After a pretty surprising airplane ride (they have Usher and Mary J Blige on the inflight music program, the food wasn't bad, and the inflight movies were pretttty awesome-Clash of the Titans, Date Night, The Bounty Hunter, etc.) I arrived at Taipei's TaoYuan airport and met up with my relatives.
Before I get started, I'd like to try something out:ď˝running total of all my fails.
First fail: walking into a pvc pipe and busting my toe. Literally within the first fifteen minutes of getting to my aunt's place. Second fail: apparently my digestive system can outdo the Israelites by creating bricks from airplane food.
Anyways.
After getting my stuff squared away and having a fantastic breakfast (courtesy of my cousin), my aunt and I decided to hit up Yilan.
Yilan is famous for a variety of things, including sweetmeats, cow tongue cake (cakes in the shape of a cow's tongue. yeah.), and green onions. It's quite a distance away from Taipei, and apparently the old route between the two cities was such a pain in the ass that they drilled a 21km (yeah. kilometers. it's like Canada all over again) long tunnel underneath a mountain to make the trip shorter. It was during this trip that I realized that many Taiwanese drivers can't drive, which only confused me more because the cops here drive BMWs.
Yilan is also host to the National Center for Traditional Arts, a place where indigenous and native arts/cultures are brought together so people can learn about them and (mostly) buy stuff to help these starving artists get through the next cold winter.
But yeah, the place is full of great exhibits and plenty of DIY activities. The crafts I saw there were ridiculous- kneaded dough figurines, handmade glass, charcoal (apparently it's more than just the black shit we use for barbecues), jewelry, just to name a few. The center also had some great performances; they did a puppet play as well as an opera-esque rendition of a story from Journey to the West (story with Sun Wukong and co.)
Bleh. Too tired to finish and upload pics to this and Facebook, so Facebook wins with it's massive uploads capability. Go check it.
Anyways, pics are worth a thousand words so take a gander at what i shot today :)
Duuuude. I'm so jealous. And for some reason, whenever I go to Taiwan, I can't poop for days. True story.
ReplyDeleteDaddy LOLed so many times while he read your blogs. He only wanted your blogs so he can laugh at you.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that your bricks did not block the traffic yet. If you had several cup noodles, the situation could be even worse.
ReplyDeleteThanks to your kindness, finally these starving artists in Yilan are able to pass another cold winter.
The policemen are driving BMWs so that they can catch up with the speed of those robbers, who drive MBenz.
How long to get to Yilan from Taipei?
ReplyDeleteIt used to be more than half a day.