Cherry Blossom Madness

  Yangmingshan area, Taipei, Taiwan
Saturday, March 31, 2007

Whoo, finally, I have something cool to write about!

This month has been pretty lame on the exploring front - although the week off for CNY was great, it meant that pay for March was rather emaciated. And it's a five week month because of another holiday next week. Hence the lack of documentation of exciting adventures!

So, instead of going exploring, I've had to find other ways to occupy myself. A little bit of drinking, a few meals out, and I've taken on two private students once a week each. Here in Taiwan, everyone is obsessed with being the absolute best at whatever they do. It's insanely competitive! Both of the kids I tutor have English lessons in school, other English evening classes, and their parents STILL want them to get tutoring! Glad I didn't go to school here, it's far too intense for my liking. The classes are good though - the boys are nice, one is a bit of a science geek. We've learned about engines, levers, things like that (eek...) from his encyclopedia.

The other boy I only started tutoring yesterday, but he's nice. His Mum is the absolute friendliest woman I've EVER met though! After our sessions yesterday she gave me cookies and tea, and invited me to go to Taipei to see the cherry blossom trees with the whole family today. She's lovely, always laughing and smiling. Makes such a difference from the people at work!!

Anyway, they came to pick me up this morning - I nearly died when she told me to be ready to meet them at 7am! I was looking forward to a nice weekend lie in! I managed to drag myself out of bed, and even munched down some cereal. I did fall asleep again in the car though, waking up in random places on the drive.

01 - The view of the Temple complex

We drove past Taipei to Danshui (where I went with Anne a couple of months ago) and then kept going up to the big mountain, Yang Ming Shan. The cherry blossom trees are at a huge Daoist temple on the mountainside - sadly I have no idea what it's called. The blooming of the cherry blossoms brings people up here in droves - we got there at 8.30 and the place was already packed! The flowers only last for about a week once they come out, and people make a really big effort to go to see them. David's mum (I don't think she has an English name, and her Chinese name is impossible for me to say) went to Alishan, another mountain a few hours away earlier this week to see them there too.

The trees were pretty - nice big clumps of light pink flowers everywhere, with a couple of dark pink trees too. The light pink flowers are the same type that you see in Japan, and the darker ones are more Taiwanese (so I've been told).

04 - Cherry blossom

The temple itself was really impressive too. In the front was a big gate with the typical animals - dragons, phoenixes (phoenixi? whatever...) fish, etc - on the upturned points, and a temple behind. Further up the mountain, behind this temple if the sakura (cherry blossom) garden and a huge pagoda. Not sure if pagoda is really the right word, but i don't know what else to call it! It's about 10 storeys high, round, and has a few balconies at different levels that you can walk up to. It was pretty to walk around, but i didn't really understand much of what i was seeing.

Everyone was there for the sakura though, not the temple! As I said, the blossoms are something everyone has to see, and take millions of photos of. Lots of people were there just with normal cameras, having a nice morning out, but there were also legions of people with

07 - David's Mum

huge professional cameras and lenses, taking ages to get the perfect shot of the flowers - not sure how they all managed to take pictures without getting the other people in shot! A lot of people seemed more interested in getting the right photo instead of actually spending time enjoying the flowers - again, this country seems to be all about competition. It seems like it's not worth doing anything unless you can show someone else you've done it. A bit sad really!

05 - Me and the cherry blossom

I had a great morning - the flowers and the temple were beautiful, and I really like talking to David's Mum. Her English isn't great, and my Chinese is almost nonexistent, but we generally get our points across I think! She's such a lovely person, very happy and smiley. The rest of the family are very nice, but not so outgoing. It's nice to actually spend some time with Taiwanese people - it's not something I've done much of since I got here. Finally, I see some of normal Taiwanese life!