Taiwan, part 3: Puyan

There has been a bit of a time lag between the last post about Taiwan.  But the second part of the adventure was what really defined our trip to Taiwan.

We had less than 24 hours in Taipei, so we woke relatively early on our second morning there to pay a visit to the Xing Tiang temple which we hadn’t had time to do the day before.  Just outside the temple, there were a few foodstalls – steaming pots of noodles and Taiwanese spring onion pancakes.  These are delicious, thick pancakes about 10cm in diameter, finished off on an ‘omelette’ (basically, the cook breaks and egg onto his hot plate, mixes it up and it attaches itself to the pancake) and seasoned with either plum or chilli sauce.  My mouth is watering just typing about it now.

After the temple we figured we had enough time to see one more sight before catching our train to Taichung.  I had planned on going to the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall, but somehow got it mixed up with the Sun Yatsen memorial hall.  It was a pretty sight, and gave us another glimpse of Taipei 101.

Next stop, Taipei Railway Station.  It is a HUGE station where both regular and High Speed trains depart from.  I’d booked our tickets online and needed to pick them up at the station.  It was such an easy process – I queued at the ticket desk, handed over my reference number and 2 tickets were produced.  The whole process of travelling on the High Speed Railway (HSR) was remarkable.  The trains are immaculate and very comfortable.  The platforms are also immaculate and clearly labelled so you know where to wait for your carriage.  And it was so fast – I guess they don’t call it ‘High Speed’ for nothing!

Petula, Jianyu and Viola met us at Taichung station and drove us to Jianyu’s family home in Puyan District, Changhua County.  His family live in a lovely rural spot – the town complete with 2 beautiful temples.

On the first night, Jianyu’s mother had prepared a wonderful dinner for us to eat – a variety of dishes including chicken, fish and veg.  Delicious.  Jianyu’s dad cracked open the whisky which Simon enjoyed!  After dinner we were taught to play Mahjong.  I’ve often seen Chinese ladies playing this game – moving tiles with pretty pictures on at lightening speed, with the odd yelp of joy when they get a good tile or proclamation of disgust when they don’t.  It turned out to be a competitive, fun game not dissimilar to Rummikub.  We played it well past midnight with a mix of cousins, friends and whoever else seemed to be passing by.  Great fun.

We spent the next morning wandering around the village, enjoying the sunshine, the rural scenes and just catching up with friends.  For lunch we were taken to an outstanding Japanese restaurant nearby.  The food was plentiful and delicious.  That afternoon we ventured to a town called Lugang which had some lovely temples and a great street/night market.  We were so full from lunch, otherwise we may have tried even more than we did!  We did buy some delicious ginger tea and eat some sweet biscuits flavoured with coriander.

Taiwan really captured our imagination and we’d love to go back and explore more of the country.  Simon discovered an open-water swim which takes place there, so perhaps we’ll make it back that way in September for that!