horizonbound's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries TravelStream™ news feed for member horizonbound on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/horizonbound en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sat, 18 Oct 2008 02:09:06 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com An end to the wandering a while — Taipei, Taiwan http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/grand_adventure/1163676240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/grand_adventure/1163676240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/grand_adventure/1163676240/tpod.html Sat, 18 Oct 2008 02:09:06 -0400 To Russia, and if I survive the Siberian winter, on to China and Taiwan.
Taipei, Taiwan

Crikey, the end of the line! I arrived yesterday evening, on the poshest flight I've ever taken. I swear, they must have accidentally put me in business class. There was enough space to stretch my legs in front of me, a good 6 inches of seat extra for me to get comfy in, and even a little TV in the seat in front of me. And a meal, on an hour long flight! Maybe I've just flown on budget airlines too many times and don't remember what a proper a aeroplane looks like...

Excitement about the luxury of the plane aside, it's really strange to finally be here. The thought of staying in one place for more than a few days, let alone a whole year is quite alien. I felt quite a wrench as that last stamp went in my passport!

I haven't seen much of Taipei so far, except for what I saw from the taxi yesterday (needless to say, the school paid). Today I've mostly spent hiding inside, catching up on the joys of sock washing and email writing, except for a short foray outside this evening. Taipei looks nice - there's a lot to do I think, and lots of shops to explore! Tomorrow I'm going to try to get up and actually 'do' something touristy whilst I have the chance before herding kiddies around. But it's about 27 degrees outside and I have no sun cream, so it may amount to lying in bed all day again, catching up on nap time. That's important too!!


But check out this fancy map! It makes it look as though I've been to a lot more places than I actually have done, but it's quite exciting. It's from www.world66.com if anyone wants to do one for themselves.


]]> A night at the Opera — Budapest, Hungary http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1207670280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1207670280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1207670280/tpod.html Tue, 08 Apr 2008 12:21:58 -0400 More 'educating', just fewer children, a bit more wine, and much prettier views.
Budapest, Hungary

I love Budapest. Love it. Where else can you see a great ballet in a fantastic theatre for a mere one pound twenty? Well, maybe a few other places, but I've never found any others!

So, last night I went to see Swan Lake at the Hungarian State Opera House. For 1.20. Still amazed! I've been meaning to go for a long time, but never seemed to get around to it after the summer. The Opera is a beautiful building. It's an Andrassy Ut, a long leafy street that was built for ladies to walk up and down I think. It's lined with amazing architecture, and some of the poshest shops in the country. Yet it's only five minutes walk from my house...
Anyway, the building. It's not overly large, but it's imposing enough. There are statues of famous Hungarian composers outside - Liszt, Bartok, Erkel, along with a couple of sphinxes standing guard. The entrance hall is beautiful. Everything is covered with gilded tiles, mosaics, murals and other arty stuff. However, the central staircases is apparently too good or the riff-raff in the cheap seats - we had to enter through a side door. Definitely not so breathtaking in there!

The building makes up for itself again when you get into the hall though. Apparently, the Emperors forbade them to build an opera house bigger than that in Vienna, so the made it exactly the same size, just much much more decadent. There's a massive chandelier hanging beneath a domed ceiling decorated with murals, two floors of box seats, painting of angels and composers. And lots and lots of gold.

Our seats were way up at the top, in the 'music only' seating area (basically, you're sitting at such an angle to the stage that you can't really see). However, last time I was there my friend Betty told me that most of the seats at the centre are season ticket seats - and most of the time they're empty, because people don't go to every performance that's on. So, we took advantage of this and sneaked into the better seats closer to the middle. Had a great view in the end, could see pretty much all the stage, didn't miss anything. The rows were very close, which was fine for me, but my six foot six friend found it quite difficult!

The ballet was very nice. Not quite my thing - not really so into massive groups dancing together, but it was good. We couldn't work out what was happening at one point though - different things seemed to be happening than in the story that I knew. I really didn't think there was a happy ending! In this one, the prince killed the nasty wizard man that had turned the swan into a girl and they lived happily ever after. I was under the impression that they both died at the end, her dancing herself to death ina vain effort to save him. But it's quite likely that I was confused with another story, happens quite a lot!

So, that's my story. Hopefully going to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at the end of the month - although I hadn't realised there was a ballet of it!
]]> Human Peace Sign — Budapest, Hungary http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1206805860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1206805860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1206805860/tpod.html Tue, 08 Apr 2008 11:55:25 -0400 More 'educating', just fewer children, a bit more wine, and much prettier views.
Budapest, Hungary

So. Hungary is a little odd. Strange things seem to happen (especially my friend Amy is around. She seems to be a magnet for all things odd and interesting). Not Invasion of the Body-snatchers weird, but still a little odd.

