When the trains hit the fan

My poor wife often has to work on Saturdays, sometimes for just the mornings, but all too often for the entire day. I must admit, however, that her loss is my gain, in that I get to spend some quality time with my daughter. Usually that means going to a park to play ball games together, or to let Amber ride her bike or frolic on the playground. This afternoon, however, we went on a short day trip, taking the train from Fengyuan (Fēng​yuán) 豐原 to Changhua (Zhāng​huà) 彰化 in order to check out the Fan-Shaped Train Garage (shàn​xíng chē​kù) 扇形車庫. Looking like something out of Thomas the Tank Engine, the garage is a sort of wheelhouse used for maintenance of train cars. Visiting the complex is free, with the only requirement being that visitors sign in at the entrance.

There were several permanently parked train engines at the garage. Amber insisted on clambering up all of them.

Amber poses in front of the turntable, which is used to direct the train cars into one of the 12 maintenance spaces in the background.

An observation deck provided an overlook of the garage:

We timed our visit well this afternoon as we had the chance to see the turntable being used to guide a couple of trains in and out of the large maintenance shed:

At one end of the fan-shaped garage were two vintage steam train engines:

Unless you're a trainspotter, the Fan-Shaped Train Garage is probably not worth a special trip (in our case, Amber likes trains, and Changhua isn't that far from where we live). However, it's free, fun for kids (especially if the turntable is in operation) and can be combined with the city's more well-known sites (such as the large Buddha statue 八卦山大佛像) to make Changhua an interesting daylong outing. All aboard!

Jeff and Barbara Do Taiwan, Part V

After several days of experiencing Taiwan's more modern side, Jeff and Barbara finally got to see the "real" Asia, beginning with the Great Buddha Statue of Changhua 彰化:

From Changhua, we drove to Lukang 鹿港, and plunged into the chaos so typical of popular tourist spots in Taiwan on weekend days. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the souls - the meaning of the term jenao 熱鬧* was starting to become clear to Jeff and Barbara:

When in Rome, do as the Lukangans, so lunch was oyster omelets 蚵仔煎 and dragon whiskers 龍鬚糖:

No time for quiet contemplation at the T'ienhou Temple 天后宮:

For Amber, Lukang meant an opportunity to get a T-Rex balloon:

Streets thronged with visitors, old storefronts selling touristy knickknacks and glimpses of traditional homes behind locked gates - welcome to Taiwan:

At one point, we stopped to listen to a performance of traditional music:

Some locals discuss the transient nature of existence:

Lukang on a Sunday not only means hordes of people, but also lot of cars clogging the roads. Eventually, we made it back to T'aichung 台中, meeting up with Steve and his kids for dinner at an Indian restaurant, followed by dessert at Swensen's. Taiwan, truly Asia:

The Citrus Heights contingent partially reforms in central Taiwan!

Tomorrow will be Jeff and Barbara's last day in Taichung. While I go back to work this week, our intrepid duo will set out by themselves for T'ainan 台南 and T'aipei 台北. I'm looking forward to hearing about their travels next weekend.

* 熱鬧 = bustling with noise and excitement/lively

Everything but the Buddha

Instead of hiking this Tuesday afternoon, I rode the train to the nearby city of Changhua 彰化 to do a bit of sightseeing. Good thing, too, for it rained all day long, and being in the mountains would no doubt have been a less-than-pleasurable experience. Changhua is noted in Taiwan for its Great Buddha Statue, but having visited it several times already (the last occasion being a few weeks ago when I walked along some rural roads for two hours and eight kilometers/five miles in order to reach it), I decided to give Sakyamuni a pass. Besides, being only a couple of years older than myself and made of concrete, Changhua's Buddha can hardly compare to the Kamakura Daibutsu 鎌倉大仏 in Japan, not to mention many similar historical examples in China. So today I went to have a look at some of the other attractions the city of 230,000 people has to offer.

