In My Own Backyard

I think it often takes a while to get to know a place and often a year only allows you to know what you could know well if you lived there longer. This is especial true when all the information about your location is in a foreign language. The cool thing is that you can live somewhere for 6 months and still find amazing things at your doorstep.

For several months people have been half suggesting that I go to this temple on a hill that actually, I can see from my house. I had meant to go, but more often than not it was raining on the weekend and I was skeptical that I really needed to see another temple (there is a temple every block here), plus the directions to get there were vague. When I work up this morning the air was crystal clear, there were clouds in the sky, but the mountains seemed like they were just a few feet away. Colin and I hopped on the scooter and headed in the direction of the temple.

It was surprisingly easy to find and when we arrived the parking lot was filled with tour buses. There must have been some sort of temple festival because the people visiting were definately worshippers and not just tourists like us. Many wore vests that represented different temples. All around, people were burning incense and throwing oracles. Outside people were practicing something like Chinese reiki moving enery around another person's body with there hands. At one point this woman broke down in tears. It was quite intense. I realized only as we were leaving that many of the tourbus groups were bringing small statues of various gods with them in ceremonial order to the temple to pray. We saw one group walk out with flags and these statues and small houses and then bring them back over fireworks and burning paper money. It was similar to the ceremony I had seen in NanFangao but without anyone dancing in a trance with blood running down his face. On thing Taiwan has on the mainland is serious religious fervor. When we were in Beijing we went to on of the temples during Chinese New Year, one of the biggest celebrations. There were tons of people, but the general attitude seemd to be, Well, it's Chinese New Year I guess I'll go to the temple since that's what you do. Most temples we went were very quiet and everyone there seemed to more or less be a tourist.

After wandering around the temple we took a pathway behind it for a walk. We hiked through lush greenery for about 40 minutes before reaching a pavillion where we could turn around amidst tea bushes. We ran into a man coming from the other direction that said we could go on for another hour or so and reach an interesting spot. We turned around instead as we were getting hungry and saved the rest for later. On the hike Colin also spotted two Macaques. I knew Taiwan had them, but I didn't actually think they would be anywhere I would see them. All in all a reviving day. It both made me want to stay here longer to get to know Taiwan better and made me want to get out of work and travel about.