Huang Di Dian

皇帝殿 "Huangdidian"

Day Hike at the "Emperor's Hall"

by Peter

We set out for a day hike on Saturday to the hills surrounding Taipei.  The trail named, for reasons unbeknownst to me, as the Emperor's Hall climbs from a village 30 minutes from Taipei and affords great views considering how close it is to the city.  The several hour hike is a study in contrasts.  The beginning and ending portions of the trail consists of endless stone steps:

Carly surveying the steps while ascending Huangdidian

Once the steps segment of the trail is completed the trail quickly gets wilder and more interesting.  Most of the hike is along a ridge.  The hills and mountains in Taiwan are very steep making the hiking quite exhilarating.

Some of the hiking was a bit "Sketchy"

One of the nice aspects of this hike is that it is accessible by public transportation.  Several subway stops and a public bus ride to Shitou village brings one to within one kilometer of the trailhead.  Apparently there a many good day hikes around Taipei and our sore legs the day after the hike are a good reminder that we need to get out more!

The East peak of Huangdidian

A Taiwanese Feast

By Ashley

In a city with an endless number of incredible restaurants, not being able to read Chinese is a curse. There is so much that we miss as we walk down the street. Sometimes we'll catch a character or two, but knowing only one or two doesn't quite do the job and it just kills me knowing that we are missing all the signs that might alert us to some wonderful culinary option.  We're fortunate, therefore, to have Taiwanese friends who also adore food and are excited to share the riches of their culinary culture with us. They have been the key to our enjoying some amazing Taiwanese cuisine.

Last night, Frank and Jennifer (Ping An and Ijen - the same folks who took us to Sun Moon Lake), took our family to one of their favorite regular spots in a section of town called Yong Kang Jie. Yong Kang Jie is just north of Shi Da, the university we live next to, and is an area that has become popular over the last few years for its food, shops, coffee shops and tea houses. Some old Japanese era houses still exist in Yong Kang Jie, and in the evenings, the streets are crowded with people so that scooters and cars can only occasionally and very slowly sneak through. It is a wonderful place to wander.

Frank, Jennifer and their two children led us through the crowds to a side street with everything from sushi shops to brick oven pizza. However, our group entered a nondescript restaurant that housed about four tables and two private rooms. The restaurant reminded me of some of the places at which we loved to eat in China...plain decor, no frills. I was psyched!

As we entered, the fu wu yuan (manager/waitress) greeted Frank and we had a few minutes to take in the variety of creatures that inhabited the fish tanks and bowls along the back wall. It never ceases to amaze me how many types of bivalves I am not familiar with. There were bowls filled with an incredible assortment of shelled critters with slightly protruding, slimy feet. Ugly stuff indeed. These bowls were set against a background of a refrigerated, glass case that featured two parrot fish heads!  Although I am very familiar with this type of thing, it still makes me a bit sad!

The Fu wu yuan welcomed us into one of the private rooms and the feast began. First came a big plate of chao fan (fried rice) to pacify our troops of kids. We had been biking all day and they were famished. It was nothing new, but it was delicious and comforting and the kids inhaled it. Then came a dish called San Bei Ji (san bay gee) which consists of pieces of bone-in chicken, basil, garlic, huge pieces of ginger and hot peppers cooked in a hot cast iron pot. It is a traditional Taiwanese dish; I am pretty sure we never had it in China. It was delicious. 

San Bei Ji ("san bay gee")

Following the San bei Ji came Cong Bao Niu Rou ( song bow kneeoh row), beef in a brown sauce with green onions. Unlike the American granddaughter of this dish, the Taiwanese original is not heavy at all and the sauce does not overwhelm. Next came two dishes of sashimi! One dish was typical sashimi and the other was a Taiwanese version that was very quickly grilled. The Japanese occupation of Taiwan is reflected in Taiwanese architecture and, thankfully, food as well.

Cong Bao Niu Rou ("song bow kneeoh row")

The next dish worried me a bit at first as I am not a huge consumer of clams, but these were so incredibly beautiful that I decided I had to try them. They were called Hua Gua Zi and the shells had a gorgeous, lined pattern on them.  They were cooked with huge slices of ginger, lots of basil and slightly spicy red peppers and we just picked up the shells and sucked them down.  They were unbelievably good!    

Hua Gua Zi ("hwah gwah z")

Following the clams, came a plate of dry cooked shrimp with peppers and scallions.  It was called Yan Su Xia (salty, crispy shrimp).  I love shrimp and I had begun to peel and eat them when our friends smiled and told me to just chomp them right in the middle so you eat the body with the shell and leave the tail and head behind.  This dish was good, but was my least favorite.  The shells were completely edible, but they somehow took away from the taste of the shrimp.  

