Dumpings (and other things) in Taipei

Taiwan is a pretty fun island. I should be careful saying that, as I have only visited a small portion of the island, the northern coastal region. Right now, Alrica and I are in Taipei. We have had several fun days here, with several beautiful sights and interesting museums and wow, so so many dumplings. (And other dumplingesque victuals.)

The Lungshan Temple

We arrived in the afternoon. Our first day was mainly spent in getting to the hotel from the airport and then wandering a bit in our neighborhood. We had to find dinner, and just a couple blocks from the hotel we stopped and got an order of pork dumplings and also xiaolongbao. Xiaolongbao are a must have in Taiwan. They are also dumplings, specifically soup dumplings. In addition to the meat filling of the dumplings, there is also broth inside, really flavorful broth. We've now eaten xiaolongbao several times, and there is a method. So, as a complete expert after four days, I am going to give you the lay of the land, or the lay of the bao.

Step 1: Use your chopsticks (you don't get forks here) to pick up the xiaolongbao from the top. You don't want to break the outside dumpling dough that holds the inner goodness.

Step 2: Set the bottom of the xiaolongbao in your dumpling sauce.

Step 3: Now lift your xiaolongbao and set it in the spoon. You are generally given one of those wide flat-bottomed spoons that you see at Chinese restaurants used for soup.

Step 4: Poke a hole in the dumpling dough so that some of the broth within comes out into your spoon.

Step 5: Sip the yummy broth.

Step 6: Lose patience and just eat the xiaolongbao already!

Moving on from dumplings and soup dumplings, on our second day, we took a tour. We met our guide and the rest of our tour group at the Taipei Main Station. From there we took a bus. The first stop was a village called Shifen. In Shifen, there is a lantern festival. The big business there is selling these gigantic lanterns, probably about three feet tall. And you light some fuel source in an iron ring, your lantern fills with hot air, and then it floats up and away taking your hopes and dreams to the gods. This is somewhat literal, though I'm sure they don't make it all the way to the gods. But you do write on the outside of the lantern, well, actually paint. But you are painting letters. So maybe you're writing and painting all at once.

We wrote 52 (our 52nd country), "happiness" in Chinese, and Euler's solution to the Basel Problem.

We wrote hopes for ourselves, hopes for our kids, the Chinese characters for happiness, and I wrote a math equation for good measure. Then up and away went the lantern.

Alrica at the Jing An Bridge and if you look closely, a lantern in the sky behind her

We also walked across the Jing An Bridge, had some peanut ice cream rolls (which are exactly what they sound like), and admired the Taiwanese version of a total tourist town. My usual rule for tourist towns is you know you're in one when there is a fudge shop. Well, I have to account for the fact that fudge isn't the thing here. But if it were, there would have been at least one fudge shop.

The Shifen Waterfall

From the village of Shifen we went to the Shifen Waterfall, just a bit outside the village. Here we crossed a suspension bridge to get to it. There were lovely views, but it isn't running very fast or with that much water. It has been very dry of late in Taiwan. Our guide showed us a video of the falls the day after a typhoon passed. I mean, it's not Niagara Falls, but it was a much more violent flow than what we were seeing the day we were there. Still, violent or calm, it was beautiful.

View from Jiufen when the sun was still out

View from Jiufen after the sun had set

After the falls we headed into the mountains to a city called Jiufen. Jiufen is a steep city on the side of the mountain. You walk up 400 steps to get to the top. Here we saw views of the ocean from up high, we enjoyed the architecture and the sunset, and we wandered the narrow streets full of lanterns and shops.

Jiufen streets lit by lanterns (and Alrica's smile)

After that we returned to Taipei, a bit overheated, a bit overtired, but it was a great trip.

Vending machines are everywhere here. And entire shops full of "the claw". You know, that arcade game where you try to get a claw to grab a toy. Entire shop with just those "the claw" machines.

The next day we visited the National Taiwan Museum. It had a lot of exhibits, but its general theme was that of natural history. We learned about the formation of Taiwan from plate tectonics. We learned that during the last ice age, it is believed that the Taiwan Strait was not water, but rather a land bridge connecting Taiwan to mainland China. During this time, many animals used that land for hunting. But when the waters rose again, some went west to China and some went east and ended up on Taiwan. The trouble for those on Taiwan was its size. There wasn't enough food and space for them and they died. So there are fossils found in Taiwan of rhinoceroses, Asian tigers, and more. Many of these species had died in Taiwan well before any humans moved in.

The Chiang Kai Shek Memorial

Today we visited Liberty Square. This is a large plaza with an impressive archway gate. Then inside there is the National Concert Hall on one side and the National Theater on the other. In between is an open square, currently being decorated. But when it is not being decorated, it is a space for public dissent and demonstrations. Beyond the square is a long stretch called Democracy Boulevard. And at the end of it is the impressive Chiang Kai Shek Memorial.

