River Deep, Mountain High

Part two! Hualien 花莲 :)

Hualien is quite a small town on the east coast of Taiwan. 110.000 inhabitants and very sleepy. To me, the town itself wasn't really that interesting, but it sure has some gems surrounding it.

So, I arrived there on the 8th and first of all went to the town centre to look for a travel adapter. File under things that you should check before travelling to a foreign country: do their sockets match your plugs? I found one after some time, my quest was made a little difficult by the fact that there are actually two types of sockets in Taiwan. Actually, just check this link, it's kind of difficult to explain. I found an adapter for the type B sockets but then had to get another adapter for type A sockets. Luckily I happened upon a very helpful salesman :) So that problem was solved for good. Then I had 扁食 bianshi, a local speciality. Think Wantan soup, it's pretty much the same thing. Delicious! And only 1,50 for a bowl. Afterwards I went to Hualien's seaside. I've been told by other travellers that it's pretty underwhelming during the daytime, so I'm very glad that I went during the night. I was completely alone there and enjoyed the small piece of quiet. There's just something about the sound of waves that's extremely soothing to me.

My camera kind of fails at night time pictures. Anyway, the sea!

The food!

On the 9th it was time for me to go see the Taroko Gorge - 太鲁阁. Carved into marble by the Liwu River, it's one of the places that you have to see when you come to Taiwan. I went there by public bus from Hualien, they run busses every hour that stop at all the major touristic spots in the park. The first place I went to was called Shakadang trail, a very leisurely trail along a side river that leads you through luscious greenery. Then caught a bus to Yanzikou 燕子口, literally the mouth of the swallow. This part of Liwu River is called that because swallows can be seen flying over it frequently. I saw a few myself while I was there. The trail there runs along a road that is also used by cars and coaches, thus it's not as peaceful as the Shakadang trail, still insanely pretty though. My next stop was the Baiyang 白杨 waterfall. The trail leads through 8 tunnels in total, a very cool experience. And at this point I would like to thank my parents for having the foresight to give me a headlamp for my last birthday. It came in handy :) The waterfall is really beautiful, but the best part of this trail lies a few steps behind the waterfall. In a tunnel that was made for the trail, the water pressure was so high that it created showers of water inside the tunnel. Imagine walking through darkness with water raining down on you from above. Quite a freaky experience, but also really amazing! It was at this point in the day that I made a new acquaintance. I was getting ready to go inside the water curtain tunnel when a Taiwanese man came up to me and asked: "Do you speak Chinese?" I said yes, he said "Great, how would you feel about coming with me and these two Russian guys I'm showing around the park? I don't speak English and they don't speak Chinese, could you translate for us?" Now, in Europe I would probably not agree because of safety and such, but in Taiwan, I thought sure, why not? So I came along with them for the rest of the day. They were really nice by the way, even paid dinner for me. There was only one stop left, the Eternal Spring shrine 长春祠. It was built to commemorate the people who died while building streets, bridges, trails around the gorge. We also walked up to the bell that is rung to lift the spirits of visitors. It's a little bit of a climb, but well worth the sight. We then drove back to Hualien and had dinner at a Japanese restaurant, where by the way I had Sushi without being disgusted for the first time. It was actually quite good, except for the kind wrapped entirely in seaweed. I can still not get over the taste. Now get ready for the flood of pictures.

Bear? Wasps? I was not prepared for this. Luckily it's winter. Everyone's asleep.

The scenery.

Hello friend! Clever camouflage.

The plant that's on the ground in masses is planted by natives in the valley who sell it. It's a common food in Taiwan.

Guess what greeted me at Swallow's Mouth?

The first suspension bridge, not the last though.

Pretty dramatic.

Mountains *_*

The waterfall, and another suspension bridge.

The Shrine.

View from the bell.

And the sushi. Proof.

That's all for Hualien, a little shorter since I only spent one day there really. Hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. Next stop Taitung.

Chinese Word of the Day: 冰淇淋 bingqilin, ice cream. Just important.

Come Away With Me

This will be the first post about my time in Taiwan :)

My flight left Xi'an on January 5th and I arrived in Taibei at 9 in the evening. I was picked up by Caro, one of my classmates from Germany and the main reason that I came to Taiwan. Exchanged my Renminbi for Taiwanese dollars and promptly held in my hand the first 1000-dollar bill of my life. 1000 Taiwanese dollars in Euro? About 27 at the time of writing. I then had my first encounter with the particularities of the Taiwan dialect, while we were getting tickets for the bus into the city. The main difference in pronounciation is that people here don't differentiate between the sounds sh- and s-, zh- and z- or ch- and c-. Everything to them is s-, z-, c-. Also some of them pronounce r's as l's. Anyway, so the person selling the tickets told us when the bus would leave, which was 11:40. shi yi dian si shi. But, since she was obviously Taiwanese, she said si yi dian si si. It actually sounds very cute, just takes you some time to get used to. I'm pretty okay with it now and sometimes I even do it myself. Creepy. I hope they still understand me in Xi'an when I come back.