Yan Su Xia - Salty, crispy shrimp

Served at the same time was a very cool veggie dish called Long Xu Cai - dragon beard vegetables and called such because of the fern-like stringy portion of the vegetable. It is fabulous.  They cooked it with tons of garlic.   We had been craving good, dark greens, so this was a welcome dish.

Long Xu Cai - Dragon beard vegetables

Just when I thought there could be no more food and that my belly was sure to burst with the combination of food, wine and beer, out came the final two dishes.  The plate of Cong Hua Chao Dan (fried eggs with scallions) didn't seem appealing as I was so incredibly full, but my brother Ian tried it and grinned gleefully at me.  I dove in.  I think that those eggs were perhaps the best eggs I have ever consumed.  It could, perhaps, have been the influence of the wine, good company and the fact that Ian and Frank were playing a hilarious, crazy, Chinese hand game that included shouting and small glasses of beer, but regardless, the eggs blew me away.  As I raved about them and Frank laughed at my enthusiasm, Ian looked at me and said, "It's probably the MSG."  Kill joy. 

Cong Hua Chao Dan - scrambled eggs with scallions

The last dish was what we thought was fried squid and was called Su Zha Zhang Yu (salty, crispy squid).  It came with a small dish of some yummy pepper to dip in.  As opposed to fried calamari in the States, the batter on this dish was fine and light and the squid was tender, not rubbery.  It was delicious.  Frank and Jennifer then began to say that it wasn't squid but a bigger version of a squid and that it was some part of the legs….we thought they might have meant octopus suction cups, but I have been trying to look it up and it doesn't seem to be correct.  Whatever it was, it was outstanding.  

Zha Hua Zhu - fried squid?

At the end of the evening, Carly's blank stare and Perrin's slowly-closing eyes told us it was time to go home.  We all hobbled out of the restaurant after many "xie xie"s to the fu wu yuan and strolled home through the still-bustling alleys.  By every measure, the meal was the best we have had in Taipei.

Ning-Ning, Perrin, Julian, Carly and Frank on the way home

Biking on the Back of a Bike

By Carly

     This weekend I had a very unusual experience!  My Uncle, E-Pie, and my family went biking on U-Bikes, or city bikes.  They are bikes with a comfortable seat and no cross bar.  Also, on the back wheel, there is a big plastic cover with a picture of a cat with one blue ear.  That’s the part of the bike that I ended up riding on!  This is why.  

     E-Pie needed to set up a U-Bike account so he could rent a bike for the day but, in order to do that, you need a Taiwanese phone number and he lives in Hong Kong, so he didn’t have one.  But, he needed a passport to get a phone number and he didn’t have his passport so he couldn’t rent a U-Bike!  The result was me sitting on the yellow wheel cover on the back of my dad’s U-bike.  We started biking but we had to stop because my butt was hurting so we folded up my mom’s sweatshirt and I sat on the sweatshirt which was on the wheel cover on the back wheel on my Dad’s bike.  It felt weird and uncomfortable but I must admit, it was pretty cool.

Me on the back of my Dad's bike

     We biked on little alley-ways and tiny streets, with me clinging onto my Dad’s back.  We had just come out of a back alley when we saw a tall structure of giant colored blocks.  We parked our bikes and walked over to it to take a look.  Unfortunately, E-Pie read the Chinese characters and they said that you can’t climb on it.  Darn!  We figured out that it was called the Vertical Village.

The sculpture outside the Vertical Village Museum

Daddy on his UBike in front of the vertical Village

     After looking at that awesome structure, we started biking again down more tiny streets and roads until we got off our bikes because we had biked into to the center of a big, crowded street market.  We walked our bikes along fruit stands, roasted duck stands, fried chicken stands, and something that looked like an outdoor spa.  People were sitting on a wall in the market while having their toenails cut way too short with scissors.  They were mostly older people that had gross, yellow, short and jagged toenails.  Some “Spa” that was!

     Finally, we jumped back onto our bikes and all of a sudden…”OUCH!!!”  “What? Why has my bike stopped?”  My dad asked.  Then he realized that my foot was stuck in between the wheel and the wheel cover!  The bad thing was that we were crossing a street and we had to get across before the walk sign turned into a stop sign!  After I pulled my foot out, we had to take my Mom’s sweatshirt off of the wheel cover before we started to bike again because I was slipping off of it.  About 20 minutes after that we got to the river which was our destination.  At the river, I got onto the U-Bike E-pie had been riding and E-pie rented a bike from a bike shop that did not require a passport. Finally we all had bikes and started biking home.

P, Poisonous Things All Around

By Carly

            This weekend, my family and my Dad’s friend’s family went to a little bed a breakfast called Woody House near Sun Moon Lake near Taichung.  It sounds like a preschool but really it is a frog B&B.  It sounds weird, but it is actually really fun. 