The National Theater

The size and grandeur of these buildings is staggering. And at the base of the Chiang Kai Shek Momorial, every hour, there is a demonstration by the Taiwanese military that involves a lot of twirling and throwing of rifles with bayonets. The soldiers involved in the performance wear stark white uniforms with stark white helmets. (Is any color other than white ever referred to as stark?)

Look at those uniforms. Stark, am I right?

Tonight we went to the Lungshan Temple which is a Buddhist and Taoist mixed temple. The architecture is breathtaking and it is very beautiful at night. From there we headed to the Guangzhou Street Nightmarket. Here we ate sausage in sticky rice (which is crazy, the sticky rice is shaped like a sausage, but then they cut it open and it is used as a bun), taro balls, sweet potato balls, and, you guessed it, dumplings.

That is not a typo. They are honestly selling phallic cakes. On the street!

Tomorrow we leave this lovely place. But we might have to come back one day. We'll miss it here. Especially the dumplings.

Over seven thousand islands but only 18 days

With 7,641 islands in the Philippines, and a strong dislike for travel days, planning country number 51 was especially challenging. It seemed like a good time to test AI travel recommendations so I asked it where we should spend two weeks in the Philippines and drilled down from there. After getting specific ideas of places, hotels, and activities, I consulted some friends who had been recently and read all I had time for on Facebook and I was ready to book. Our decision was to spend 2.5 weeks in the Philippines at three different locations:

 

El Nido, Palawan. This was our beach week. We stayed at a small inn on the Caalan Beach access road which had a very local feel. The road isn't wide enough for a full-size car so tricycles are the way to get around and when it rains, the road is muddy up to your ankles and the locals typically walk around barefoot, a reasonable accommodation to the weather. Internet was crazy strong for a backwater place like this at around 200 mbps but the power went out frequently and the water often went with it. El Nido City is run entirely by the tourism industry. Off the main drag, we could get meals at a closer-to-local price of about 130 Pesos (US$2.25) but inside the city (a 15 minute walk), those exact same meals would run closer to 400 Pesos (US$6.91). We loved the silogs and banana shakes! 

As you walk the streets, there are tour operators on every block and people everywhere trying to sell you things. The big thing here is island hopping tours labeled A-D. We did Tour C which went to five different islands and focused on snorkeling. It was amazing! Since it was off-season, we got a 10 percent discount on the tour putting it at 1600 pesos (27.48 each) plus another 100 pesos each for the rental of the snorkel gear and water shoes. Over the next 7 hours (rain or shine) we visited five islands with different characteristics each. Water shoes were essential and kayaking was an option that we skipped. This was by far our best day!

The beach right at El Nido was rocky and not swimmable but a short tricycle ride put us at soft sandy beaches that were worthy of a day of relaxation. Each of the main tourist beaches were well equipped with restaurants but didn't have working showers.  

Cebu City. An hour long flight away is this lovely city of less than a million people that pays homage to its Spanish colonial roots as it grows to meet the needs of its expanding population. While it is possible to do day trips to swim with whale sharks and turtles, those tours leave at 3 AM and return around 10 PM and we just didn't have that energy. Instead, we dug into the history and cultures that was so unique to the region. We visited the site of Magellan's cross which was built to memorialize the visit of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 and wandered past the Basilica and the Cathedral (pants are required dress code here!) before spending an hour exploring Fort San Pedro, built as a Spanish defense in the 1700s.

 

Now hungry, we made our way to the Carbon Market. This is a local market that sells fruits and vegetables along with handmade goods and all sorts of grocery items. We saw more mango here than all the people in the city! Making our way upstairs, we stumbled upon a variety of food stalls selling assorted dishes for under 100 pesos ($1.72). We tried several different options before deciding that we had had enough of the heat and were ready to return to our air conditioned hotel. Since the streets near the market would not be navigable by a grab car, we headed for a more major street and found a tourist focused food hall which lead to our first taste of the Lechon dish that Cebu is known for. 

 

With an early morning start to beat the heat, we took a Grab to the Cebu Taoist Temple. The temple is on the top of a beautiful hill overlooking the city in a gated community. Dressed appropriately in long pants and following the requested silence mandate, we explored the grounds and learned a bit about the Tao beliefs. 

 

Closer to our hotel near IT Park, we took full advantage of the night markets and street vendors, even buying rolls from a guy that cooked them in an oven attached to his motor bike. And we got to enjoy the mango smoothies that became a staple of our diet here. 

