Yet another weekend away - Sanyi and Tung Wa Festival

On May 10, we took a drive to Sanyi, a town about 60 min north of Taichung, for the Tung Wa (or Tung Flower Blossom) Festival. Sanyi is an interesting little town that is really just one major street of shops (woodworking and wood crafts are the major tourist attraction normally) and an old railroad station just outside of town in the hills which was the focus of the Tung Wa Festival. Due to the Festival, which had publicity everywhere, as we approached Sanyi on the highway, there was a backup for the exit ramp that extended several miles before even getting off the highway. OK, but what the hell, we were there anyway. So after a hour to go the few miles from the exit ramp to the town (merging down to one lane), the flow was a little smoother. We found a very lucky parking place almost to the railroad area (as someone pulled out).

The town is a scenic wonder in itself - we had visited on a much quieter day in the fall. You can read about Sanyi here. The slide show below covers all my pictures (with my new camera) from the day. We walked around, saw a really nifty little ride-on model train which went up and down a short section of track, walked through a short trail along the mountain to see the flowers, and walked back to town to sit and rest a while.



Taiwan is a small place and you do not realize how this works until you have days like this. On the hiking trail, we ran into a work colleague with his wife and two children. We were stopped and chatting for a couple minutes, when another work colleague comes by with his family. So we chat and then move on and continue hiking. When we come back to town, we bump into the first family again and sit - they are there for both the Tung Wa Festival and to hang out to see the fireflies, which were out in that area and apparently another big thing. We hung around for a while and chatted while sharing snacks and water. We then decided to head back to go to dinner.

On the way out we noticed the signs for the old railroad you see in the pictures. We stopped for a brief walk around and some more pictures.

So our day ends with following the road out of town and planning to head back into town to a restaurant we know between Sanyi and the railroad station for dinner. I decided to stop for gas at a station on the way and pulled into the pump. One of the gas station attendants motioned me that I was in a truck lane, so I decided to back up and pull into the next lane which was for cars. At the same time, a truck decided to come in from the highway, into my blind spot, and so I backed up into his front fender! Wow, my first accident in Taiwan and not even on a roadway.

So, the procedure when having an accident is to get out, look, motion dumbly while the truck driver yells at you in a language you do not understand, then call for help. My first couple tries (the car rental company and the insurance company) failed miserably - Chinese recordings only (Saturday night at 8PM or so). I finally got a work colleague, who called a wonderful guy in the admin dept. at work (Jacky). Jacky called me back and let me know the procedure. By this time, the police had arrived to take information, and so Jacky talked to them, then me, then them so more. I was to follow the police to the station to file a report along with the truck driver to document the accident. So our entourage pulls out from the gas station and about a kilometer down the road to the police station. Here we are given seats, served tea, and generally treated like royalty while filling out a police report. The night captain tries to use his limited English, and we try our limited Chinese. I think he was especially impressed by Teresa's business card and title. Several more calls to Jacky make sure the report is filled out correctly and we and they understand each other. Anyway, several more cups of tea later, I sign the police report with red ink thumbprints, get our official copy, and am ushered back onto the road.

By now it is after 9PM and I have lost most of my appetite. So we head for home, park and then go out for a bite and a drink. The damage to my Tribute included a severely dented bumper (to be replaced since it prevented opening the rear hatch) and a broken tail light cover. Not much, but a decent record after a year of driving in Taiwan. The damage to my ego, a little worse! All in all, I feel like an idiot even now writing about it, backing up into a big truck. But stuff happens, and the Taiwanese redeemed themselves once more in the face of foreign stupidity.

Catching up - a Saturday drive and walk

On March 21, we took a simple Saturday outing to see the giant Buddha of Baguashan in Changhua, about a 30-40 minute drive from Taichung. It was a very impressive statue in a scenic area on a high spot in the town. Besides the statue, temples, monastery, and park - which we toured and spent most of our time around - there is also a botanical park and an aircraft park on the mountain. Fodder for another Saturday trip.

Here is the Buddha.

From Simple Taiwan Weekend

And here are the pictures from the whole weekend. This also includes a couple pictures leaving Taichung (driving and steel work from a restaurant renovation) and a baker's dozen of pictures from our Sunday walk around town. There was a festival in People's Park with kid's games (hence the giant space shuttle) and a couple doing wedding pictures on a Mini Cooper in the middle of the street.

Typhoon Fung Wong

On Monday July 28, Typhoon Fung Wong came to Taiwan. Since the government was severely criticized for underwhelming the response to the previous typhoon, they went overboard this time. By Sunday night, the entire island had declared Monday as a Typhoon Day. 

Unfortunately for us, we had about 30 people here from all over the world for a business meeting. So after many phone calls back and forth on Sunday night and Monday morning, we decided to proceed. It was still not raining at all when we went to work on Monday morning and our normal 35 min drive took about 15 min with no traffic at all.  We had our meeting as planned, though with less attendance from the local folks who observed the Typhoon Day. Many people left early - Teresa took a taxi home at about 2PM - and had no issues. I left about 5PM, unfortunately just after the rain had started. I got wet getting to my car - and the driver's seat is still drying out - but otherwise had no issues. I had another vision of wild typhoon driving, though no photographer in the passenger seat to document it.

I would have thought (silly of me, I know) that in the pouring rain and wind, drivers would be more careful and polite. It seemed however, that wild and crazy maneuvers got even wilder and crazier. People drove on the wrong side of the road, made left turns from the right lane, and all the things I have come to expect, and then some. I guess this is another cultural difference to ponder.

Typhoon Days

It has been a while since posting, due to mostly work, and a little fun.

On Friday, July 18, we were driving to work a little earlier than usual for an early meeting. We left the house at about 7:15. We knew there was a typhoon coming but had no real understanding of what that meant. Typhoon Kalmaegi (that means seagull in Korean), came with lots of rain. We spent the next hour (7:15 to 8:15) driving from our apartment to about halfway to work and then back again. The rain was unbelievable. Sidewalks (or what usually passes for them) were rivers flowing rapidly. Intersections were mostly lakes. It was not so bad to drive, especially with my Tribute, though probably more dangerous than I knew. It was more interesting to watch the people and cars and scooters. Mostly traffic was not moving, except for the scooters. Luckily, Teresa had her camera and her pictures are posted here.  

Scooters were up to the middle of their wheels. Some scooter drivers tried to stay dry with all their rain gear. Others knew they were getting wet and were in t-shirts and shorts. It was a hoot to watch. The water at some intersections was above the bottom of a small car's doors - keep those doors closed! In several intersections (aka lakes), scooters and a couple cars were stranded, probably stalled out. We finally got to Taichung Gang Rd (the main street to work) and found it blocked and closed by police). That and several phone calls from work colleagues convinced us to head back home and take a "Typhoon day". Apparently, sometime early in the morning, the government had decided the storm was bad and declared a "Typhoon day". This means all schools, offices, and other non-essential functions are closed along with most businesses. Our plant runs 24/7 so some of the shift workers who were there ended up staying for 24 hours to cover for those who could not get there. One problem with the Typhoon day was that the word came late and at least the middle school near us had some school kids already there and parents scrambling to get there to pick up their kids during the height of the rain.

We later heard some of the statistics. The storm delivered a full 1120 mm of rain (44 inches) in 24 hours. And the worst hour of that was 7-8AM (when we were driving) which saw about 140 mm (over 5 inches). About 20 people were killed in the storm on the island, mostly due to mudslides in the mountains.

The government was severely criticized over the following days for being to slow to react and for not alerting the public sooner.