            Before dinner, a person came up and started talking to my Dad’s friend, Frank, in Chinese.  He understood because he is Taiwanese, but he and his wife can speak English, too.  It turns out, the woman asked us to come on a nighttime nature walk.  We said yes.

            First, we walked down to the parking lot and got flashlights.  Everyone turned their light on and we walked to a little manmade pool that the B&B kept to attract frogs.  We looked at one brown, water frog.  Then we put rubber boots on and walked down to a small pond and on a leaf beside the pond was a little, neon-green frog that you could hardly see because it was exactly the same green as the leaf.  I got to hold it!  Its fingers were round and sticky so it could climb trees.  When I held it, it stuck to my hand.  When you hold a frog, the good way to hold it is by the lower, hind legs.  The guide said that if something were to eat this green frog, the frog would poison the animal.

            After I put the green frog down, we all went to a stream and looked for more frogs.  We didn’t find any.  Instead, we found a small, green snake that was so poisonous that if you got too close and it bit you and if you didn’t get to the hospital in time, you could die.  At first, we couldn’t see it at all because it was so well camouflaged.  Then our eyes hit the right spot and we saw it.  Our guide knew it was poisonous because of its triangular head.

            We walked on.  Near the place we were going to get out of the stream, we saw an enormous plant.  It was probably ten feet tall!  It had huge, white flowers that looked like trumpets.  Our guide told us that it blossomed in the night and if you touched it and then licked your fingers, or if you ate it, you would get poisoned. 

            When it was time to get out of the stream area, we climbed up a big ladder and started to walk up to the B&B.  While we were walking, my Dad noticed a toad.  He ran up to tell the tour guide.  When she came back, she said it was the toad she had been hoping to show us.  It was slimy, bumpy and it had sticky skin.  She said when it was scared, poisonous liquid would seep out of its back and poison whatever wanted to eat it. 

            I have never been to a nature walk quite like that one where everything was poisonous, and I don’t think I’ll forget it for a long, long time!

The neon-green frog

Rachophorus Taipeianus - Taiwan green tree frog

The snake is at the top of the rock in the center of the picture.  It is hard to see.

         

The sticky, slimy, poisonous toad

Twice Caught Shrimp

By Perrin

Last weekend we went to Sun moon lake, a beautiful lake in the mountains in central Taiwan. My dad's college friend named Frank and his family came with us. He has two little kids,  a three year old named Julian and a one year old named Ning Ning. We biked and caught frogs at the lake and at the end of the trip on the way back to the Taichung, (a city about an hour away from the lake), Frank took us to an indoor shrimp fishing pool where his friend likes to fish. It is an indoor pool that they dump shrimp into so you can fish for them. I think that is sort of funny because they have already been caught once by the people who dumped them in, so don't feel too proud when you catch one! Julian thought it was funny that there were no shrimp catching pools in America! After you catch them, you can take them home to eat, or they will cook it for you right there and I must admit they were pretty good, especially since I don't even like shrimp! This is a comic I wrote about our shrimp fishing experience... 

河堤步道  “River Bikeway”

Riding to the River Bikeway
 via a new pedestrian bridge

Physical exercise, preferably outdoors, is an important ritual in my life.  We are very fortunate in the Upper Valley to have very convenient access to outdoor recreational trails and other facilities and I had assumed that this would not be the case living in Taipei.  I have therefore been very pleasantly surprised to discover the Taipei River Bikeway.  The River Bikeway is an enterprise spearheaded by the Taiwan government that encompasses more than 150 miles of bike paths and park (with more being added every year) that circumnavigate the city.  The paths primarily run along Taipei’s several rivers and are dotted with bike rental facilities, nature paths, tennis courts, and other recreational facilities.  The scale of the park and investment involved is enormous and seems very foreign to me given the relative lack of this type of government investment in the US.  I look forward to learning more about the genesis of the River Bikeway, and in the meantime I just plan to enjoy it.

A section of the River Bikeway

Climbing wall and slide along the Bikeway

Another Climbing Wall

Road trip

Our First, Very Convenient Road Trip

Somehow I continue to expect that travelling in Taiwan is going to be the same astravelling in China 15 years ago.  As a result, everyday is filled with pleasant surprises, since Taiwan and China couldn’t be moredifferent.   When we lived in China, so many aspects oflife were 麻煩 (ma fan = a hassle, troublesome,inconvenient), but we were young and generally game for the challenge.  In contrast, life in Taiwan is extremely 方便 （fang bian = convenient) and fairly hassle-free.  Our trip last weekend to TaiChung, inEastern-central Taiwan, was a perfect example. 