Changhua isn't far from Fengyuan 豐原 by train. Going there, the Tzuch'iang limited express took roughly 25 minutes, while even the local train got me back in just over half an hour. Exiting Changhua Station 彰化車站, I walked over to narrow Ch'enling Road, and begin checking things out. First up was Cat Mouse Noodles 猫鼠麺, an establishment in these here parts for noodles that having nothing to do with felines or mice (the name apparently comes from a Taiwanese-Mandarin pun). An intrepid travel writer would have naturally stopped here to see what all the fuss is about, but I was quite content to have eaten at the Fengyuan MOS Burger モスバーガー branch before catching the train.

Further along Ch'enling Road, where it meets Minsheng Road, was what should have been my next destination, the Yuanch'ing Temple. However, the front area of the temple was in the midst of some large-scale digging project, and as a result, only one wing was open to the public. Fortunately, the nearby Confucius Temple 孔子廟 wasn't being disturbed by any construction or road-work, so I quickly headed there. Dating from 1726, Changhua's Confucius Temple is one of the nicest in all of Taiwan, and is worth a look if you're walking from the train station up to Pakuashan to see the big-ass Buddha. Like all Confucius temples, the interior is devoid of any representation of the venerable master, just admiring plaques with inscriptions from Chinese emperors.

From the temple, it was a short walk along K'ungmen Road to Chungshan Road, and the route leading up to the top of Bakuashan and the Buddha. Instead of walking up, however, I went inside the new Museum of the War of 1895. Set up in a converted bomb shelter, the museum details the resistance to the Japanese takeover of Taiwan following the end of the First Sino-Japanese War 日清戦争 and the Treaty of Shimonoseki 下関条約 in 1895. Though free to enter, the displays lack any English explanations. In fact, other than a pamphlet giving a rough outline of the museum, the only English inside consisted of the words "Republic of Fomosa" (sic) projected onto a wall and a copy of the proclamation made by the Japanese governor-general of Taiwan 台湾総督府, Kabayama Sukenori 樺山資紀, on the takeover of the island.

Close to the 1895 Museum is the Changhua Arts Museum, located in the former Changhua Convention Hall, an attractive Japanese-era building dating from 1933. Also free of charge (Changhua is a bargain to visit!), the exhibition on the first-floor consisted mainly of watercolors of idyllic rural Taiwanese scenes. I was more interested in the map of Changhua dating from 1935, on the second floor. The old Shōka Shrine 彰化神社 could be clearly seen, along with the commemorative tablet that the Japanese erected on the site of the present Great Buddha. Kudos once again to those who preserve these fine old buildings, and put them to good use.

Just behind the art museum was the last of Changhua's non-Buddha sights, a 300-year-old well built by the Dutch. It was hardly worth seeing, as it has been cemented over, with an Earth God Shrine erected behind it for good measure. My Lonely Planet guidebook says the well still pumps out drinkable water, but I didn't give it a try.

And so ends the story of what to do when in Changhua on a rainy afternoon, and you don't feel like visiting the Great Buddha Statue. The middle of the town where the sights are located is easy to get around, and it only took me a couple of hours to see everything at a leisurely pace.

  

Dragon Buddhas

Today is the Dragon Boat Festival 端午節, a national holiday that I missed the last couple of years going off on trips to Japan. This time I was home, but sans family. Pamela and Amber were in Hsiluo 西螺 from Monday night until this afternoon in order to attend the wedding of one of my wife's nieces. The last time they had left me alone in order to visit the ol' ふるさと, I attempted a long-distance walk in Changhua County 彰化縣, with the goal of reaching the big Buddha statue there. Unfortunately, due to a wrong turn, I never made it (see here), but today I set things right. For one thing, I got off to an early start, waking up at 5:40 this morning to have breakfast and take a shower, then ride the 40 kilometers (25 miles) or so to Sun Moon Farm and the start of the trail, arriving shortly before 9:00 am. Setting my bearings straight this time, I reached the Buddha statue in about 80 minutes, with the last half of the way passing through a large cemetery. After spending about an hour at the site, including eating some snacks and reading the newspaper, I returned the way I'd come, albeit this time with a couple of wrong (but thankfully minor) turns! It took about 110 minutes to make it back to the farm and my parked scooter. According to the web site where I'd originally learned about this route, I'd covered 16 kilometers (9.9 miles). All I can say is "やった！"

See, I was really there! Honest! The skyline of Changhua 彰化 may not be worth a million dollars, but the view isn't bad from the top of 97-meter (318 feet) high Pakuashan 八卦山, especially with clear skies following the recent rains we've had. At several points along the walking trail, the high-rises of T'aichung 台中 could be clearly seen in the distance.

