When I first applied to Fulbright Taiwan I told myself I would only take it if I got a location based in a city. I wanted to use my opportunity to travel around the country and to learn about the culture in Taiwan, to get better at my photography and video skills around other artists. I didn’t want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere. There had been a couple of locations I had written off as places I didn’t want to be Kinmen Islands (a set of islands closer to China than mainland Taiwan that has nothing other than historic military posts for tourism), Yilan (because it rains so much that I wouldn’t be able to trust having my camera with me a lot of the time), Hualien (the county on the east coast above Taitung that the guides books said required serious transportation planning to visit anywhere), and Taitung (the south eastern tip of Taiwan). I had been adamant with myself not to accept the Fulbright if I was stationed in any one of these places. I was optimistic to be placed in Taichung an arts based, urban county on the west coast only an hour from Taipei by train, or Kaohsiung, the second biggest city in Taiwan after Taipei. I then heard back from Fulbright. I was to be stationed in Taitung.
I think it took me 30 minutes to email Fulbright back asking if someone was to not accept their grant in Taichung if I could then be switched to that location. I heard back pretty fast that they could not assure I could move and asking my reasoning behind being in Taichung. I obviously didn’t make a strong enough argument for being switched because when I did come to Taiwan I found myself smack dab in the middle of Taitung county, in the mountains no less. It worked out for the best as you can see in my posts; I have come to love the nature surrounding me. I just couldn’t help but think of what it would’ve been like to be living in Taichung. With a longer winter break than expected I finally got to see the place I was previously so adamant of moving to.
I caught a high-speed rail train with Crystal, a friend who lives in Guanshan with me, early in the morning. We made it into the city by 10 o’clock. I had looked up so many lists of places that were must-sees in Taichung before we left Taipei that I already knew our day would be packed. Everything from museums of science and art to different theaters were on my list. It had been hard to put everything into a schedule that would fit a day trip. The first stop we decided on was a 1940’s themed ice cream shop known for amazing “luxury” ice cream and having long lines. We though it best to get this one done first to make sure we saw it and avoid any potential crowds. The ice cream shop was beautiful I will give them that. It looked Harry Potter-esque. There were towering book shelves and a tile floor that seemed to reflect the skylight design and the large wooden staircase. The shop was trying for a Harrod’s feeling I believe. All the workers were dressed in very nice uniforms. The different counters sold small little flower cakes, stacks of fudge, and gift wrapping ribbons all grossly overpriced.
We ogled like most of the other people in the store at the architecture taking pictures around the store, making our way slowly to the ice cream portion. Luckily the line for ice cream wasn’t too long at 10:20 in the morning and we didn’t have to wait long. I think I would’ve even appreciated a longer wait time to have more time to think what ice cream I wanted. Being “luxury” ice cream, everything was pretty high priced, so Crystal and I decided to split a bowl of three scoops. I was fascinated with the 20 different flavors of chocolate. They had chocolate from Uganda and Vietnam; all were international chocolate flavors of ice cream. My mouth was literally watering in line. It was only then that Crystal reminded me she didn’t like chocolate ice cream. We had decided we each would pick one scoop and the third we would agree upon, but when you get chocolate ice cream its bound to melt. The high likelihood that a scoop of chocolate would impact the other flavors was too great so I sadly moved away from the different chocolate flavors and towards the other flavors that are more Taiwan specific. (I did promise myself I would come again just to get all the chocolate).
The flavor I chose was Roselle tea, the flowers I used a couple months ago to make jam. Crystal chose a mango flavor grown in Taiwan, and together we agreed upon a salted Carmel. The only thing we couldn’t come to terms with was whether it was pronounced caramel or Carmel. In my mind, I think I won that battle. Having chosen 3 different toppings (two kinds of pineapple cakes, a mooncake, and a little shortbread cookie in the shape of a bear) we walked the beautiful Taichung river path.
