My students thought I was weird for stopping to take a picture of this caterpillar munching on a flower. Caterpillars in Taiwan tend to be quite exciting and fairly common. Butterflies flit about in many varieties and colors on the mountain trails. Someone once told me that Taiwan was the empire of the butterflies or something like that. Of course, gardeners like my aunt aren’t overly fond of caterpillars.
Sorry I’ve been dreadful about posting and responding to comments recently.
Here are some photos of the countryside of Hualien from the vantage point of a tour bus full of children…
Many of the riverbeds in Taiwan are dry as this one is. Often the water is diverted into rice paddies.
There tend to be a lot of tour buses that frequent Hualien.
It’s a good thing I never had to drive around Hualien– the clouds and mountains are far too distracting. I’d never figure out proper directions.
The lamppost looks like an odd sort of tree…
Sitting on the bus, watching the scenery flow past the windows, I relaxed with the view of all that green and blue. My kids and I all ended up dozing off at some point or another. The nice thing about a bus is that I didn’t feel compelled to count heads every five minutes to make sure that I hadn’t lost any children on our field trip!
Expats– VOTE!
I’m going back to watch the excitement of the elections up close, but even if you’re overseas (and hopefully it’s not too late) register and vote! And for anyone vaguely curious– Malaysia is a really fun place to visit and the people on Palau Tioman and in Malacca are really sweet, though KL is a bit crazy (but that might just be because I’m good at getting lost… in the rain). Selamat Hari Raya and Happy Eid! Oh, and from now on, everyone I meet has to write their name in my book, because otherwise I won’t remember it, and then will be silly and feel too dumb to ask for it later. I just know people as– the lovely diving guy from Nottingham, or the guy who left Japan to work on farms in Australia, or the Dutch girl, or the wild Aussie/Canuck/American/Brit/German who drove trucks with chickens in them in South Africa… This blog will return to Taiwan-ness, but not for at least another few weeks, if not until November. And if anyone has tips for how to turn into Mary Poppins with a magical carpet bag that fits hat stands and an umbrella that doesn’t require going through airport security, I’m all ears!
On a memorable weekend before I left Taipei, my dear cousin took me out to the beach by Keelung. We drove to a scenic point on the mountain where I had fun with my zoom lens figuring out what people were doing on the shore.
I am guessing that they are checking out a fish, or perhaps a snail. Or maybe someone dropped a contact…
A little purple wildflower that was all over the mountain where we first stopped to enjoy the view.
Tiny blueberries growing by the side of the road.
We hung out by the tide pools and my cousin and his friend attempted to catch fish with no luck, though they did catch a crab, and a few snails I believe. We let them all go before we left.
I wonder what they’re looking at.
Something about this picture makes me think of zen.
Dusk on the beach.
The fishing boats all have these garlands of humongous clear light bulbs to illuminate the area around the boat and attract fish. At night, the boats are independent stars bobbing on the darkness of the ocean on the edge of the horizon. According to my cousin, one needs a permit to go with a fishing boat out to do deep-sea fishing. (Thanks go to my cousin for the patience and help in setting up this not-completely blurry shot of the fishing boat at night… I actually bought a tripod, but just don’t seem to bring it when it turns out I could actually use it…)
Corn dogs. The one with the orange bit wrapped around it is cheese, and the one with the green bit wrapped around it is wasabi (I think). I’ve eaten duck tongues, pig feet, and all manner of intriguing cuisine here in Taiwan, but the cheese corn dog ranks as the most disgusting thing I think I have ever eaten. So much for rebelling against nutritionist-mothers!
I know what you’re all wondering… Would drinking one of those bubbling steamy drinks make steam shoot out of your ears??? Sadly, no. My friend said it wasn’t half-bad and she got to keep the cup with a steam vent on it. I think there was dry ice involved…
When we went to Barclay Park this spring (yes, there’s a backlog of postings, my apologies– but fortunately for ye readers who like attending my witterings and pretty pictures, since there is a backlog, the blog will likely not die even after I finally return to the US in the fall for the kiss and cry of the election… Oh, where was I? Right… Barclay Park, a spring morning when I actually woke up REALLY early to go take photographs), the air wasn’t oppressively hot, and there were plenty of people doing their morning exercises of Tai Chi, and stretches and strolling energetically about. In spite of the hopping pathways which hosted adorable tots being walked by their parents, there was a certain ambiance that retained that silent watchful quality nature has, even when it’s not all that silent…
Cute lizards
A smushed flower– these are pretty common if you stroll underneath the trees with slightly fern-like leaves and red flowers which I don’t know the proper name of. They’re beautiful though, and I’ll photoblog them at some point. ETA: My mother informs me that they are called “flame trees” and that Tainan has also been known as the “flame tree city.”
Another flower that was growing on bushes close to the water’s edge.
I think these are vaguely orchid-like, even though they are attached to a bush.
A water hyacinth.
Sunflowers always make me think of Provence, but there was a little field of them in Barclay park too.
Barclay Park is a nice little park in Tainan that I visited with my aunt this past spring. It is named after a missionary. I was on a mission to shoot photographs of lotus. Unfortunately, the park didn’t have any lotus (so I am still on my quest– tips on places to shoot lotus anyone? For some reason whenever I want to shoot lotus, I run out of battery after one shot, or it’s raining, at night, etc…)
However, there were many other things to take photographs of…
Fishing in the pond. I always think those long black fishing poles look like antenna, flicking up and down, tasting the air above the water with a graceful arch.
