Dao and Out

Hello! This is Hal and Siri on a tandem post.  Lets get the apologies over with... Sorry we haven't posted in, well, a long time.  Thanks Mom for reminding us that not everybody has facebook!  Forgive us?  Whew, thank you.  Now that that's over with lets talk about this amazing weekend we had.

Our amazing Taiwanese friend, mother, and Chinese teacher Bobo invited us down to her hometown, Tainan, for the weekend.  Tainan is located in the south of Taiwan and was the first capital of Taiwan.  It is also where the Dutch occupation was established.  A lot of history for a beautiful southern city.

We left right after teaching on Saturday night.  We took the high speed rail and a trip that would normally take 4-5 hours by car...whooooooooosh....we arrived 1 hour and 20 minutes later.  You have got to get one of these things!

We hit the nightlife with our enthusiastic host and a handful of great foreign friends.  Stayed up too late for our ambitious sightseeing start time of 9AM.  It was a slow morning, but we started on time- bright eyed and.....er....bushy tailed.

There is so much to see in Tainan.  First stop: Confucius temple that used to be home to the first Confucius school.  A gorgeous and massive park surround the grounds and giant banyan trees surround the historic buildings.  The beautiful sun was quite welcome this late January day.  Grab a steamed bun filled with pork and veggies and get in the cab.  Next stop: Fort Proventia.

Fort Proventia was a Dutch fort built in 1653.  Surrounded by ponds with koi fish and statues, this tower is a really cool example of Asian architecture from the time and serves as a sort of museum now.  Grab a winter melon sweet tea and a bowl of local seafood noodle soup.  Hail another cab.  Next stop: Fort Zeelandia.

Fort Zeelandia is located next to the ocean and is now dominated by a tall, lighthouse-looking tower. We had some beautiful views of the city and afterwards explored the day market on "old street."  Most towns in Taiwan have an "Old street" and this is most often where you will find the day and night markets and undoubtedly an old beautiful temple.

Bobo was zealous to say the least and it was fun to have our guide/friend show us her hometown.  The main event and the main purpose of our visit was to see the "show" that evening.  This show was a Dao Temple celebration that happens once every 25 years.  If we had to sum it up in three words it would be- fireworks, betel nut, and incredible.  But the truth is there is no way we could sum it up so briefly.  It felt like we had stepped in to a history channel special.  We watched as countless groups of devotees paraded towards the temple to pay their respects.  This includes any combination of face paint, costumes, acrobats, instruments, larger than life "mascots" and representations of the many gods.  Did we mention fireworks?  Try to imagine thousands of fireworks filling the streets and dusk evening with sound smoke and color. For hours!  Most of it in effort to scare away the ghosts and/or impress the gods.  The streets were literally covered with a thick layer of firework debris and puddles of blood red betel nut spit.  Bobo's friend lives less than a block from this temple and was a host for the whole event.  That means we were invited, as the only foreigners there, to partake in the ten+ course banquet that was held as a street party. Don't worry, there were huge long tents to semi-protect us from the incredible amount of firework debris still raining down all around.  It was an amazing display of the seafood available in the south.

Before coming home on Monday we spent a wonderful, relaxing morning with Bobo and her mother and nephew.  We went for a hike in an arboretum and had tea with a few of her mother's friends.

To see a few highlights from the weekend, look at the picture page.  We wouldn't be surprised if looking back on our time in Taiwan, this is one of the major highlights.