Manila. With only a couple days left in the islands, we met up with a US friend who has an office here to explore the capital. We learned the story of Dr. Jose Rizal, national hero from the Spanish Colonial era, visited San Sebastian Church, and immersed ourselves in the National Museum of Anthropology (they speak over 175 languages here!), before heading to Makati for our Night Street Food tour. We tried all sorts of new foods (some good and some not great) and enjoyed live music as our guide shared his life experiences. 

 

 

Finally, for our last full day in the Philippines, and with a few final pesos to spend, we headed over to the Singing Cooks and Waiters restaurant where Erich joined in on the fun! 

This is definitely a place we will need to return to! Each stop had its own feel and culture and foods and yet there were some commonalities. First the facts: everyplace we stayed used electrical outlets that would fit US plugs, cars drive on the right side of the road but I wouldn't rent a car given how bad the traffic and roads are (and Grab ride-shares or tricyles are cheap), lots of places don't have toilet paper in the bathrooms and don't allow you to flush so bring your own or get used to the sprayers. 

But the fun stuff: We discovered that Filipinos love to sing! In every grocery store or restaurant, music would be playing and the staff would be singing along, often loudly. We learned that the heat is pretty oppressive here so staying hydrated is important. Obviously they believe so too because all over the country, you will find filtered water dispensers. You grab a plastic bag and plug in a single peso and you get a bag of water!

Finally, Filipinos are proud of their beautiful islands and love to share all that they like about them. Hope you enjoyed us sharing this!

Not My Idea of Paradise

In movies, when people visualize paradise, it is usually presented as somewhere tropical where they lie on the beach, in the shade of a palm tree, drinking Mai Tais and leaning back in a low lounging chair. They might be wearing swimsuits or sunglasses or straw hats, but the locale is always this tropical beach idea. Often these are criminals imagining what they are going to do with their loot and have the further requirement of a place with no extradition agreements. But let's set that aside for the moment.

I am currently in such a place. We are in El Nido, on the island of Palawan, in the western portion of The Philippines. I have no idea what the extradition sitch is, but as I am not, so far, being sought out by the long arm of the law, I don't need to fret such details. Also, I've not yet seen anyone drinking Mai Tais on the beach here. If I see people drinking anything, it's usually beer. And they don't have low lounging chairs, instead they sunbathe on towels, sometimes topless (the women. Well, the men too, but for whatever reason that isn't worthy of remark.) Nonetheless, this is, as Flynn Rider describes in his post-life-of-crime dream, "somewhere warm and sunny." Arguably, El Nido is paradise.

But not to me.

You cannot argue with a sunset like that. Or can you?

Maybe I'm just different than the criminal classes and other dreamers in movies. Maybe I wouldn't make a good fictional character in a movie. Maybe that's why no one has yet made a movie about me. (Yeah, I'm sure that's the only reason.) Whatever the reason, a tropical island with sandy beaches just isn't paradisiacal to my way of thinking.

To give credit where it is due, El Nido is beautiful. I only have a few pictures (I will come to that in a bit.) But when it is sunny out and you walk along the beach and look into the water, it's majestic. In the shallows you see the light earth tones of the sand just centimeters below the surface. In the slightly deeper areas, the water appears vivid light green. And where it really drops off, the sea is like liquid emeralds, or maybe just one large liquid emerald. What's even better is that here and there, popping up out of the water like Godzilla rising from the depths (which is more of a Japan thing, but I don't know if The Philippines has a Godzilla equivalent,) are these huge mounds. They are islands made of limestone which was made by coral that died a gazillion years ago. (How's the word "gazillion" for intense mathematical precision?) Then tectonic activity thrust them up and the limestone eroded in rain and seawater. What's left is nearly vertical cliffs with lots of exposed limestone, but also lots of lush green plant life.

It's called a karst landscape

Palawan Island itself is atop this same long deceased coral, and you see those jutting mountains limestone heaps not just in the water, but in the land. It is fascinating to see and makes me wish I had a firmer command of geology.

There's that liquid emerald

The people here are super friendly. English is spoken by most everyone. While there are people trying to sell you trinkets on the beach, like unearthed American coins from 1804 found in shipwrecks or necklaces with real shark teeth, they aren't too pushy. They're actually friendly, even after you say no. The weather is a mixed bag. When it rains, wow does it rain. A lot of water falls fast, though it isn't usually with much wind, so it falls straight down. When it is sunny, it is so very sunny. It's also hot and humid and you feel a five degree (or more) difference between being in the sun and being in the shade.

The limestone mounds rising up over the land as well

Yet, after all of that beauty, I don't like it here. I don't hate it, but I don't like it. I've never been a beach bum, a beach enthusiast, or a beachcomber. The point: beaches don't entertain me that much. A few days ago, we did visit a beautiful one called Vanilla Beach, and I played in the water for a couple hours. And that was enough for me. On Saturday, we are taking a tour to like four or five breathtaking beaches. We can snorkel at them. And I suspect that will be about three or four more breathtaking beaches than I need. But hey, it's paradise, right?