The adventure that is Taiwan started the next day. Caro's lessons only start at noon (what a life), so we slept in and I accompanied her to her university's campus. After she went to her class I was left to my own devices, so I went to visit one of Taibei's main temples, the Longshan temple. It was really beautiful, didn't take any pictures though. This was before I learned that it's quite normal to take pictures inside temples in Taiwan. But don't worry, there will be plenty more temple pictures :D Afterwards I went back to meet Caro and her friends for lunch. I think I had some sort of curry. It was very good, anyway. As was everything that I've eaten here so far. I then went out on my own again, my destination was the Museum of Modern Art. Sadly, I got there after closing time, so I just walked around the surrounding park, which was amazing. Pictures below. I also by chance found Taibei's Confucius temple nearby, so I naturally went to check it out. It was quite nice walking around it at night, very peaceful. In the evening I went to meet up with Caro in 士林 Shilin, for my first night market experience. Night markets in Taiwan are the best place to go for food. There is so much good food there!! While there we tried 鸡排 (a giant piece of fried chicken), some weird Tofu on a stick thing, a pancake with ice cream in it and I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Went to bed feeling altogether content with the world.

The park. With ice-cream!

Apparently it's still Christmas in Taiwan.

The Confucius temple. Sorry, blurry night picture.

On Wednesday, the 7th, already my last day in Taibei, I went to see its top attraction, Taibei 101. Wandered around the gigantic shopping mall for quite a while until figuring out that they have two different ticket offices, one for groups and one for normal visitors. And then I finally went up. If I remember correctly, Taibei 101 is currently the world's 4th tallest building and the view you have from up there is truly amazing. You can also go see the damper that's hanging inside the tower to keep it from swaying too much in windy weather. It was there that I was addressed by a stranger for the first time in Taiwan. Which is kind of crazy to me, I went a whole day without someone asking me for a picture? Madness. Luckily, a Japanese girl asked me to take a picture with her there, so a little bit of normality returned :D In general, people don't tend to stare quite as much at foreigners in Taiwan as they do in China. Quite a nice change, if I may say so. Also a nice change is that people here care about traffic laws. They stop at a red light and they yield to pedestrians. Heaven *_* And of course, the air quality is a million times better than in Xi'an. Now, where was I? After the visit to the tower I walked to the Sun Yat-sen memorial hall which is very close. There I was hit by a lucky coincidence. At the time, there was a singing competition being held in the concert hall (don't ask me why the memorial has a concert hall, it just does) and I sneaked in there. It was pretty hilarious, choirs from China were singing on stage, nobody in the audience seemed to care much and clapping was kept to a minimum. The moderator tried his best to keep them interested, but most people there were just dozing off. Not me though, I was enjoying myself immensely. There was even a choir from Shaanxi there. Home sweet home. After this amazing day, I met up with Caro in 西门町 Ximending, a quarter full of shops and food stalls. Walked around there for a while, found a hidden little temple, which you find everywhere in Taiwan by the way, and then went back to her flat. That evening a few of her friends were coming by her place to watch a movie and make pancakes. The pancakes and the friends I enjoyed immensely :) The movie (Eurotrip) not so much. All in all a great evening though! Also, I found cheese in her flat! Real cheese, in a piece and ready to eat! I'm sorry for eating half of it Caro. I just couldn't control myself.

The city from above.

The Japanese girl took this picture of me.

The damper and the mascot of the tower, called damper baby.

The tower from afar. You can see it from pretty much anywhere in the city.

Shout out to my Estonian friends! Tallinn is in Taibei 101!

The random temple.

My impression of Taibei after this very short time? It's a very well functioning city. You can get everywhere by Metro or walking and there is food everywhere. Also people are really polite. And they will not sit on the priority seats on trains. I was stared at hard when I did once. I promise I will never do it again.

That concludes my time in Taibei, next stop: Hualien.

Chinese Word of the Day: 博爱 bo'ai, fraternity/humanity. It's used to translate

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité: 自由，平等，博爱 and also to mark priority seats on public transport.

Big City Life

Let the travelling posts begin!

