Just beachy at Fulong

The story of my beachy weekend began on a NON-rainy Saturday with  brunch at Grandma Nitti's with M., my editing Bobbsey Twin. I was sipping from my bottomless cup of coffee and pondering my day's adventures. Taipei offers a bounty of adventure options, and when you figure in a short train trip (you can get to the south of the island in about an hour and a half by high-speed rail) the sky's the limit. Rather, the ocean is anyway. And when I mentioned the possibility of beaches, M. started to look a little green with sea envy. She started suggesting options and began to get a bit TOO tickled by the notion of sea air and sand between her toes. In the end she offered to accompany me to the beach.



Our journey began at Taipei Main Station where my trusty translator managed to sort out the many train options available. High-speed rail tickets and regular train tickets are sold at different kiosks. The automated HSR system was actually pretty simple and user-friendly. But the peanut-gallery train was a little less simple.  Aside from picking what direction you want to go in, you have to figure out whether you'll need a local, local express, or express train to get you where you're going. The local slow train is of course the cheapest. And slowest. And you'll be SURE to arrive at your destination as it stops at every two-pig town on it's way as it weaves across the island. The express train, on the contrary, will only stop at the bigger cities. While the local express would have been "just right", spontaneity isn't always rewarded by the practicalities of life, and we passed on waiting a couple of hours for an express and just took the slow train.

After about three dozen stops on a nonetheless  picturesque route, we arrived at Fulong. From the station it was a short walk past restaurants and convenience stores to the beach access gate. NT$40 (about US$1.30) gave us access to an almost private beach. I suspect that the uncertain weather kept people away. Largely we had the mountains, hermit crabs, dead puffer fish, and surf to ourselves. 

Oh. And the construction equipment erecting sand castles. You might say that's cheating, but M. suspected it was in anticipation of a sand castle building contest happening in a week or two. 

Shots like this make me marvel that I'm really here

After a few hours of the sweet surf air and soft sand between our toes, we began to head back home. The weather was turning again and rain clouds were snagged all around the mountains in the distance. But this only complemented the mysterious beauty of Fulong.

The beauty of island life

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Since I moved here at the beginning of an unseasonably cold and wet winter, I've been grousing about one thing: dry clothes. The trouble to dry clothes is nearly insurmountable without the aid of an iron and a lot of patience. On my inaugural taxi ride from TPE to Nankang -- home of Academia Sinica and where I spent my first night -- I first heard the apparent motto of the neighborhood, "It always rains in Nankang." Within the first week of moving here, I learned the hard way that things in Taipei, and in particular Houshanpi, my barrio that shares neighboring Nankang's luck for precip, just don't get too dry. I've been shopping for a dryer, which though a bit uncommon are uncommonly cheap (around US$150), but the language barrier has been a bit much for the task. So downside.

Now the upside. Beaches. Taiwan is an ISLAND! BEAUTIFUL ISLAND if the original Portuguese were apt in their naming of Formosa. My first journey to the seashore was easy as pie -- the subway. I hopped on the subway from my apartment, made one transfer, and BAM! I was on the boardwalk, Asian-style at Tamsui. While lousy busy on the weekend, everywhere worth going is busy on the weekends as Taipeiers love getting out and enjoying their environs. Kudos to them, but a bit of crowd surfing for me.  

So the food. Because this is Taiwan, life begins, revolves, and ends around the food. And boardwalks of course have their own specialties. Of course there was cotton candy and Turkish -- no, a real Turk behind the scoop! -- ice cream, but there were also fried skewered wantons with shrimp balls inside and garnished with sweet, salty, and spicy sauce....

... and little skewered fried quail eggs that are cracked into a preheated griddle with individual wells for each egg (a bit bland next to other stuff)...

.... and the freshest fried squid eaten with skewers. A dash of the spicy -- xin la -- seasoning, and we were in business. I still kinda crave these sometimes, but it's not so hard to find in Taipei. It's just that the boardwalk atmo infinitely improves on what's already golden goodness. 

Squid was actually well represented on the boardwalk as you could also get it boiled. It was served in a plastic bag with -- you guessed it -- skewers, and people just ate it sans ceremony. 

If you follow the bank of the river past the boardwalk you come to some strange sights, including a large bust of a distinctly Western-looking gentleman. His name was George Mackay and he was a Canadian missionary who brought Western medicine and medical education to Taiwan in 1872. The streets here also show the signs of the Spanish and Dutch colonization brought to Tamsui in the 1600s.

