Noodles

Almost at the end of our visit to the Taiwan Folk Village, when we were going back to our hotel, I could see this

recently made noodles left to dry to the air and the Sun of that morning. From what I have been told, this is, more or less, the traditional way to do it and, depending on the different ambient conditions and how strong the wind is, the noodles may have different characteristics. For instance, Hsinchu noodles are famous, very thin noodles on account of the wind of the place.

When I took a closer look at these, it was impressive

and the smell of pasta filled the air. I was almost suddenly hungry.

Baguashan

Near, or in, Changhua is Baguashan (Bagua mountain),

an island of calm next to a very busy city. This place is famous for the giant Buddha statue sitting on top of the hill, which can be seen from all around.


It is a large mass of steel and concrete, of about 22 m of height, fairly modern (from 1961), which can be visited from the inside

up to some point.

I think it is up to the neck, but when we went up those stairs, the access was closed from the third or fourth floor. I don't quite like the windows that pop up at the sides or at the back, though.

Crossing past the open space behind the Buddah, there is a nice three-storey building, the big Buddha's temple, each floor apparently dedicated to a different kind of deities, or maybe beliefs, although they are very mixed in Taiwan.


We had an almost perfect afternoon when we visited the place. The warm Sun and the nice temperature increased the sensation of peace that spreads all over it (even if we could still hear the weak faraway humming of the city at the foot of the mountain). We did not wait until the Sun set, but we could still see the nice changing patterns of the shadows of the statue or the trees of the garden.


In front of the Buddha's sight, just at the edge of the hill, there is the Nine Dragons Pond, related to the history of Buddha. The nine dragons that bathed the just-born Sakyamuni.

We could even see the fountains working


All in all, I think I took far too many pictures

No smoking

At the beginning of this year, more or less around the time I came back to Taiwan, the new anti-smoking law came into effect forbidding smoking in public places like bars, restaurants, universities, etc. I am not sure if it still keeps smoking and non-smoking separations, but I am beginning to doubt it, because I have seen in at least two campuses that it is not allowed to smoke anywhere on campus apart from some special places dedicated for that.


It was unavoidable, I think. Some may think it is a little extreme, —I do not, anymore—, but it looks like the only solution. Of course, as it happens in other places with an ancient culture, as somebody told me here, one thing is the law and another to apply it.


They could also begin to look at cars now.

Taiwan Folk Village

When we stayed in Changhua, we slept in a hotel located a few km from the meeting place; in a place named the Taiwan Folk Village, in Huatan County.


More or less, it consists of a group of buildings showing how the old Taiwanese villages used to be,

with some houses in the style of the different original regions of the immigrants from the main land,


all kinds of different roofs,

a small temple,

a traditional marketplace (closed when we visited it)

and facades with funny shapes.


According to the leaflets laying around in the hotel, they regularly do shows with traditional dances and parties. It seems that there were also some water attractions in the grounds at some point, maybe only on a warmer season, which are now shut down and empty.


Not much maybe, but enough to have a nice walk in the morning of a beautiful day.

Motorcycle

This is evidence that not all the motorcycles in Taipei are scooters. They are a small percentage, but they do exist.

They also come with some special attitude, of course.

Cloudy ceiling

So, this is how the Taipei 101 looked for most of the day.

I wonder if it was sunny at the top.

Typhoon tracking

Some links today. The typhoon season has not started yet, at least in Taiwan. There are two or three months left until it does, but this does not mean that there are not any tropical storms somewhere and that we cannot track them. There are several websites that provide (more or less) real time information about the active storm or storms, or where you can see how the previous ones were. Besides, there is also, ready to use, the list of names that will be used on the new storms, what country gives the name and things like that. Last year, I mainly used three of them:

• the typhoon webpage of the Japan Meteorological Agency
  
• wikipedia pages: this year's new one 2009 and last year's (2008)
  
• typhoon2000: a webpage from the Philippines with pictures and real time information, when there is a storm going on
  

Using these three webpages, at least, it is easy to follow the evolution of the storm, see what is approaching, and decide then if you want to leave your nice little apartment or not.

Little tree

In my visit to the Taiwan Folk Village near Changhua, near which was our hotel, I saw this little tree (or is it bush?) with very curious leaves

It was similar to the ones I used to see during my childhood in Catalonia, but I was surprised by the orientation of the leaves and branches, they seemed to be almost perfectly vertical. I had never seen that and, in my bottomless ignorance, I wondered if it was not the result of some special care (being in Asia, I end up imagining things). Somebody told me then that they grew naturally that way. I need some help from biologists.