        We had wanted to take a road trip out of Taipei for theweekend, and Peter’s old friend, Frank (Ping An) had suggested we go with hisfamily to Sun Moon Lake, Taiwan’s largest lake, which is located 45 minutesEast of the city of TaiChung.  On Fridaymorning, Peter went on-line to the Taiwanese Train website and was able topurchase tickets for the four of us on the high-speed rail.  This may sound completely normal, but youmust understand that while Peter and I can both get our message across withspoken Chinese, we have almost entirely lost our ability to write and readChinese.  As a result, websites can bedaunting, and Google Chrome’s translations are amusing, but notenlightening.  So, the Taiwanesegovernment has done a huge favor by making its entire web site English-friendly.  Once we purchased the tickets on-line, wewent to the corner 7-11, put a confirmation number that had been texted to usinto a machine and out popped our train tickets!  Coming from the Upper Valley where there is adearth of both public transportation and high speed technology, it seemed likemagic to us.

        Saturday morning dawned and within 15 minutes on the metro, wewere at the HSR (high speed rail) station ready to catch our train.  It was so incredibly easy.  Since we had allowed 45 minutes to get from home to the train, we had timeto hang out, have a coffee, and chat with a very outgoing, 9-year-old Taiwaneseboy who wanted to practice his English…. which was excellent!

        Boarding the train was another lesson in Taiwaneseefficiency.  Every passenger’s ticketdictates a car number and a seat number.  On the pavement on the waiting platform you can find your car number andthen you line up in between the white lines that indicate your seats.  It makes you feel a bit like cattle waitingfor slaughter, but man, is it effective! Within 10 minutes of the train’s arrival, and without one push, shove orcurse, every passenger was settled on the train and we were rolling out.  Lesson? Don’t be late for your train in Taiwan, ‘cause it ain’t waiting.

Peter and the girls at the HSR train

        Upon our arrival in TaiChung, we rented a car – also a completelylovely experience – and headed  east to the town of Puli, where we had agreed tomeet our friends.  Frank had expressedsome concern that we wouldn’t be able to figure out where to meet him, but hedidn’t realize that we are completely willing to ask questions and make foolsof ourselves, which usually means we figure out what we need to. 

        Frank, his wife Jennifer and their two kids, Julien, age 3+and Ning Ning, age 1+, joined us at a somewhat-skanky-looking-but-actually-quite-yummyroad-side place.  We ate and then headedout to our B&B, a place called “Woody House.” 

        Again, during our time in Beijing, there was no such thing asa B&B, much less a decent western hotel. Here in Taiwan, B&B’s are plentiful. The Woody House was perched on a tropical hillside.  There were four main buildings made of darkwood with green tiled roofs. One building was designed as a public kitchen/dining area andhad all of the equipment and basics one might need to make dinner.  Opposite the kitchen was a two story buildingwith four bedrooms.  In between was anopen courtyard with a BBQ grill and a table for traditional Chinese teapreparation and general hanging out.

Public Kitchen/Dining Area and courtyard

        After putting our supplies away, we headed to Sun Moon Lakefor a walk to give our legs a stretch. Exercise is the one thing that has been missing in our Taiwan equationso far, so the walk felt good.   Carlypushed Ning Ning in her stroller and Perrin and Julien ran around burning offenergy.

        Around 6:30 we headed back to the B&B, showered, poured aglass of wine and prepared some hors d’oeuvres.   As it became dark, we were invited to jointhe manager of the hotel and some other guests for a night nature walk.  Carly has written about that part of ourtrip, so I won’t go into it here, but suffice it to say that it was fascinating despite our inability to understand most of what the guide was saying.  I finally had toadmit to my daughters that I am SCARED to DEATH of snakes.  Uhg.

        We spent the rest of the evening preparing a feast.  It began with guo tie (pan-fried dumplings)c/o Frank, moved on to our contribution of a salad, and culminated with anamazing clam, garlic, cilantro and hot pepper pasta that Jennifer had learnedhow to prepare in Italy during her 1 ½ years there.  Peter then grilled some enormous steaks onthe grill and we gobbled it all down accompanied by many glasses of wine.  

Guo tie - pan fried dumplings

Carly, Perrin, Ning Ning and Julien

Jennifer cooking the clams for the pasta

Peter checking the doneness of the steak

Perrin finally called it a day at 10:00, Carly hit the sack next and then at 11:00, Jennifer and her two kids and I all went to bed.  Peter was up until 1:30 and Frank was up until 3:00 partying with a group of women celebrating their 30^th high school reunion. It was a fabulous night.

        The following day we biked part of the bike trail around SunMoon Lake and then headed back to TaiChung for a shrimp fishing adventure, thedetails of which I will let Perrin describe in her up-coming cartoon.