stuff. As the street twist and turn, you can easily lose track of where you are, just like the kid in the shot below.
Sweets for my sweet, sugar for my honey...
Little cloth owls of various sizes. Perfect for souvenirs. The seller claims that all the owls have a different motif on them. I did not check to see if it was true.
Lots of drinks and tea - alcoholic or otherwise for sale also.
More fancy sweets.
You can find many restaurants with fancy themes like this one that has a fancy window display as shown in the following pics.

And a final shot of the crowd in Jiu-Fen. Many Taiwanese come here too.

That's all for our Jiu-Fen stop. Up next is the Geopark in Yehliu. Stay tuned!

Taiwan Trip

A couple of days ago, I got back from a holiday trip to Taiwan. After spending about a week there, I am back in Malaysia and now have a better idea what Taiwan is about. Well, the northern to northeast quadrant of Taiwan, at least.

Overall, Taiwan is a beautiful country with nice weather - apart from the occasional typhoon that comes in and wreaks havoc. It has numerous scenic places where nature shows it's beauty at its finest. The mountains that line the middle of the country from tip to toe hosts many a natural park. One such is the Taroko National Park where the beautiful Taroko Gorge lies. The park ranges from one of the highest peaks in Taiwan right up to the coast where the cliffs drops down to the blue-green waters of the Pacific Ocean. In between, the Liwu river carves it way through the limestone and marble mountains to give us the unique vistas of the Taroko gorge.

There is also the Yehliu Geopark where one can see some hoodoo rocks that gives the seaside location an out of this world landscape appearance.

Taipei offers you all the sights and sound of a modern metropolitan city and is home to one of the world's tallest towers, the Taipei 101. Apart from that it is also the host to some famous night markets such as those in Xi Men Ding and Shi Ling. The night markets are where you can find a vast variety of hawker's food to tempt your tastebuds.

From the modern city to the laid back farmstays. From man-made wonders to the grand beauty of nature, Taiwan has it all and is worth a visit. In my following posts, I will break down the trip and include some of the pics that I have taken there. Stay tuned.

Exams and Their Results

I am sure that most of you know that academic examination results ranks very high on the typical Malaysian parent's list. They use it as a benchmark of how 'clever' their offsprings are.

Some have even gone as far as to make it the sole reason for their offspring's existence!
You know the drill - go to school, come back home and it's tuition, tuition and tuition some more. Then it's homework, homework and more homework both from the school and the tuitions.

I think all that obsession with good results is really unneccessary. Yes, it's well and good to have a good education but are good results in examinations the only yardstick to measure that?

In the end it's just a piece of paper with a bunch of alphabets corresponding to some subjects. Nothing more than that. Our education system is not the best in the world. There's too much 'spoon-feeding' going on and one known formula to get good results is to 'regurgitate' all the facts from the textbooks. 'Regurgitating' does not need understanding. All it needs is a good memory.

So in essence a mediocre student with a good memory can obtain fantastic results in examinations if he/she can master the art of 'regurgitating'. So what does the result tell us? Can we really say having a string of A's means we have a good student? Not really.

Also, we must know that in life there are days when you are up and days when you are down. If it so happens that an examination is held on a day when you are down and you get poor results, does that mean you're a bad student? For all we know the student might just be having a bad week or month for whatever reasons.

Exams results can only tell us so much. It's not the only factor to consider. I would want my children to first of all understand the lessons taught. I would want to have critical thinking skills rather than just getting good results from 'regurgitating' facts. And I wouldn't mind them failing one or two exams along the way either. Failure is a part of life whether we like it or not. Learning how to deal with failure and learning from your failure and moving on from there is much more important than scoring a string of A's at the price that one is unprepared to face failure of any kind.

Also, apart from academics, children also need to learn other essential skills. Skills such as communication skills, social skills like how to mix and deal with people. They are never going to learn these things if we keep them locked up in the house or academic institutions with all sorts of tuitions most of the time.

So give the children a break. Let them be children sometimes and encourage them to go out and play with other children. Studying, classrooms,books and exams are not all they have to deal with when they grow up. As parents we must equip them with all the necessary skills that they need to face the world on their own. That is not limited to just getting A's in examinations.