T52 to T65 - Experiencing Taiwan in some of its fullness!

21/11/2009 by paul.

Well I’m writing this two and a half weeks after my last post. My lovely wife, Jo has come and gone and I’m left reflecting over the amazing time we have visiting various places in Taipei and the week we spent travelling around Taiwan, or should I say Formosa - the beautiful island.

T52 was spent getting over incoming jetlag, before having a wander to the amazing living mall and Keelung River in Taipei. On the way back we bought some Pineapple Cake for my host on the previous Monday (see T49). We took the present round to the optician shop, thinking it was a good opportunity for Jo to meet some of the people who have made me feel so welcome. When we arrived we were presented with two more presents - chocolates and a bottle of wine to help make our ’second honeymoon’ even better! I still don’t understand how to do presents and hospitality here!

On Friday we set off for our solo adventure (well there were two of us, but no Taiwanese/Mandarin interpreters!). We spent five minutes trying to tell the taxi driver we wanted to go Shonsan Airport, which eventually after pointing at a big airport sign he understood our mumblings. We took the plane to Hualien - about 45 mins flight time in a propellor plane. As we flew down the North-Eastern coast there were several breaks in the clouds through which we could see beautiful Taiwan - bright blue seas, flat plains and high, steep, green covered mountains (links to pics are at the bottom!).

We spent the weekend in Hualien in a rather nice hotel, Parkview. There was an outdoor swimming pool which we made use of, and to our suprise no-one else did! We ventured out both to Hualien city centre - to a very local market, stumbled across a political gathering, and realised that the sea front was littered with industry, in particular a huge place that looked like a cross between a harbour and a cement works. Strangely the coast here reminded me of some of the places on the North-Eastern Coast of the UK - except here the indsutries are still thriving. I wonder whether they will suffer the same fate as our industrial towns in the North. On our second day in Hualien we went for a tandem bike ride - this time heading North from the hotel. We were only chased by two dogs along a small lane to a busy road. Tandem bike riding is particularly difficult - we didn;t really excel but we got far enough to admire the coast North of Hualien.

After three nights in Hualien we made our way to the train station and boarded a train bound for Taitung. Our second destination had sent someone to pick us up from Luye station. This meant taking a small train that called at nearly every stop. It took three hours, and after crossing off the 17 stops on a list as we went, we met with a man from the Bunun Foundation Cultural Centre. He drove us up into the mountains to our second stay. The Bunun people are some of the aboriginal people in Taiwan. I have been incorrect in my history before, but I believe that the Bunun people occupied the mountains of Central-Southern Taiwan until the Japanese came about 70 years ago. Because people living up in the mountains are hard to keep an eye, they made the people move further down to the edge of the lowlands, where several groups and villages still exist. It was at this particular village that we met Rev. Pai - an aboriginal PCT minister. He explained that the aboriginal people are still some of the poorest in Taiwan, and that they still feel the inequalities of education, health, wealth and skills. At the same the culture heritage is slowly fading as the young people are leaving the villages to go to the cities to find work. As a minister in this kind of place Rev. Pai developed the Cultural Centre to provide jobs, purpose and support for these people, whilst also protecting and sharing their culture. The centre can sleep many people and also has a great restaurant, coffee shop, souvenir shop (where you can still buy the traditional aboriginal goods) and theatre for performing aboriginal shows…

After two days in the mountains with these wonderful people, we were taken into Taitung to catch a bus to take us to Kaohsiung. Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan and is on the South Western Coast. The bus driver had a timetable to keep and un-tarmaced roads and hairpins bends would not slow him down. Our hotel was in the middle of Kaohsiung. Well in fact it was in the Kaohsiung biggest landmark - the skytower. This building (again links to pics below) is the second tallest in Taiwan after the 101 building in Taipei. Our hotel room faced the city from the 57th floor. After enjoying the wonderful food in the buffet restaurant, and sampling a few cocktails in the bar, we were nice and relaxed. One day we headed to Cijin Island - a small natural island off the coast of Kaohsiung which helped create a natural harbour for the biggest container ship port in Taiwan - there were a lot of boats, and they weren’t small. We found a little small boat that for 15NT (30p) took us across the harbour to the island. We wandered up to the lighthouse on the point and looked across the entrance of the harbour to the mainland to see the old British Consulate building (which is now a cafe) and our hotel towering above. We also visited the derlict fort and tried to find the church. The Presbyterian Church on Cijin Island is quite famous as it is where Maxwell (one of the first missionaries, with Mackay) began his ministry in Taiwan. Unfortunately the only building we could find with a cross on was completely locked and sealed up. hmm.. After a taxi ride which drop us off at a random place, we made it back to the hotel for another scrumptious meal and our final night of five-star luxury.

The next day (if you’re keeping track we’re up to Friday T59, I think) we headed to Kaohsiung train station and boarded another small train to take us Douliou station where some good friends would meet us. Here we were met by Rev. Chuang’s daughter and nephew and were taken Tek-Tung, to visit the church and school which I had experienced for ten days. It was great to meet up with everyone once more and the children put on a special show for Jo and were very pleased to meet her. After lunch together, we were driven up to Taichung HSR station to meet up with some PCT people.

This weekend we were to experience two amazing things - another Bunun village, and meeting many of the missionaries serving the PCT in Taiwan. We had been invited to the missionary retreat by the PCT which began in Taichung station before two small buses took us the two hours into the hills to another aboriginal village. This weekend was fabulous and it was great meeting and chatting to people - and worshipping in English! On the Sunday we joined the local church and I preached to the full church of around 200 while Johanne translated into Bunun. As encouragement to us all I chose to speak on Philippians 2, focussing on verse 2: ‘…then make my joy complete by being like-minded having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.’ I spoke about how we are to have the same love for each other (v.3-4), how we are to have the same love for Christ, placing Him and the cross at the centre of all we do (v.5-11), how we are to have the same spirit of the attitude of Jesus (v.5-11) and how we are to have the same purpose to shine like stars (v.12-18). It was wonderful to see how the Holy Spirit means that people from across the world can come together and meet with God through his Word.

On Sunday afternoon we headed back to Taipei. And the next few days were filled with many tourist visits. We made it to a night market, Damshui, the National Concert Hall, the National Theatre, the Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial Hall (which was very disappointing and a particularly biased museum to glorify a dictator - thankfully it was free!), parts of Taipei I’ve never been to, and, parts of Taipei I’ll not go to again!

On Thursday (T65) evening we also made it the airport where me and Jo said our goodbyes for another four weeks.

We had a wonderful time these last two weeks, and have really seen some of the extremes of Taiwan - five-star luxury and aboriginal villages, flat plains and high rise mountains, quiet countryside and bustling city, big mountains and cities that from the 91st floor of 101 seem to extend forever, people working hard to earn enough to eat and people splashing out on 12 course buffets, honest people sharing the faith and hope for future with us and a museum dedicated to a dictator who even after his death still demands respect and towers in Taipei, the friendliness of the Taiwanese people and the aggressiveness of their dogs, not to mention planes, trains, buses and boats!

Here’s a map of places we stayed, and then below are some links to our photos. The photos are on facebook but anyone can view them using the links below!

View Tour of Taiwan in a larger map

The photos have had to be put in three albums…

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

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