New roads, Yingge and Sanxia
The week was filled with lots of cycling along new country roads before class. The Taiwanese countryside continues to mesmerize me with its variety and beauty. Unfortunately, some of the best routes I found this week, were accompanied with a dead camera. As soon as I find these roads again I will be sure to have a working camera.
Almost ate it when I came over the top and found no more road
Road to the beach
Random temple on the way
Cool view from inside the temple
Sweet path I found
Sunday consisted of four of us going to a famous pottery town in Taiwan by the name of Yingge. A quick train ride put us in the center of town. After finding “Old Street”, we slowly browsed the myriad of pottery shops.
The crew deciding which direction to move in
Eventually, we stumbled onto a local stall which would let you make your own pottery for about $7 American. We attracted more than a handful of spectators to watch us fail at writing Chinese characters on the sides of our masterpieces. Can’t really beat that, and in two weeks, I can go pick up my fully glazed and lopsided cup/pencil holder/coin jar; a pleasant little memento of Taiwan.
Pottery Time
After some epic pottery making, we made out way down the road and stopped for lunch. Overpriced subpar food was surprisingly coupled with free pottery at the end of the meal. Sweet deal, although it took forever for everyone to decide on which item to choose. Post indecisiveness we flagged down a taxi to take us to Sanxia, a town a few kilometers away, known for the Tzushr Temple.
Poor pronunciation on my part led to a less than thrilled driver. Sounds, very similar to lasers found in a Star Wars film, were unfortunately blurted out after my attempt to describe a temple to the driver. I immediately regretted it and consequently was harassed by everyone in the car. Lucky for everyone we went by a sign to signal the right direction.
Once within the town, we wondered down to the temple and walked through a busy market street. The temple was under construction, but beautiful none the less. The detail within the temples here are absolutely amazing; it’s too bad that no one actually knows any of the stories behind them. After visiting the temple, we took our journey to the mountains. Our quest for a hike led us about one and a half kilometers away to a beat down shanty, where we believe to have found a dead body. Not really, but just take a look at the photo and see for yourself. Realizing our dreams of a hike were coming to an end we turned back towards town and chilled on a walkway along a river on the outskirts of town.
Crossing the river towards the mountains
No hiking up this way, only bodies
Chilling in the park
While failing to acquire a taxi back to the Yingge train station, we stumbled unto a ping-pong hall. The hall was not normally for community use, but when we asked if we could play a few games, the people there were awesome and let us borrow paddles and balls for a quick few rounds. Thankfully we didn’t have to play with anyone else in the room; I think they were training for the national team.
Scott and Allison playing ping-pong
Eventually, after some embarrassing games, we made our way to a convenience store, where we were able to phone a taxi. Our trip finally came to an end with a post train walk home, stopping by the local shaved ice spot; fresh mango on shaved ice with some sweet cream – delicious!