Sunday December 30th, 2012
Hmm…windbreaker or fuzzy jacket? Little did I know how
important this decision would be. Weather is always a mystery to me in Taiwan.
So once the family left the house on our trip and found out it was 9°C
(48.2°F)
I thanked god I picked the fuzzy, warmer jacket rather than just a light
windbreaker. Today was my first day in Taiwan that I could see my breath
(a.k.a. the coldest day in Taiwan for me yet). It was surprising but I really
wished I could’ve predicted it sooner so gloves or a scraf could’ve been a part
of my outfit today. Boy, did I need them! (That’ll be explained later)
Our first stop was at a special, one-of-a-kind Buddhist temple
completely decorated with seashells. That’s right, you heard me, seashells. The
walls were all lined with shells and coral. Lamps were made out of dangling
strings of shells. Statues of dragons, paintings of phoenixes and all that jazz
were all designed with shells. It really was spectacular and a beautiful sight.
The entrance to the temple.
A close up of a pillar showing off a marvelous seashell dragon. (Front left pillar of the previous picture)
Just a few of the many kinds of coral and seashells on the wall.
The main part of the Buddhist shrine
This little, or should I say BIG, do-dad is in the shape of what money
used to be in China. In modern days, it now symbolizes luck and wealth. So what you do with this ginormous thing in
the temple is just rub it or kinda sweep the good luck from the object to you.
They say it’ll make you wealthy.
This would be a giant pearl as big as your hand. If it’s truly real, I
can’t say for sure, but it’s another thing in the Buddhist religion you rub
that’ll make you lucky.
The teapot looking thing you see is as tall as you. In other words,
another huge thing in the temple. You smell the red part of the spout that has
incense stuff. I don’t remember what it means to do that, whoopies.
The last enormous lucky thing they had at the temple was this ball,
bigger than the size of your torso. You can both stroke it and spin it around
in rotation. If you spin it, they say it’ll multiple your wealth.
Going through the back of the temple in a semi-circle shape was a
little tunnel totally lined with coral. You had to duck and scuttle your way
through because the roof barely came up to your neck, maybe even shoulder, if
standing straight. In the middle was a shrine to a Buddhist god that’s always
drunk but gives out money.
After finished, for a snack we ate a small bowl of noodles provided by
the temple and drank some ginger tea. Whoo-wee that ginger was strong!
For a real lunch we went to Tamsui, a famous port area in Taipei.
There we made a pit-stop to…dun…dun…dun…SUBWAY! Yes! Hello my love! At that
point my body already had began freezing so a lovely hot, healthy sandwich with
a warm cup of American coffee hit the spot just right! Feeling in your fingers
is always nice to have once defrosted. ;)
Right outside the Subway was something called “the love bridge.”
Apparently famous in Tamsui, you and your lover walk across the bridge…and
yeah. Oh I was told there was a really nice hotel near by…that might contribute
to the bridge’s name. At first I was confused as to why it was called the love
bridge until figured it out for myself. When we walked across it there were
three weatherly conditions going on:
(a) Raining
(b) Flipping Cold
(c) WIND UP THE WAZOO!
Oh my gosh! Cold rain being gushed at your face with
incredibly strong wind?! It’s probably called ‘love bridge’ because you’re
hanging onto your lover for dear life trying to sustain a livable body
temperature! The wind kept constantly blowing my umbrella inside out and even
when I switched to a sturdier umbrella. The umbrella actually broke because the
wind was that harsh and unforgiving. Now imagine that kind of wind, on a
freezing day with rain attacking your bare face and hands. Once our little
bridge walk was complete, I had turned frozen red. This is why my fuzzier
jacket was a blessing of a choice.
Next on the list was a visit to a Rotarian’s house. I didn’t
know why we went but it was just for small talk I guess. It didn’t last very
long but the lady of the house served some nice tea that started to warm me up.
Following was going to a night market but in the daytime.
(A.K.A. it’s just a market street) We saw this and that here and there. It was
just a browsing time. At one point I could’ve sworn I saw what might be
considered a fancy, Asian s’mores bar! It looked interesting for sure. One shop
was a bakery of some sort that was PACKED WITH PEOPLE TO THE BRIM! It was SO
busy and SO crowded! The bakery was giving out bunches and bunches of samples,
which probably was the reason for such a hoard. Personally, I can’t handle such
a hectic environment without getting dizzy, stressed or loss of sanity. Even if
it had a warmer temperature, I was happy going back out in the cold street.
When looking at other people at the market, I couldn’t
believe how many were licking away at ice cream…in such freezing weather! Right
and left people were holding ice cream cones. I don’t know about y’all but I
think a nice hot beverage is preferable over scoops of chilliness in 9°C.
XD
The night finished with going to the weekend home in Bali.
Dinner was fried, super seasoned chicken, fried octopus, pig’s blood and sweet
potato fries. There was a trip to the gym but no real sweat was had because I
didn’t bring any workout clothing or shower stuff and hence just worked on the
bicycles, treadmill at a walking pace or shaker.
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