A sleepy red-eyed duck.
Geese eating bark for breakfast… Mmm…
This is a close-up of breadfruit, which I have yet to eat.
Mangoes hanging from the tree. (This reminds me of an illustration class I was in once, where an extremely talented artist in my class made a gorgeous illustration, except all the mangoes were hanging upside down on the tree.)
Shuei lien are water flowers that only open at night and close by mid-morning.
Close to the stream, the sound of the cicadas rose into a pelting loud chorus as we walked under the trees. This is my attempt to shoot the living one that my aunt pointed out to me.
Her shot was better…
My aunt has this little white water flower that is quite possibly no more thanks to the tendency of the puppies to dive in and take a bath, eat, and drink from its pot.
Hibiscus is pretty, no?
A yellow lady’s slipper orchid.
Honeysuckle– the only flower we have at home too.
This interesting plant grows by the pond and has what I assume are fern-like seed pod thingies (such a technical term, right?).
Doesn’t this look like a lovely spot? It would be lovelier without the little black white-spotted mosquitos, but I suppose one can’t have everything.
These tiny flowers become the red berries below.
I have no idea what this plant is, but it’s pretty.
This is actually a small frond of a large fern. Ferns in Taiwan are often huge.
So, I was on my way to Tainan right after my final fat-lady-sang-the-last-encore day of school (subbed for the first week of summer school), and had received my last hug sandwiches from the kids and so forth. I had been operating with a sore throat and slight froggy voice for the week post-our big school trip to Hualien (which was beautiful, but rainy and a bit dazed in the company of many children and parents.) I miss my students already, but after operating fueled by the ashes of burnout, I was ready for the year to end.
I was packed up and since I figured slinging a big bag on the back of my auntie’s scooter was ma fan (troublesome), I decided to be oh-so-much-more-intelligent and use two little bags and my backpack (which goes up front with her).
I wasn’t feeling so hot, but I like to soldier through colds instead of dealing with doctors, even though I really like my current doctor in Zhonghe (I found him after a few months of the morphing neverending cold which welcomed me to Taiwan and finally drove me to the doctor with double pink-eye added in– the demonic look was hardly effective behavior-management combined with the coughing and congestion. He doesn’t drug me silly and has excellent English– I’ve happily referred colleagues to him). My suitemate beseeched me not to go sick as I was about to walk out the door. I did remember that I’d forgotten my toiletries and ducked back into my room to get them before stumbling out of the apartment.
Well, I stopped off at a few places for breakfast, technical pen, etc., admired babies on the subway and got on the high speed rail. Finally I slowly slipped into a doze next to the nice older lady beside me as the scenery whizzed by. Suddenly, I was seized with the realization that there was more space in the seat than there would be if I had both my bags with me.
Then I began calling frantically on my cell phone to see if someone back in Taipei could help me track my camera down. In case you haven’t noticed, I have severe shutterbug, and losing my third eye was putting me into a panic. I do not recommend trying to sustain a cell phone conversation on the HSR. In Taipei, it is perfectly fine to try to chat on a cell in the subway MRT, unlike it was in my days in NYC’s subway. However, the HSR involves lots of tunnels, and travels so quickly it defies cell phone signals.
So, I left a couple messages, and called my landlady so I could call my suitemate (who reassured me on the third broken call that perhaps I was benighted enough to have left my camera in my room in my quest for toiletries, though I wasn’t benighted enough to leave it in the entranceway with my shoes).
I was back in Tainan to check on a possible job lead and hang out with the family. Though I doctored myself with ba boo (a kind of non-creamy traditional ice cream that is very yummy), and lemon-honey (which I keep on mixing up with the “bee” in Chinese. “Honey” is “fong mi” and “bee” is mi fong, but my aunt understood me anyway) tea, I was a pretty miserable wreck. Relative intervention led me to my uncle the doctor, despite my assurance that I’d go back to Taipei and meet up with mine.
He took my temperature, announced excitedly, “You have FEVER!” (38.1 Celsius, which is over 100 Fahrenheit) and the nurse muttered something about my hong bao coming right up. I was a bit confused, because I associate hong bao (red envelopes) with Chinese New Year money. I get a prize for a fever? However, it was a cluster of pills wrapped in red paper.
When one goes to the doctor in Taiwan, most commonly, one gets a buffet of pills and medicines, even for a simple cold. I ended up drugged and asleep for most of last week. (Aren’t I fun on vacation!? Last year after school I ended up on horse pills.)
I finally got back after my last course of and began inquiring after my camera in Taipei (I’d filed a missing object report with the very nice info desk at HSR in Tainan who called up Taipei to check for me.). After retracing my steps and asking all the very nice people (sometimes I feel like I’m on Sesame Street– I’m friends with the 7/11 clerks and my breakfast servers…), I finally made my way back to the MRT with a leaden heart. I’d arrived too late to check their lost and found as soon as I got back from Tainan (which didn’t prevent me from asking the HSR people in Taipei).
So I stopped in at their lost and found, and was rewarded with the return of my camera. I hugged it and convinced them that I was looney tunes. I was, after all, already suspect, considering that I’d managed to lose such an awesome camera and not come back looking for it until a week later. The tall desk protected the marvelous lady who returned it from me hugging her and dancing her across the room.
The lost and found service, I couldn’t help noting, had a veritable wall of umbrellas.
I’m still sniffling and using up pocket packs of tissues like nobody’s business… Maybe I’ll go back to the doctor.
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