My first adventure led me to Beijing 北京, capital of China. I went there to visit Thomas, Philipp and Anna, three of my classmates from Germany. By lucky coincidence another guy from our class, Stefan, was also in Beijing at the time, visiting the city with his parents. I got a train on the 30th December, after having taken my last exam. This time around I luckily got a sleeping ticket. The beds on Chinese trains are surprisingly comfortable, especially when compared to dormitory beds. I should spend more time travelling. I arrived on the 31st December at 8 in the morning and was picked up by Thomas. The first thing we did was spend about half an hour trying to buy a public transportation card (think Oyster, just in Chinese) and then finally made it onto the metro. The first stop of course was the Renmin University campus, where I was to stay in Thomas' dorm room. In order to be allowed to do so, I had to become his fiancee for the duration of my trip. The receptionists of the dorm were insanely happy to see "such a beautiful couple", great fun to go undercover for a few days :D

The first sight we went to see with Philipp was the Summer Palace 颐和园, constructed during the Qing dynasty under emperor Qianlong (reg. 1735-1796). It covers a giant area and has the Kunming lake as its centre. The lake was frozen over (Beijing was pretty cold, always below zero) and you could rent little sledges to ride on it. We walked around the very impressive buildings for maybe 3 hours and then went back to the university. After all, it was New Year's Eve, and it was time to celebrate! We went to meet up with aforementioned Stefan and his parents and went to have dinner together. Afterwards we made our way to the Bird's Nest, the Olympic Stadium. The city government had announced that there would be fireworks at midnight so naturally we went to check it out. We got there at 23.30 and first had to walk around for quite some time to find a good spot. It was impossible to get very close to the stadium, as all access-ways had been closed. We finally found a nice spot on a little hill and waited. Sadly, midnight came around and...nothing. So we opened our champagne bottle and congratulated each other on maybe the strangest New Year's celebration of our lives. Afterwards we spent an hour trying to get a taxi. Quick note to Beijing: Get your transport sorted out! Either make your metro run past midnight, which honestly you should, you're a giant city after all; or Get More Taxis. Anyway, we took the taxi to the place where a Chinese friend of mine was celebrating New Year's to meet him. Sadly again, we were deceived. Turns out he was only there until midnight and we were left looking for a taxi again. Another hour in -10 degrees. Pretty much the best New Year's Eve ever. Still though, Hapy New Year to all of you!

The frozen lake! As you might be able to tell from this picture, the air was unusually clean during my time in Beijing. Not complaining.

Hall of Dispelling Clouds and Tower of Buddhist Incense.

At least it did look pretty.

On New Year's Day it was time to explore Beijing's centre. More specifically Tiananmen square 天安门广场, the Forbidden City 故宫 and Jingshan 景山 park. A journey through power centres of different periods. First stop, Tiananmen square, surrounded by friendly reminders of the government's power, whether it be in the form of giant buildings or policemen keeping close watch over the goings-on. And who could forget about the lovely portrait of Mao Zedong, watching over the square. All in all an impressive ensemble of buildings. Next stop, the Forbidden City, the seat of power throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties. It is a giant complex of buildings and it's easy to imagine emperors of old walking through it. There are the main halls located along the centre, to the left and to the right there is a labyrinth of small courtyards, filled with historical or art collections. We visited only a small part of these because we were running short on time, it's definitely worth a look though. Directly north of the Forbidden City lies Jingshan park, built for the emperor to enjoy leisurely walks. It is located on a hill from which you can overlook most of Beijing on clear days. Seeing the Forbidden City from above gives you an idea of its crazy scope. After a day filled with sight-seeing, we met with Anna to have dinner on Wangfujing 王府井, the most well known shopping street of Beijing. Delicious as ever, China! Sadly, the two hours of standing around in the cold on New Year's Eve had been too much for Thomas' immune system, he fell very sick and spent most of the rest of my time in Beijing in bed :(   Side note: He's better now luckily!

A monument to the heroes of the Chinese people.

"Long live the PRC! Long live the solidarity of the peoples of the world!"

Inside the Forbidden City

View from Jingshan.

Sorry random Chinese couple :/

The first Christian church I have seen in China.

The 2nd January saw the realization of a dream that I've had for a long time. I finally climbed the Great Wall! I'm sure most of you have heard of it so I won't bore you with historical details. All I can say is that it really is incredible. It stretches as far as the eye can see, built exactly on the ridge of a mountain range. It's unimaginable to me how it was possible to build this kind of structure in the middle of the mountains. Goes to show that humans can do wonders after all I guess. I went to the Wall with Philipp, Stefan and his parents. Took the public bus from Beijing and once there met two Chinese (really one Chinese and one Taiwanese) who decided to take a taxi with us. For clarification, the bus didn't go all the way to the wall, it stopped at a gas station nearby. You still had to drive about 15 minutes by car to get there. The taxi driver we had was absolutely amazing, the thickest Beijing accent I have ever heard. A great day all in all. In the evening the three Beijing-ers and me got together to have a little reunion feast. It was really great seeing all of them again, a little piece of home in the far far East.

Who would be crazy enough to come through these mountains in the first place?

Goes on and on.