A few hours leisurely walk from the MRT station past the boardwalk and lulling fishing boats at last brought me to the end of my road and the Lovers Bridge. I wish I could tell some story about unrequited love or star-crossed paramours pitching themselves to their deaths, but actually the lover bit only seems to manifest itself in the fact that the thing is a soft, baby PINK. Still, it has it's picturesque qualities. Especially at dusk when the pink shade sort of fades.  And here on the bank of the Tamsui River nearly to where it empties into the Taiwan Strait you can find, that's right, more FOOD! A perfectly lovely spot for a feast at one of the many stalls selling the freshest catch.  

For my part, I ventured a little way back in the direction of the MRT where a modest shop let me pick my dinner out of enormous tubs of live fish, eels, shrimp, crabs, and squid. You point to your victim, specify how you want it cooked, and in twenty minutes or so, reap the benefits of a long picturesque walk at Tamsui. 

If all the lights in the sky were wishes... Oh wait -- they ARE!!!

No good deed goes unpunished, right? Well since moving to Taipei, I've had to be a bit more optimistic about things. Optimistic that I won't get lost on the buses, three of which may have the same number but take COMPLETELY different routes. Optimistic that the strangely textured meaty thing floating in my bowl of soup is an over-cooked mushroom. Optimistic that the ghosts hiding under the floor boards of my Japanese-style apartment are nice ghosts and haven't seen The Grudge. So instead I try to go with, "No good deed goes unREWARDED." Working Chinese New Year is an example of a good deed rewarded.

The Mastermind, his wife, and the small fry

The Saturday of CNY I get a phone call from my editor colleague -- a grad student just heard back about a manuscript. It needs to be edited IMMEDIATELY to be considered for immediate publication. I'm thinking, why, oh why, did I answer my phone? But no worries -- the weather is wet and cold and not great for adventures and mayhem anyway. So what the hell. After my AWESOME lazy CNY Day with an AWESOME family who adopted me for the feasting-tea sipping-mahjongg playing holiday, I sharpened up my red pens and got cracking. Ya-da-ya-da-ya-da, said student was so overwhelming happy I could help him out of a bind, he invited me to Pingxi (Pronounced: Ping-She) with his wife, chatty 2 1/2 year old
daughter, and friends. "Friends" was

another colleague and his wife and cute, curly-haired little daughter. So the first Saturday of the Lantern Festival found me crammed into a car with two couples, two kiddos and a light-up paper dragon, everyone chattering happily in Hindi up into the mountains to the east of Taipei towards Pingxi. I didn't know it at the time, but I was in the presence of a MASTER strategist who had somehow figured out how to get five people, two babies, a stroller, AND a car into what is actually kind of a "no car zone" for the insane Lantern Festival.

Here's how it shakes down. The 15th day after the LUNAR New Year is the first full moon of the year. Tradition has it that lanterns were to be hung for people to go out and enjoy this event and chill with their neighbors -- sort of a great big block party. People descend in droves on Pingxi, a town a couple of hours east of Taipei up and down some curvy roads in the mountains, with paper lanterns and wishes. On the paper lanterns they will write the wishes and send them both up into the clouds to the gods. 

So lets say you're in Pingxi have some wishes but you forgot your lantern, you can buy one there for about US$5. 

Of course, you'll want to scribble some wishes on it, and so they also supply brushes and ink along the railroad tracks of the quaint town. And you'll also want to buy a little paper stack soaked in kerosene, which if you're lucky, someone will help you attach to the base of the lantern. The necessities obtained, the wishes cast, and our 3-foot tall pink lantern was ready to be sent aloft. After lighting the little fuse it doesn't take long for the hot air to inflate the lantern, and before I knew it, everyone drew their fingers away and sent the lantern gracefully floating upwards.

If this sounds peaceful and idyllic, then it's only because I haven't fully described the mayhem. It's like someone poured the 6 million-strong population of Taipei onto the serene mountain, handed a few of them microphones, guitars, firecrackers, and assorted noise-makers, and assigned them a holiday to have some fun and make some noise. I've heard that the Taiwanese are immune to loud noise, and the lantern festival made me believe it to the core of my soul!

A few industrious souls attached firecrackers to the bottoms of the lanterns and set them off as they began their short-lived graceful ascent.

The release of the big lantern and scores of smaller lanterns came in neatly coordinated waves. Between releases, the crowds were kept entertained by the President of Taiwan himself -- who walked within three feet of me as I was arriving at the staging area -- a Taiwan Idol winner and a rock band belting out Taiwanese and Western favorites,  firefighters putting out the constant little fires that erupted -- including one atop their little red truck -- and a couple of very polished MCs who kept people apprised of the program. At some point the lights would go out and the lanterns would slowly be lit. A hush of anticipation and the final signal. The lanterns began floating up and the moment of silence gave rise to the collective, "Ahhhhhh!" as the lanterns took flight -- wishes to the heavens for the new year.