We are in El Nido for a total of eight days. Eight freakin' days! Why? Because the oil, which should have lasted only one day, miraculously lasted for eight! (No, I think I'm confusing that with another eight day stretch.) Really it was about good prices on flights with little to no thought about "is there enough to do in this place to keep anyone entertained for eight days?" For me, that answer is no. I had my fill after day two, now I'm in the middle of day five, and looking ahead to the three I have remaining, it's like that camera effect where everything stretches and gets further and further away. There's just nothing much I want to do here.

Ironically, the good news is that I do have work to get done. (Work is the good news, Erich? Yes, Erich. That's what I meant by "ironically".) I'm designing some new courses and taking over another course in the Spring semester. So I have lots of development work to accomplish. I try to do that when the forecast calls for rain and do walks when it is supposed to be sunny. But that doesn't always go as planned. For example, as I write this it is sunny and beautiful out. But the forecast says it will be raining now. And why don't I go walk right now instead of typing this blog? Because I only recently returned from a huge walk, got rained on near the end, and then arrived back to the hotel room drenched in sweat. I took a shower to cool off and clean up. Incidentally, water pressure in El Nido is minimal. The hotel even provides a huge bucket filled with water and a smaller bucket to dump with in case you don't have enough pressure to flush the toilet. As you might imagine, I don't want to go back out and start the sweat process over again.

What's more, I'm alone most of the time. Alrica has work too, and she doesn't feel the compulsion to save it for the rainy times. So most of my walks are all by myself. That's not new. Everywhere we go, I do a lot of walks by myself, no big deal. Frequently, I listen to audiobooks while I walk and/or have a destination in mind. Here I have neither.

Why no audiobooks? This gets back to why I have fewer pictures to share. I broke my phone. I don't have a camera to take more pictures, nor a device to play audiobooks while I walk. And El Nido is not a major metropolis where I can get it repaired nor buy a new one. Nor will I be posting a link to this blog post on Facebook. You see, Facebook thinks I do belong to those criminal classes mentioned earlier and won't let me log in without authenticating. That's another thing one needs a phone for! (I rarely log into Facebook except to post blog links, so honestly, that's no big loss for me.)

In fairness, I can't blame El Nido for the broken phone. I could blame gravity, but gravity got a huge assist from me and my graceful and almost balletic ability to fumble an object in my hands which really should not be fumbled. Yaaaay Erich!

As for destinations, well, I do walk on the beach and I can walk along the streets of El Nido where drivers of the vehicles they call tricycles ask me if I want to get a ride to somewhere. But there aren't a lot of great destinations I could walk to without walking along the main highway. Honestly, I could do that. It's not like an interstate. But it doesn't have any sidewalks. And I would be going up over some mountains to get anywhere interesting.

Except, I would love to go to the karst formations themselves. I would love to walk right up to one of them and touch the limestone and examine it more closely. But the land right at the base of these sheer cliffs seems to be private land. What's more, it seems to be unattractive private land, as I would guess some of Palawan's least affluent people live there. My evidence is the prevalence of corrugated aluminum as part of the building material of their homes. So I can't say that for sure. Maybe corrugated aluminum was all the rage in the days when those homes were built. Maybe you paid extra for the corrugation! Doubtful, but maybe.

I'm trying to keep a positive attitude and make the best of it. One of my father's three maxims, his third, is "attitude is everything." (Though my brother might say my father's third maxim is "Don't get caught with your pants down." That's a family joke, so just shrug it off.) Plus, I know I won't improve my happiness by being miserable. Still, at times it feels good to rant. So lucky you, dear reader, I'm ranting in your direction. Soak it in!

I'll take more walks in the coming days. Probably not on the day we go snorkeling, which does sound super fun. At least at the first location. I don't know if it will continue to be as fun each time thereafter or if habituation will kick in. But I suppose I might see different fish. (I mean fish species. I am sure I won't be seeing the same individual fish since a motorboat will take us from one location to another. Maybe the fish can outrun the boat, but why would they want to? And even if I did see the same individual fish, would I really recognize them? "Oh hey, Natalie Fish is back!")

Well, thanks for letting me rant and complain for a bit. Do I feel less lonely? Maybe a little. Do I feel less bored? Definitely while I am still writing this I do. Do I feel less hot and sticky? Of course, I'm sitting in an air conditioned hotel room. Let's face facts, I don't have too much to complain about. My life, even in El Nido, isn't that hard.

But I wouldn't say it's paradise.