One of the less restored parts of the Wall.

My last day in Beijing rolled around all too fast. This day had a wonderful surprise for me though. I found out that an old friend (by old I mean from summer camp times), Ella, was also in Beijing at the time. So we decided to meet up to visit the Temple of Heaven 天坛 together. Crazy how these things happen, we hadn't seen each other in two years and finally reunited in Beijing. The temple itself was beautiful, it's the only temple with blue roof tiles in China (or possibly one of very few), marking its connection to the heaven. After this visit it was already time for me to go back to Xi'an. Another night in the comfort of a moving bed. I arrived at 3.30 in the night and had to wait in front of my dorm room for an hour until Fede, one of my friends came downstairs to wake our night watch, who had drunk a little too much of his privately brewed liqueur. A sure sign I was safely back in the hands of my provincial Xi'an.

There it is, the temple :)

That concludes the first part of my travels, so much for today. Hopefully more tomorrow :)

Chinese Word of the Day: 地瓜 digua, sweet potato. It's delicious, they eat it covered in caramelized sugar.

She Lives!

Wow, guys. I'm so sorry for the long wait. Belive me, it was not intentional, but my life has been very busy for the past few weeks. I believe the last time I wrote was the beginning of December. Again, wow. So what have I been up to exactly to keep me so busy?

Well, first of all, you might remember that I told you about that a-cappella group that I'm in and also that we were supposed to perform in a concert. That didn't happen, the plan got cancelled , as happens so often in China :D So, it was decided that we should record ourselves singing and make a little music video. What I didn't expect was that our university has an actual recording studio. With switchboard and everything. We all had to go into the scary room with the microphone one by one and sing our part, which was nerve-wracking for me, but I did it! And the result is actually kind of adorable, you can watch it here. Oh, by the way, the other foreigner is my roommate <3

In the recording studio.

What else happened? One of my dear friends, Jay, went back to Korea. So obviously we went out to celebrate. My first night out in Xi'an, it was pretty amazing. And the night watch was only a little bit mad at us when we got back (just kidding, he was very mad, but what can you do). You are missed Jay!

Then of course, I had my speech competition. I have a story to tell. It's a story to tell about the competitive spirit of Chinese teachers. So during the week leading up to the competition, I had to go rehearse with five of our teachers and the other participating students pretty regularly. Of course, they want you to be perfect. On its own, not that crazy yet, right? Well, after the last rehearsal they asked me to stay behind because they had something to discuss. What was it they wanted to discuss, you ask? Well, the problem was that I had no clothes that they deemed appropriate for a big competition. So, they decided to send me shopping with one of the teachers to find something fitting. I got permission by my academic supervisor to skip a day of classes to walk around a giant shop for costume renting in order to find the perfect dress. It was expected of me to wear a 旗袍 qipao, a traditional Chinese dress. Turns out though, that Chinese sizes and European sizes are quite different. In the end I went home with a Qipao in size XXL. It did look nice though. Then I also had to get high-heels and put my hair up in a bun. All for four minutes of fame. The day of the competition itself was not as exciting, I won a flash drive and a wireless mouse, which I haven't gotten to work :D the flash drive is super cool though. I really hope that this will be the end of my affair with speech competitions. It's not something I enjoy.

After all of this was done, it was time for what? That's right, exams! And also Christmas! Some really crazy times were had. A little bit of studying was done and mulled wine was made. All the exams went pretty well, probably owing to the fact that a lot of times you just had to learn the questions from the textbook by heart because the teachers didn't want to think of their own questions. I even did well on the translation test, which I'm actually quite proud of. We had to translate a Tang poem from Chinese to English, with rhyme scheme and Iambic pentameter and everything. This exam by the way, was on the second day of Christmas. Unthought of :D Which brings me right around to our little Christmas celebration. We had classes in the morning of course. Then I went for a walk through the park with some friends, which was really beautiful. When we got back we started making pancakes with all the people living on our floor and also some other people from the dorm. In the end it turned out to be about 40 people. These things do happen. It was really fun, and the pancakes were delicious, obviously. Nutella and bananas. Afterwards the European gang and some invited Chinese friends had our private little celebration with gift exchanging and more mulled wine :) Also the Christmas Oratorio of course. It was a really nice Christmas, only lacking in family, cat and snow.

The tree.

Christmas walk.

One of my presents :)

Some other stuff happened in December, went to have hotpot a few times, went to KTV, went swimming, everyday stuff. The details are getting a little blurry. Again, sorry for the wait.

That will be all for this post, there will be another one following shortly with all my travels up to now. Currently I'm in 高雄 Gaoxiong, Taiwan. Taiwan so far has been great :) More details soon!

Chinese Word of the Day: 拖鞋 tuoxie, slippers. Very important when staying in hostels.