First up, last Sunday was rather strange, even by Budapest standards. As you do, I got up at lunch time, wandered over to meet my friend for some food (yummy yummy new Mexican place, mmmmm burritos!), then we walked over to Heroes' Square to take part in a giant human peace sign protest. With flaming torches. As you do. Heroes' Square is, as the name suggests, a square dedicated to heroes (the guys that founded Hungary). It's a pretty big space, at the end of the main promenading street in town - Budapest was waaaaaaay posh back in the day. So anyway, very big, posh square in the middle of town.

When we arrived it was still definietly daylight - clearly, it needs to be dark to see the torch flames, so we had to wait around a while (I think someone forgot about the clocks going forward...). Plenty of stuff to look at though! There were thousands of people running around, trying not to get run over by the cars still trying to get across the main road in front of the square, handing out leaflets, dancing, singing, generally being a bit hippy-ish. Various groups of people were trying to out-do each other with who could have the biggest banner I think Greenpeace won in the end (although that's no real surprise). As we waited for dark there were lots of speakers - all in Hungarian, clearly - talking about various issues. Tibet being rather topical, that was the most prominent.

Then, at about 8ish, just as it was getting really dusky, it all got started. Everyone stopped dancing around the crazy old lady that looked like she was havingthe time of her life and scuttled back into the peace sign, torches at the ready. A Tibetan monk arrived, appartently having carried a torch the whole way from Athens (it was way cooler than the Olympic torch, but not sure if I really believe it came all the way from Greece). There were a few more speeches, then the outer ring parted to let him though to reach the central point of the sign, where he lit some torches. It was a bit like a Take That concert or something - everyone was straining for him to light their torch. Admittedly, it was rather more refined than the pop concert!

The flame was passed on from person to person in a ripple effect, slowly lighting up the whole sign. It was strangely chilled out - no one was really saying much, just standing together, thinking about things. Very calm. It was a nice feeling - so many people standing together for something good, all thinking about the same ideas.
Sadly I didn't get any photos, but I'm going to try to get some off a friend. In the mean time, here's a video of it from youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNp13wEMEX4&feature=related Enjoy!
]]> Easter — Budapest, Hungary http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1206370140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1206370140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1206370140/tpod.html Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:24:41 -0400 More 'educating', just fewer children, a bit more wine, and much prettier views.
Budapest, Hungary

Easter seems to be a fairly big deal here in Hungary, much more so than it is in the UK. However, living in Budapest I haven't really seen anything apart from the masses of chocolate bunnies and small eggs in the shops. No proper sized easter eggs though!

I mentioned the Hungarian tradition of "locsolkodni" before - young men going to visit the girls to read them a poem and sprinkle them with perfume or water. Or, chuck a bucket of freezing cold water over them! Apparently this is a pagan tradition - watering the women sill stop them from wilting and ensure they remain fertile. Hmm.... Not sure I really believe that! In return the girls give them either hand painted eggs, or more commonly now that we're all lazy and commercialised, chocolate eggs from the shop.

Sadly I didn't get the chance to see any of this tradition - I think it only really happens in the villages now. Instead, in the centre of Budapest there was an Easter market - stalls with food, hot wine (yummy yummy!), and all sorts of touristy tat. Some stalls had lovely Eatser things though - beautiful handpainted eggs, wooden ones and real ones too. And a giant egg in the centre that you could paint a bit of!

]]> National Day — Budapest, Hungary http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1205610660/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1205610660/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1205610660/tpod.html Mon, 24 Mar 2008 10:48:13 -0400 More 'educating', just fewer children, a bit more wine, and much prettier views.
Budapest, Hungary

An important day of national pride, March 1915 marks the anniversary of the start of the 1848 Revolution.

At the time, Hungary was much larger than it is today, but was also under the rule of the Hapsburg Empire. Hungarians had little autonomy over their own affairs, Latin was still the official language of the country, and by the sounds of it, the aristocracy was doing its damned hardest to keep the poor throughly downtrodden. The government was re-convened in the 1820s to deal with economic problems, and the people began to demand more and more rights for Hungarians.

