Finally - A Lion Dance

We heard the drumming from our patio, but we couldn't see anything.  Finally, Solomon and I, wearing slippers, and Taylor in his shoes, ran down to the lobby and out the front doors.  We followed the noise, and a block away we finally saw the drummers, and the lions!!

Baby lion.

Solomon refused to have his picture taken with this handsome guy.

But he did give the lion a little pet.

What a way to start our day, thanks to the grand reopening of the Standard Charter Bank!

Tainan

David and Chia planned a trip to the south of Taiwan for us.  We took the high speed rail early in the morning. Two hours later we had traveled from the north of the country to the south.

Here we are on the High Speed Rail.  Life couldn't be better for a three year old.

We stopped at the beach shortly after arrival.  The beach affords a chance to shake the wiggles out and............................

to practice a little yoga.

Lunch at a local seafood joint was great, but these ice cream cones were even better.  The U-shaped tubular cone is made from corn meal.

Taylor and I liked our cone too.

This is Anping Fort. It was originally built in 1624 by the Dutch.  It was known as Fort Zealandia.  

This is the beauty of being grandparents:  we are relaxing while David chases Solomon around the fort.

All good forts have cannons, and this one has a lot.

I have learned during this trip to Taiwan, that I can't go anywhere without exploring a temple.  Anping Kaitai Mazu Temple is next to the fort, so of course, we had to go in.

Because we are at the ocean front, these are gods of the sea.

Solomon likes to kneel in a temple occasionally.  I love this about him.

Outside the temple is a carnival type area.  Among the games of chance and ice cream vendors, we found Dragon Hair candy. It is indescribable, but delicious.  It is labor intensive and must be eaten shortly after being made.  If I see this again, I will buy it.

Each candy was filled either with peanuts, or sesame.

Classic Taiwan ice cream experience.  Push the pink button in the center.  The wheel on the left will spin.  Where it lands, you might get a free ice cream cone.  If not there is a very small purchase price.

Our next stop was the salt fields, where salt making was once a huge enterprise. 

A huge salt mountain.  Tourists come from all over to see this.  It is especially advertised to Japanese tourists as a desirable sight to see.

View from the top.

This area is now an amusement park.  The best part for Taylor and me was watching our little family take a ride in a pelican boat.

You have to be seaworthy to go out on the water.

What a great way to end our trip to Tainan.  Now, two hours on the High Speed Rail, and we will be back in Taipei.

It Appears That Even Gods Need Cellphones

Songshan Temple, Taipei

Signs are Pointing Toward a Propitious New Year

The New Year festivities keep marching along.  The last several days have been filled with the sounds and smells that go along with fire crackers and bonfires.  Shops that had been closed for the New Year holiday are now ready to reopen. Before reopening they display an altar with their god, fruits, flowers and incense.  They also provide burners for employees to burn paper money to send on to their deceased  relatives. However, the shop doesn't officially reopen until they set off firecrackers.  The air is filled with the sounds and scents of the New Year.

Early days in the New Year I noticed that several temples had buckets filled with rice and symbolic items on display.

These two photos are of the first two displays that I saw in small local temples.  Each bucket is filled with rice, a mirror, a sword, a ruler, a scale, a pair of scissors, and perhaps a dagger.  I don't think the buckets on the left were complete, because later I found the display on the right which has a banner, and an electric light.  Chia informed me that these are all part of a Taoist ritual.  In my imagination I pictured people marching along and chanting while holding the buckets.

Yesterday, when we walked by the small temple with the red bannered buckets, all the lights were ablaze.

The buckets are on the right and left of this display to the gods.  The women at the temple explained that everything here is in honor of the New Year and the god Tu Di Gong.  They encouraged us to come back at 2 p.m. for the chanting, but we never made it.

Today, however, as David, Taylor and I walked past the Citibank ATM from our first day in Taipei, we heard chanting in that very first temple we visited.

The courtyard leading in to the temple had this huge display of electrically lit rice buckets. There was no marching as I had imagined, but there was chanting.

