Comments & Whatnot

Hello everybody,

First of all, thank you to everyone that has read our blog since we left on our big trip, and thank you especially to those of you that have sent kind words about the content of it.  Some of you have told us that you have been unable to leave comments on the posts, and we just discovered that that was totally our fault.  It's fixed now, and anyone should be able to leave comments, including anonymous ones (although make sure to tell us who you are!).  Also, we learned that we could add a link to the side of the page that allows you to "follow" our blog, which I'm pretty sure means that you should get an email whenever we make a new post.  If you're someone that eagerly anticipates our new posts (Hi Mom!), then you should definitely check that out.  Finally, if you are reading our blog NOT because you know us, but because you are planning for a trip to Taiwan (we have 30 page views from Russia in the last month, as well as several from all over the world), then feel free to leave questions in the comments; we'll do our best to answer them as helpfully as we can.

Thank you again to everyone,
Tom & Maura

A Weekend In Hong Kong

Written by Maura, photos and captions by Tom:

Flights 5 and 6 of this summer adventure were for this past weekend in Hong Kong. We were originally supposed to leave Taichung early Saturday morning, but due to the typhoon, we didn't take off until 6:00 pm. We got to the hotel in Hong Kong around 10 pm and spent the first night visiting the Temple Street Night Market very close to our hotel.

These booths went for several city blocks.  Most of the stuff was much nicer than the "NO FART" signs to the right.

Then, we wandered down to the Avenue of the Stars (like Hollywood's Walk of Fame) waterfront promenade. From there you could see across the river to Hong Kong Island which had probably the most amazing skyline I have ever seen.

The Avenue of the Stars was a big tribute to film and Chinese film stars, complete with a few awesome statues like this one.

Taking nighttime landscape pictures with my camera took a long time.  MANY pictures came out too blurry, but this skyline was too amazing to not try to capture.

See?

Bruce Lee was the biggest star (to my mostly ignorant mind, anyways) there, and he had the statue to prove it.

Saturday morning started with a trip to Stanley, a small fishing village on the far side of Hong Kong Island. We had to take the metro and then a bus to get there, but it was really nice. They had several beautiful temples and a great park with beautiful views all along the ocean.

We ate lunch on that pier to the left.

Then we went to Victoria Peak, the highest point around where you could see a breathtaking view of Hong Kong. However, it involved a terrifying tram ride up the mountain at a really steep angle pretty much the entire way. While I hated the ride up, it was worth it once we got to the top.

The ride up may have terrified Maura, but it did have awesome views like this throughout the trip.

It was absolutely amazing to see this huge metropolitan city with probably 100 skyscrapers pressed right up against the jungle with parts of it carved into the rain forest.

Even from this distance and angle, the city is too massive for my camera.

She's not holding on for dear life; Maura was actually perfectly content to enjoy the amazing view once we got off the tram.

This is a whole different side of the platform from the picture of Maura, which gives you an idea of the scope of the city.

While on Victoria Peak, we explored the walking trails they have through the forest and even discovered a very old stone staircase leading up the mountain. Well, what else can you do when you see an old stone staircase? We followed it of course!

It didn't help that there were lots of people on the original walking path, and NONE of them were going up this staircase, which was a little bit more overgrown and deserted-looking than this picture makes it appear.

We climbed this weaving path for about a half an hour before seeing a sign. Apparently we were on The Governor's Path.  Back in the 1800s and early 1900s, the British governor of Hong Kong had a summer house on the peak and used to walk around the grounds on this path. We finally came out to a wide open area from which was even higher than the part of the peak the tourists go to and could see an almost 360 degree view of the city, the jungle, and the ocean.

This is the view from the back of Victoria Peak.  There are islands for as far as the eye can see out there, mostly mountainous and seeming to be uninhabited.

This was the view from a random overpass on the way back to the tram.  The amazing views aren't just confined to the actual tourist attractions.

We then headed back down the peak on the tram. Apparently, they don't turn the seats around when you go back down, so while going up you are facing forwards going up what felt like a 30 degree angle, going down you are facing backwards going down what felt like a 30 degree angle - not fun. Anyway, we made it back to central Hong Kong Island and boarded the Star Ferry back to the Kowloon side of the city where our hotel was located.

Okay, fine this wasn't the ferry...

...This was.

It was almost 8:00 now, and every night Hong Kong puts on a light show with lasers set to music so we got a seat on the water front looking out towards the island (along with several hundreds of other people). While waiting for the show to start, we and the people around us noticed some dark clouds coming over the island, then the clouds covered the peak, then we watched as they crossed the river, and before you know it, it was raining on us.

You can see that it was cloudy, but the view was completely clear, and the weather seemed perfect for the light show.

Until 2 seconds later, when you can see that the buildings are obscured.  About 2 second later, I was worried that my cameras and wallet were permanently toast because I was completely saturated with rain.

But that doesn't really do it justice. We went from completely dry, not one drop of rain, to standing under a huge waterfall. We were completely drenched and everyone ran to hide under a covered part of the waterfront, so we all squeezed in and watched the show; no torrential downpour where you can't see 20 feet in front of you was going to stop the Hong Kong light show, apparently. Mostly, we listened to the music and towards the end of the 15 minute show, the rain completely stopped and we could see at least some of the lights. At this point, we couldn't do anything but laugh, which was a good attitude to have for the 10 block walk back to our hotel. Once we were in dry clothes again (which involved a few hours with a hair dryer, since we didn't bring any extra clothes or wallets), we went out to dinner at a Michelin rated restaurant across the street.

Monday morning, we checked out of the hotel and headed to the Hong Kong Museum of History. It was a fascinating place which documented the history of Hong Kong from Paleolithic time to 1997, when Britain gave Hong Kong back to China. It had lots of very interesting displays, on the aboriginal Taiwanese people, the waves of immigration from mainland China, the opium wars and British rule. If you ever go to Hong Kong, I highly recommend it.

