Taroko

Four hours on the cush, air conditioned train, viewing the scenic Pacific Ocian from the cliffs that line Taiwan's East Coast led our three heros to Hualien -- a touristy city perched between white sand beaches and turquoise water ravines. You all know what this means? It's about time we went bowling. . .

Does anyone actually understand Patchinko?

My last Friday in Seattle, Jason, Greg and a few others took me out for sushi, martinis and bowling. At four A.M, we found many things: Sapphire Gin does NOT help with the 7 - 10 split, wasabi does burn coming back up, and Jason only gets better with every drink. We had to relive this excitement here, in Hualien. Greg won one game. Jason won the other. I think I broke a hundred if you combine my scores from both games. The Taiwanese girls in the next alley, of course, thought us the cutest manly men in all of Eastern Taiwan, however a)could speak less English then I can Chinese, and, b) were younger then some of my students. I did, however, know enough Chinese to organize for us a bus tour of Taroko Gorge and ChihShan Beach, a night out watching aboriginal dancers from the Ami tribe, and I located the finest Hoon Doong (wonton) soup any of us have ever known. Not bad, eh?

The Ami dancers put on a good show of traditional song and dance. One dance included all of the male dancers in loin cloths dancing a very homo erotic jig that elicited many comments from my guests, while I slowly fell in love with the cute girl dancing on the far end during all of the female performances. In the end, we got up and donned traditional clothes and had our pictures taken dancing with the Ami dancers -- me of course with the little cutey I liked -- and had a great evening of it. Afterwards. me were taken to the very-recommended I-shang Woon Doong restaurant (all they serve is wonton soup. When you do something so right, I guess, why do anything else?). We then cruised many (lame) bars in Hualien. Overall, an excellent first day out of Taipei. The bus to Taroko was to pick up up at the hotel at 7:00 the next morning, so an early bed time was in order.

Taroko Gorge
In the morning, I introduced Jason and Greg to Dang Ping, as I had Steve just one week ago in Kaohsiung. Jason and Greg (as everyone universally does) loved it. The bus picked us up far too frigging early (7:00 in the &*%$# morning!!!) to tour the gorge, see the beach and learn so many interesting yet useless facts about marble. . .

The tour was given in broken English, Japanese, and Mandarin. My complaint is that the bus tour (a bargain at $700 NT) didn't spend enough time in some of the really cool places (the little temples, beautiful outlooks) and too much time at boring spots (a frigging marble factory???). The gorge itself is very beautiful and regarded as one of the most scenic spots in Taiwan. My friend, Don, very often makes trips out to the gorge to camp, he likes it so much.

There are several temples and shrines in the gorge. The first picture on this page is the most famous -- with waterfalls flowing through the building itself. The giant golden Buddha to the right is also well known. Mesmerized by the sites and inspired by the (frigging) marble factory, Jason and Greg spent thousands of Taiwan dollars on marble statues and beautiful scrolls. I even bought a scroll for my living room. Greg and I, of course, referred to these traditional-style Chinese paintings as "Tapestries" in a bad Harrison Ford Scottish accent (see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)

Upon return to Taipei, we drank too much and I made an ass out of myself. On Saturday, Jason experienced a Chinese Kung Fu class and is glad to return to Master Evans at Quantum in Seattle with the tale. I was informed of a Kung Fu tournament and quickly agreed to enter. To do so, I would need to lose 4 kilos. . .I'll write more about this later. I thank my friends, J-Griff and G-Ball, for taking their vacation in Taiwan -- I enjoy your company a great deal and can't wait to see you in Seattle in the spring!

November 16, 2002

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