This small altar is in the center of the rice buckets.  Looking closely we could see food products - rice, tea, apples, cakes, many fruits.  All provided to us on earth by the god Tu Di Gong - the god of the earth.

We walked through this colorful display, through the clouds of incense and into the main chamber where the chanting, accompanied by drumbeats filled the air.

I encourage you to listen to the following videos.  Each one is slightly different.  One is a very measured atonal chant, the other breaks into a more glorious sound with several instruments and differently pitched voices.

We aren't done with this temple yet.  When we left, we walked down the regular sidewalk next to the temple and discovered that the area had been made into a kitchen.

This area is normally a sidewalk next to the temple.  Today it is a kitchen and they plan to serve a lot of people.  We walked by stacks of  ham hocks and fresh vegetables.

These women are washing the dishes.  Have they already served a meal today?

The sidewalk that has been transformed into a kitchen is on the left. The passage on the right is the regular hallway leading into one side of the temple.

And this all happened on the way to the park.  I think it was a highlight of this visit to Taiwan for me.

On the way back from the park we walked by the temple again.  Food prep was still happening, but oh my...........................................a troop of volunteers was dismantling the fabulous display of rice buckets.

Can you see the people dismantling the display?

It looks like everything will be stored until next year.

We still have a few more days of the New Year celebration left.  I wonder what will be in store?  I certainly feel that what we saw today is a symbol that we will have a most propitious New Year.  What are the chances that we would stumble into the final chanting of the celebration, and that within two hours all would be disassembled?  It was all very fortunate in my mind.

The Third Day of the New Year

Traditionally, on the third day of the New Year, the wife of the family returns to her home to visit her own mother.  Since this doesn't apply to any of us, Chia organized a hiking trip for us instead.  She normally doesn't hike during the New Year because of the crowds who swarm to the country.  She made an exception to her usual routine since we were in town.  We took the train for 1 1/2 hours to the Caoling Historic Trail.  We expected to see mountains and the ocean, and to experience the peace and quiet of nature.

As we got off the train, we realized that a few other people had the brilliant idea of escaping from the city.

We followed the crowds to the actual trail head.  After a while, it really was peaceful, and we found ourselves walking alone for much of the time.

We passed this farm on the way to the trail head.  We all agreed that it is very charming, nestled into the base of the mountains.

As we walked along, I discovered that the mountains are very beautiful, and there were surprises along the way ...... a variety of temples.

This is one of my favorite temples.  Who do you suppose built it?  We almost walked right by.

The walk turned out to be a real hike, with many of the Taiwanese staircases that we have come to expect in a mountain hike.

I took this picture about a third of the way up.  It was an excuse to pause and catch my breath.

It was good to have Solomon with us because he liked to check the map and keep us on track.

After what seems like a very long hike, we arrived at the top of the trail.  What a lovely reward.

The ocean!!!!

Exhausted but happy.

And now we have to go from our mountain top pavilion down to the sea!  Yikes.

 

But before we go, there's yet another temple.

The hike down to the bottom seemed very long, but not as exhausting as the hike to the top.  And, we are not yet done with temples.  This is what we find once we arrive at sea level.

This is the biggest, most extravagant temple I have ever seen, tucked between the mountains and the ocean.  DaLi Temple.

We were surprised to find that in honor of the New Year, the temple was offering free food to visitors.  We had bowls of noodles and congee.  What a lovely, unexpected feast.

Of course, I couldn't just eat and run, so here are a few photos of the interior of the temple.  I only explored the first and second floor.  I never made it to the very top.

The arm is of a young girl praying with incense.  I definitely felt like I was intruding, but I wanted to remember this temple.

The god at the top of the photo is on the third level, where I didn't go.

View from the second floor.

This dragon is at the entrance.

From the temple we walked to the train station.  We were fortunate to get seats on the train, because by the time we arrived at Taipei Main Station the train was packed like sardines.  It seems like every one in Taipei had gone to the country for the New Year.

We were only away from our apartment for 12 hours, but it seems like we had been gone for weeks.  We saw so many different aspects of this amazing country, all in a short period of time.

Xin Nian Kuai Le!!!!