Impromptu ice cream photoshoot
Next up on our day plan was to visit the Natural Way Six Way Arts Cultural Center. It was a courtyard surrounded by Japanese buildings, a pretty park away from the main part of the city. It was quiet and peaceful. There were a buildings for learning the tea ceremony, calligraphy lessons, and even archery lessons. Before going we knew none of the activities offered there which were by reservation only. So yet again I had another place on my list for another visit to Taichung sometime in the future. Instead, we spent our time looking at the handmade tea pots and calligraphy post cards available. To fully embrace the impact of Japanese culture on Taiwan we even wrote a “ema”, 絵馬, which is a piece of wood that one writes their wishes or prayers down. It took a while to decide what to write because you tie the wood plank up for future guests to see. I opted for writing my note in English to avoid any unintentional mess-ups in translation or handwriting while Crystal took the time to write her note in Chinese.
In Taiwan they try to make anything a tourist attraction - at least to google maps standards. We walked to one of these which was marketed as a cartoon alley of sorts. An alleyway that Taiwanese artists have taken over with paintings of anime and cartoon characters. I was expecting to recognize a lot of the characters because American pop culture is very common here. However, I found myself barely recognizing any of the paintings. I did appreciate the work and patience it must’ve taken to draw all those characters on the walls though. Of the characters I recognized I saw a whole garage door of minions, a bench of Totoro, the guy from Pokémon who I can’t recall the name, looney tunes, and a whole wall of just Mario and Luigi.
After our short walk through the Painted Animation alley, which in my book was not worth it, we caught a taxi to the location I have been dying to see – Rainbow Village. The Rainbow Village has a beautiful history to it. It was a military settlement and about 10 years ago there was only one resident left in the small group of buildings. The Taiwanese government wanted to replace the settlement with a more modern apartment building which would’ve left Huang Yung-fu without a home. In an attempt to save his home, Huang painted the entire settlement from the ground to the very rooftops with colorful designs, thereby saving his home and creating a tourist attraction that is popular to this day.
To get to Rainbow Village, which is outside the city, we caught a taxi. The taxi driver was relentless in telling us there were better things to see in the city than the village. He kept going on about how its smaller than you think and that it would be a better use of our time to go to the Taichung Art Museum (another location on my list of places to see next visit). Despite his attempts to persuade us otherwise, we arrived at the village. What the taxi man said would’ve taken us 20 minutes to see based on his many years of experience, took us an hour. I practiced my photography with the loud colors and changing sun angles. Crystal and I were having so much fun. I could’ve stayed even longer if it wasn’t that we told the taxi driver to wait for us having said we probably would be only 30 minutes if he said the average was 20. I definitely would consider going back just to see how the change of time affects how the sun creates shadows through the settlement.
We had one more stop to make before heading home, Chun Shui Tang 春水堂. 春水堂 is the birth place of bubble milk tea. Let’s get this straight, I didn’t eat except for an entire bowl of ice cream and a banana/unigari on the train. An unigari is a triangle of seaweed, rice, and a meat concoction that is a very filling, an on-the-go meal. By now it’s 3 o’clock and I was dying for regular food. We got seated and I decided on a noodle dish and a medium sized bubble tea. There were so many other forms of tea to choose from, but I kept with the basics, what made the store famous to begin with. Coming from the US, I feel like I have been jaded in my understanding of drink sizes. Unbeknownst to me, a medium is the equivalent to a full pint of bubble tea. Crystal held it up and they literally were the size of her head. I tasted it, and although it was alright, I actually didn’t see the hype of it. I think I’d rather have spent the 50$ NTD at Preso Tea back home (a chain store for teas) than cough up 150$ NTD at 春水堂 every time I wanted a bubble tea. Unlike the other places I visited in Taichung I don’t think I need to make the trip back to the birth place of milk tea. Once was enough. That is unless one of my friends decides to make the DIY class on learning how to make bubble milk tea from the restaurant. If that’s the case I would definitely find the time to make that happen. I would’ve done that when we went, but I had thought it was going to be a solo trip until last minute Crystal joined and the DIY class required a minimum of 2 people per party.
While 台中was beautiful and I find myself already planning another trip there, I am happy that in the end I live in 台東. I love the mountains more than the scooter traffic and taxis. I love the fresh air and the rice fields over the grey office buildings. It was a fun day trip, but I am looking forward to returning to my mountain valley.
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