On March 15th, 1848 there was what my Hungarian teacher proudly described as a 'bloodless revolution'. The 'Marciusi ifjak' (Youths of March), led by Petõfi Sándor, demonstrated in Buda and in Pest, demanding that their "12 Points" be met - mainly calling for the abolition of censorship and a real Hungarian government. They printed the 12 points at publishers, along with Petofi's poem, "Nemzeti Dal" ("National Song"). The legend goes that he read it to a crowd of thousands at the National Museum, where the crowd joined in with the chorus;
On the God of the Hungarians
We vow,
We vow, that we will be slaves
No longer!
Pretty rousing stuff, right? Apparently this mass singing is just legend though. Even the site of where the song was first read is now argued about. But even so, Petofi Sandor remains a national hero, along with the others that were involved, Kossuth Lajos, Szechenyi Istvan, Batthyany Lajos and Bem Jozef, many of whom died in the following war against Vienna, were executed by the Hapsburgs, or were forced to flee to abroad.


These days, March 15th is a big celebration of all things Hungarian. In Budapest there was a flag raising ceremony outside the Parlament Building at Kossuth Lajos Square with the Prime Minister and army parades, lots of flags, flowers placed at the statues of Petõfi Sándor and the others, and lots of traditional markets and shows. Everyone wears a kind of rosette made from ribbon in the pattern of the Hungarian flag (A red, white and green stripe). I saw a folk dancing show at Petofi Square, which was really interesting! The folk music is quite gypsy-esque (although the Hungarians certainly wouldn't describe it as such!!), with a couple of violins and a double bass. The dancers themselves had beautiful costumes - the girls had brightly coloured dresses and intricate head-dresses, and the men had high boots and nice jackets. They sang as they danced - the man-woman pairs danced round and round in circles mainly, but the really cool part was when only the men danced. It was quite different to most traditional dancing I've seen - jumping, clapping, hitting their boots/legs/arms in a complicated rhythm. There's a lot of different kinds of folk dancing - I think the group used a few different types. The men's jumping dances are called Ugros dances, while the women perform a dance called karikazo, where they link arms and turn in a circle, accompanied by accapella folk songs.



One thing that was not so nice about the day was the amount of people that seemed not to want to celebrate the day for Hungary now, but to show their anger about the loss of 'Greater Hungary'. After the First World War, Hungary lost over two-thirds of its land - it used to control great areas of Transylvania, Slovakia, and Croatia. There was never a sizeable Hungarian population in the areas that were lost, but lots of people still see it as an issue of national pride. There were huge crowds of these people at an event at Blaha Lujza Square. All the roads around the square were shut, and the tram and metro lines didn't stop in the area. It was full of thousands and thousands of people - mostly men in combat trousers, big boots and clutching the symbol of the old country - a red and white striped flag. It was slightly intimidating! There were coach-loads of police in riot gear and big big guns around in case anything kicked off - and apparently this far right group don't really need much of an excuse to. They were a little less scary after you'd seen them queuing up for the porta-loos though!!

All in all, it was a really nice day, with most people happy and proud of their country.
]]> Hello again! — Budapest, Hungary http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1205607900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1205607900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1205607900/tpod.html Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:26:17 -0400 More 'educating', just fewer children, a bit more wine, and much prettier views.
Budapest, Hungary

Hmm.... Seems to have been a very long time since I've written anything! Sorry, but really haven't had that much to bother writing about. I've done very little exploring of Hungary (bad Lou!) - it was a lot easier in Taiwan because I had friends dotted all around the country. Here I don't know anyone outside of the city! So instead I've been exploring the city - something that I couldn't really do in Taiwan!

So far I'm enjoying living in Budapest. It's a beautiful city, with amazing architecture, both restored and crumbling away. Personally I like the crumbly buildings better, they have much more character. The river Danube cuts the city in half (one side is Buda, one side is Pest - they were separate cities until only just over 100 years ago!), and there are fantastic views from the bridges. I have to cross the Margaret Bridge to get from my house to work, and I think it really is one of the best views in the city - there's the Parliament building, the castle, the citadel hill, and the Chain Bridge. It's beautiful, especially at night when it's all lit up.

One thing that really annoyed me about Taiwan was how everything of historical value had been bulldozed to make way for apartment blocks or factories or elevated roads or something like that. It's happened a little bit here (some buildings have been ripped down and new ones built, but they often fit in with the style of the other buildings) but there's so much history still in the city. There are the buildings themselves, and then the events that have taken place here over the years. There's been empires, revolutions, uprisings, counter-revolutions, riots, war. But it's not all violent! There are some very quirky traditions here too - at easter the boys 'water' the girls to stop them wilting (it seems to be an excuse to chuck buckets of water at each other these days!), and in return, instead of chasing them and doing unspeakable things to wreak their revenge, the girls hand over beautifully painted eggs instead. Nothing like the tacky things we used to make at school!!

So, I'm going to make more of an effort to keep you updated! I've got a few things to write about, so you may start the anticipation now! Don't do yourself an injury though!
]]> Home Sweet Home — Budapest, Hungary http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1192054620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1192054620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/budapest/1192054620/tpod.html Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:05:39 -0400 More 'educating', just fewer children, a bit more wine, and much prettier views.
Budapest, Hungary

Ah, another year, another city. After leaving Taiwan I've been bouncing around all over the place. I was here for a month, then at home at a summer camp in the most ridiculously posh school you've ever seen, teaching children that were disgustingly wealthy and disgustingly obnoxious (when they wanted to be), then back here. I've been in Budapest for just over a month now. I'm still working as an English teacher, this time half kids, half adults, which is nice. I have a lovely flatmate (yay!), and the city is starting to feel like home. Still finding new places all the time, but that's all the fun of it really.

Not sure why I'm starting this - all I seem to do these days is work, play around on the internet, drink a bit of wine, sleep, and attempt to learn a bit of Hungarian. It's not going so well - why did I choose one of the only countries in Eastern Europe without a Slavic language? All that study going to waste... So I doubt this will be a terribly riveting read. But, I am resolved to doing more with my time - at least to get out and take some photos a couple of times a week. And you never know, I might even venture out of the city every now and then!

If I ever get around to doing something interesting, I'm sure it'll make its way over here.
]]> Geology Playground — Yeliou, Taiwan http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/taiwan_and_tofu/1177769340/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/taiwan_and_tofu/1177769340/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/taiwan_and_tofu/1177769340/tpod.html Fri, 29 Jun 2007 10:48:26 -0400 The ramblings of yet another foreigner rocking up to 'educate' the youth of Taiwan.
Yeliou, Taiwan

Such a week of adventures!! Two expeditions to the north in three days - not quite the perilous voyage it sounds though, this being a subtropical island!

Yeliou is close to Keelung, about 30 minutes drive west along the north coast, but it might as well be in another world. The village itself is nothing special, but jutting out into the sea is a spit of land, almost 2km long and only a hundred meters or so wide. Taiwan was formed because of volcanic action due to the big fault line running close to the coast (there's a line of islands all the way from the Philippines to Japan to Kamchatka in Russia, following this fault line), and is still rising out of the sea. Not much mind you, but enough to have caused an amazing array of erosion to the rock on this tiny spit of land.

The area is covered in many different kinds of rock formations - mushroom rocks where softer rock has been worn away, leaving balls of harder rock sitting on thin 'necks', chess board type squares where cracks have been caused by pressure in the rock, honeycomb rocks, where again softer parts have been eroded, leaving lines of hard rock, and a lot of other things i don;t know the name for.

The spit was vary flat for the first 600m or so - this is where the famous "Queen's Head" rock is as well. One of the mushroom rocks, from one angle it really does look like a woman's head. It means this area is swamped with bus loads of Taiwanese, Japanese and Korean tour groups, but the rest of the spit is thankfully mostly Granny-free, due to the massive cliff that rises out of the ocean. The land suddenly rises up - one side is a steep incline, but the other is an almost vertical cliff down to sea. The hill itself is covered in lush, dense green plants. There's wildlife too!!! I saw a huge gecko-type lizard, and there were quite a few birdwatchers up there too. They're all kitted out in their camouflage gear and their huge telephoto lenses waiting for the birds to show up, and I prance past in my bright pink skirt, waiting for them to move their tripods off the whole of the path. Don't think that went down well!

The views from the point were beautiful - very very rugged scenery (as far as Taiwan goes). So much green, so much space. Makes a big change after the overpopulated mess of Taoyuan!! You can either way down the coast (but not too far, it was really hazy), and the rocks ate the foot of the cliffs are all weird too - lots of patterns and grid cracks and general craziness. At the bottom of the hill-side is weird too. There's a big almost flat platform, then the hill jumps up out of it. The rock is covered in the honeycomb pattern, and weird squares filled with concentric rings. Looks like something from a Klimt piece, just without much colour.

Not really much else to say - the scenery was breathtaking, it looked like it could have been the surface of the moon (in a green, tree like kind of way...). There's no way I can really describe it, I'll try to add some photos asap!
]]> Port and Park — Keelung, Taiwan http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/taiwan_and_tofu/1177769280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/taiwan_and_tofu/1177769280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/taiwan_and_tofu/1177769280/tpod.html Fri, 29 Jun 2007 10:44:15 -0400 The ramblings of yet another foreigner rocking up to 'educate' the youth of Taiwan.
Keelung, Taiwan

I finally decided I should start doing something with my afternoons off on Tuesdays and Thursdays - last week had the expedition to Sanshia (less exciting than it sounded), this week's glamourous destination was the port town of Keelung (sounds like Jee-Long), about an hour North of Neili. Turned out to be a lot more exciting than it sounded in the book - can't go wrong with a town with a Hollywood style sign on the hill!

Keelung is a coastal town - alas, no nice pretty beaches, just a big port. It was strangely nice though, being able to smell the sea. And it was busy too, but busy because people were doing things, unlike here where there's just too many people around. But no seagulls,which was odd! It's quite a cool place though - in the middle of town is a huge mountain (well,very big hill) covered by the big Jhong Jeng park. It's so unusual having such an expanse of greenery in the middle of a city here, it was such a nice change from scooter-ville.

This being Taiwan though, It can't just be a park. The mountain, along with the others around town, are covered in temples and shrines. The first big one I came across, huffing and puffing after hauling myself up the hill in the horrid humid mess that is Taiwan's air, was quite odd. Most temples look pretty much the same in terms of architecture,but this one was different. Instead of the squarish building, this was three pagodas joined together by an intricate web of tiny bridges. Complete with a tiny shack blaring out KTV (karaoke to us - they are OBSESSED with it here,for reasons that I still can't fathom) behind it! And a little further along (up more hill, huff puff) was an even stranger sight. One of the most important deities here in Taiwan is Gyuanyin, the Goddess of Mercy and one of the Buddhas. Most temples have at least a few statues of here, but this one went a little crazy! Outside is a 22m meter statue of her, surrounded by 12 other Buddha statues, and protected by two huge guard dogs. The view is amazing - she looks out over the whole city, but the peace was shattered by who ever horrid person had brought up the damn electric kiddies cars that were screeching around everywhere, blaring out nasty fairground music and over excited childrens' squeals. I have to deal with enough of those at work thankyou!!

There were a couple of other things too - this park is a treasure trove of wonder, it's crazy! There's a random collection of tanks and guns and other bits of military stuff by the side of the road - the leaflet I got from the Information place proudly proclaims "the YiJheng park was the first Public Park in Taiwan to display decomissioned hardware from the ROC army" Really, why would you do this? Not quite so random as the rocket launchers outside the culture building in Irkutsk though, I have to admit.

A little further on is the HaiMen TianSian fort..It's all abandoned and wrecked now, but it was built in the late 1800s by the Japanese to ward off a British attack. It kept us out for a few years, but eventually the British overran and destroyed most of it. Now it's all shady and green, right at the top of the hill over looking the port. Great view, but I suppose that the whole point! It was quite eerie as well - there was no one else there, just me, the trees and the empty sounds. No car or scooter noise, it was bliss! Between the gap in the trees you could see a massive Shiva (or something like it. It was a long way away) statue cut into the cliff, which was pretty cool. They only parts that remain are the foundations, a a few fake cannons to mark the old gunneries, and hidden away down a little slippery path, the main entrance gate and a big parade square. There was a path down to something called the 18 Fairy cave (or something like that), but I started down it and chickened out. It was slippy, and creepy because it was so quiet, hidden up on the mountain. It gets dark very very quickly here too, so it was probably a good idea.

Didn't see much else - managed not to buy some shoes at an ace vintage shoe with a friendly cute owner, mooched around the night market not buying food from any of the vendors, and looked in the Matzu temple. Matzu is a goddess that protects seafarers, so it make sense she's popular here. But more about her another day!
]]> Longshan Temple, Bo-an Temple, Tsuzhur Temple — Temples of Taipei, Taiwan http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/taiwan_and_tofu/1176511500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/taiwan_and_tofu/1176511500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/horizonbound/taiwan_and_tofu/1176511500/tpod.html Fri, 29 Jun 2007 10:35:02 -0400 The ramblings of yet another foreigner rocking up to 'educate' the youth of Taiwan.
Temples of Taipei, Taiwan

There are three main religions here on Taiwan - Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Most people follow a mix of parts they like from all three of them, and temples are literally all over the place. There's huge ones taking up a whole city block, tiny tiny ones at the side of the road of stuck onto an apartment complex, and every size in between.

One of the grandest Temples in Taiwan is the Longshan Temple in Taipei. It's very big, set in a large courtyard with it's own waterfall! It was built by settlers from Fujian in China (the area most Chinese settlers came here from) as a copy of a big temple there - apparently the stones in the courtyard were originally ballast in the ships they came over on. Like most temples, it has a bit of everything in it, but is mainly Buddhist. I quite like this idea of mixing and matching bits of religions! we just need to convince the rest of the world of the merits of this plan, then people might stop blowing each other to bits quite so often.
You enter the temple grounds through a main gate at the south end of the courtyard walls - in front of you is a big gate type thing - a covered area in front of the main temple itself. When you first come into the temple, you get some incense sticks and go stand here, facing the main buildings. Three bows and a quick prayer, and then you can move on to the main altars, or use the 'oracle blocks' to get a bit of help with some decisions. The oracle blocks are small red moon shaped pieces of plastic or wood - you hold them together in your hands, ask your question and drop them. If they land one curved side up, one curved side down, the answer to the question is positive, negative if they both land curved side up. If they both land flat side up you have to change the question and ask again. There are also 'fortune tellers' at a lot of temples (Longshan included), and you can use the oracle blocks to choose which one to use for your question. Each fortune teller has a number carved into a long thing piece of wood - you take the piece of wood, ask the blocks if it's the right one, and keep going until you get one that's ok. It an odd thing to watch - people chucking these little bits of wood all over the place in between other people bowing with bunches of long incense sticks held in front of them.
In front of this is a big table for offerings of food - I'm not sure if this food is supposed to be for the monks and nus at the temple, or for ancestors, but there's a dazzling array of things. Fruit, crisps, sweets, pot noodles, tins of porridge mix... It's very odd!! This all faces the main temple building housing the big altar. The central deity at Longshan is Gyuanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, but this being Taiwan they mix everything up and have 165 other deities for your worshiping pleasure. Different gods do different things - there's gods for health, 'scholarly pursuits', military things, business... The list goes on an on!
In the big house in the middle is the main altar room - it's very decadently decorated, lots of murals, carvings, gold, statues. People hold their incense and bow to the statue again here, maybe stopping to use oracle blocks again or read from some scriptures. Behind this big house is another row of smaller altars with statues to other gods inside. There's walls covered in tiny lights too - these are for people that have dies and their family has made a donation to the temple on their honour.

The Longshan Temple is a massive riot of colour - golds and reds all over the place, really gaudy and very very busy. The Bo'An Temple was a bit different - It's a Doaist temple rather than a Buddhist one. This means even gaudier as far as I can tell! There's a lot more decoration on the walls - big murals about things from history, but the general layout is the same. There was a lot fewer people, so you could have a nice wander around instead of stepping on people's toes left right and centre. The main deity here is the emporer Boashen, who was famous as a doctor - hence lots of people come here to pray for good health.

The Tzushur Temple was completely different again. It's not in Taipei, but is in a small town called SanShia (which means Three Mountains) half way between there and Toayuan. It's very very old - first built in 1769, but it's been rebuilt a few times. It's nice and quiet because it's out of Taipei, and felt much more like a place of worship than temples in the city. Some of the busier ones feel more like a cattle market - take a ticket, move on as quick as you can - so it was nice to actually be able to appreciate the place properly.
What makes the temple so amazing is the intricate details that have been put into the decoration. It's a Daoist temple, so is very decadently decorated, and it has been reconstructed recently by a famous painter. The pillars and walls are carved with cranes, swallows, fish, lions, trees, and there's only one real altar area. Inside this is crazy - gold gold gold EVERYWHERE!! The wood pannelling is intricately carved, along with the ceilings. The ceilings are cool - they are twisted up into a cone - this is to try to confuse bad spirits into thinking it's the sea so they go there instead of hanging around in the temple. Although the inside is all bright and shiny, the outside is stiull waiting to be re-tiled. This gives the temple a completely different look - instead of the brightly coloured fish, dragons etc that normally adorn the roof in a riot oif colour, you have to look a bit harder, but you can actually see the structure better.

It was nice to see so many different kinds of Temples - I wish I knew a bit more about what was going on though, a lot of it is very alien to me. A nun tried to explain a bit to me in a temple close to work when I first got here, but that was only about the oracle blocks, it'd be nice to learn more about other things that are going on.

I'll try to get some photos up in a couple of weeks.
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