It seriously starts with an exhibit about the Hong Kong area from 400,000,000 years ago.

They covered a lot of local traditions and religious practices in this area.

Maura may have been laughing at the dumb teenagers who were literally climbing on artifacts for pictures before getting chastised by the guards.

There were a couple of sections where they had life-size boats from different eras.

Then we hopped on the MRT (metro) and visited the Chi Lin Nunnery (Buddhist) and Nan Lian Gardens. They were both beautiful and again it was amazing to see the city and rain forest pressed together so closely. Unfortunately, it poured the entire time we were there, hence the ponchos.

They didn't allow pictures inside of the Nunnery, but this is a picture of the front of it.  The courtyard area is actually a lotus pond (more than 1, I suppose), but we stuck to the covered paths because of the rain.

Taken from the steps of the Nunnery and looking into the Nan Lian Garden across the street.

This is all right smack dab in the middle of a huge, bustling city, although it didn't feel that way from the inside at all.

We had hoped to visit the Tian Tan Buddha, but the rain delayed us and we weren't going to make it all the way there before our flight, so we checked on Trip Advisor and there was an amazing Taoist Temple about 200 yards from us, so we went and it was gorgeous. It was still raining, but we enjoyed ourselves before heading to the airport.

All of the temples that we have visited are very much active; that women with the burning incense sticks is praying to the gods in this particular temple, as are dozens of people out of the camera's view.

Despite not originally planning to go here, it was a highlight of the trip.

This pond was full of hundreds of fish (some that were surprisingly big) and turtles.

It wasn't too crowded while we were there, possibly because of the rain.

Again, this is right in the middle of a major city.

I love that you can see some highrises just past the pagoda, waterfall, and lotus pond.

All in all, it was a great city and a fun weekend.

Itch, Itch, Itch

Maura's current bug bite count:43

We NEED to find some stronger bug spray.

We made it!

Just a quick post to let you all know we survived Typhoon Soulik. It wasn't that bad in Taichung. We had about 20 hours of "extremely torrential rain" and very strong winds. The river got pretty high, but didn't flood and we never lost power. Our flight to Hong Kong was delayed twice. When we finally headed out to the airport, there were a lot of big tree branches down. Our plane finally took off 10 hours late (thankfully they announced a 8 and a half hour delay the day before, so it was only delayed, so we only had to spend an extra hour and a half in the airport (some people had been waiting in the airport all day and weren't too happy). The flight had some turbulence because of the typhoon winds, but we made it, found our hotel, and went out to explore the city for a few hours. Anyway, we are here now, so even though we lot a day's worth of sightseeing, we're going to make the most of the next two days.

Um, uh oh...

Typhoon Soulik set to hit Taiwan on July 11

A visit to the friendly neighborhood Taiwanese doctor

So last weekend, Tom wasn't feeling well. At first we thought it was just the beginning of a cold combined with the exhaustion of traveling to the other side of the Earth, but then he got really sick. Like 103 degree fever, chills, and difficulty breathing sick. So after two days of rest and no improvement, we told the school and they set up a doctor's appointment for that day. It turns out the Taiwanese people go to the doctor for any minor issue, which is not how we Walshes deal with illness, but at this point Tom clearly needed to seek medical help. So, he left the school at 3:00 and Teacher Tiffany, who worked with me at Cambridge-Ellis last year, went with him to help translate. He was back 25 minutes later with a diagnosis of acute tonsillitis and the medication to clear it up. Seeing your husband go off to the doctor in another country is scary especially when he's pretty sick and you don't know why. Thankfully, while it was serious and he clearly really needed to go, it was easily diagnosed and the medication has been helping a lot. We were also a little concerned how the medical insurance was going to work, since we have to pay the cost and then try to get reimbursed when we get home. The total for his first visit (including the doctor's appointment and the 4 different prescriptions) came to...a whopping $10 American! He wouldn't have even been able to get in the door for that at home!

Family Outings

Maura:
One of the things I was most dubious about before coming to Taiwan was that apparently the families at the school signed up to take us out on evenings and weekends. Socialize with families? That sounds awkward. That would definitely not happen in the US. Won't they just grill us about how their children are doing in the class?

We've gone out with three families at this point and it's actually been pretty interesting. So far, none of the families have been children we are teaching. They're just families with children in the Chinese or English preschool classes who want to welcome us to Taiwan and help us foreigners have a nice visit. The first family spoke very little English, so they invited their two teachers along with us. We went out to a fancy hotel buffet which was very nice. On Saturday, we went out with another family. The mother works up in Taipei and the father works in mainland China, so the little boy lives with his grandparents during the week, and his mom and aunt come down from Taipei on the weekends. This is a pretty common arrangement in Taiwan. The mother had studied English in Boston 15 years ago and was very happy to speak with us in English.

Today, we went with a father and little boy to Lukang, about 45 minutes from Taichung. It had an old market road and a beautiful temple that was over 100 years old.

This is just the main entrance.

This was one of a few interior courtyards in the temple.

One of the many shrines (?) in the temple.

Then we went to the Taichung Earthquake museum. In 1989, there was a serious earthquake here and the museum commemorates what happened and what Taiwan did to improve the engineering and infrastructure after the quake. The hardest part about the museum is that it is on the site of an elementary school that was destroyed in the earthquake. They have secured the building, so you are walking around the ruins of the school and can see how the classrooms collapsed on each other, the bathroom that used to be on the top floor that now lies smashed among the rubble. It was pretty haunting. At least it's good to know how much they learned from the tragedy and all of the safety standards that have been implemented since then.