花見 the Taiwanese way!

Another Sunday, another up close-and-personal encounter with mass tourism, Taiwanese-style. Despite it being the beginning of December, the weather is still pleasant, and not knowing how many more such Sundays we will have before the chill of winter sets in (though the truth is it doesn't get all that cold in Taiwan), we drove out this afternoon to the town of T'ienwei 田尾, in Changhua County 彰化縣. Tienwei is noted for flowers, and in more recent times, for bicycle rentals. But cast aside any images you may have of leisurely cycle rides past bucolic flower fields. This is Taiwan, and in Tienwei, this means you and hundreds of other weekend cyclists must do battle on roads chock full of cars, buses, scooters and pedestrians. And instead of flower farms, the draw there is plant nurseries selling all manner of flora, and augmented as always by food vendors and carnies. You won't be humming "Talking Loud and Clear" by OMD while walking the crowded streets and lanes of Tienwei, that's for sure!

For your enjoyment, 写真を見てください:

My daughter Amber was quite the little horticulturalist, asking me to stop the bike at several places along the way so she could visit some nurseries and inspect the flowers there (check out the picture she took here). Today was also an opportunity for her to try out her new Hello Kitty ハローキティ purse, handmade by one of her aunts.

The photo on top shows the view of the road from the bike, while the picture below provides a street-level view after we had parked our wheels and took a walk along the main drag.

Spouse and child relax in the back of our rented pedicab ("sanlunch'e" 三輪車 in Chinese) towards the end of the afternoon.

Christmas decorations on one side of the street, the Earth God on the other.

Can I at least get an A for Effort?

This Sunday found me on the losing end of a power struggle with my mother-in-law over who would get to be with Amber. Off my daughter went with my wife and her grandmother to visit my mother-in-law's brother (would that be Amber's great uncle?) in Hsiluo 西螺, so I decided to utilize the unexpected free hours to do some walking. I had found a website detailing a country walk just outside of T'aichung 台中, so I rode off on my scooter this morning to Changhua 彰化. It took more than an hour to get there, but I found Sun Moon Farm, the start of the trail, without any trouble. The plan was to walk for a couple of hours (or eight kilometers/five miles) to reach Pakuashan 八卦山 and its famous-in-Taiwan big Buddha statue, and then return for a four-hour, 16-kilometer (10-mile) round trip. Unfortunately, things didn't quite go as planned. Though the website claimed the route was well-marked, there were actually only a few brown-colored signs indicating the way to go. At one junction, I noticed there was a painted picture of a bicycle (the road is also a bike path) with an arrow pointing to the right, so that was the way I went. This turned out to be a mistake, as the way came down out of the hills and into the suburbs of Changhua, whereupon all indications of the bicycle route disappeared, with Pakuashan being nowhere in sight. It didn't take long to realize that I had gone off track, so I reversed course and made the long walk back uphill to the junction. Continuing straight this time, I soon caught site of Pakuashan, and the backside of the 大仏, far off in the distance. However, it was getting late in the afternoon, and facing a long ride through Taichung before getting back to Fengyuan 豐原, I reluctantly turned around and walked back to my parked scooter. Despite not reaching the goal, I still was able to get in 3.5 hours of steady walking in good weather through some nice scenery, with the solitude only occasionally disturbed by a passing car, pickup or scooter (there were also a few dogs to deal with, but it's amazing what effect carrying a large stick had on them!). Pakuashan's Buddha isn't going anywhere, so I'll try this again some other weekend, hopefully with better bearings!

This red bridge had to be crossed going into and out of Changhua County 彰化縣:

The road passed by several old houses. The one in the photo on the left has been converted into a tea house. If only more traditional homes could look like this! Most, however, are more like the ones in the picture on the right:

A couple of self-portraits taken along the way:

Parts of the route were well-shaded, while other sections were more exposed:

I should have known I had ventured off-course when this was the sight that greeted me as I came down from the hills!: