Changhua and Lugang
Trip Start
Jun 19, 2008
1
17
37
Trip End
Ongoing
Changhua,
Taiwan
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Our first stop was the city of Changhua. It is about a forty-five minute scooter ride away from our home city of Taichung. Although the pain in your rear-end that comes with riding a moped for that length of time is not a lot of fun, it was nice to get out on the open roads and ride away from the busy city streets.
Our first stop was the Big Buddah Statue that sits atop of a huge hill in the middle of the city. It is a very impressive sight. Buddhists and tourists from all over the country come and visit this statute and have their picture taken with it
A room in the temple
.The statue was built in the 1960's, so it's a relatively new attraction. However, the thing is so big that you can walk around the inside and see small dioramas of stages from Buddah's life. You can even visit a beautiful temple that was built behind the state and see individuals worshiping.
After exploring the mountain top area, we then walked to a small restaurant that one of our guidebooks said was pretty good and served some of the Changhua's well known "cat-mouse noodles." These noodles are not anything different or out of the ordinary other than the fact that they are homemade and served with a sausage link. The name comes from the fact that the noodle's creator supposedly moved so quickly that he was "like a cat" to his friends. Hence, cat-mouse noodles. Though, we were questioning what kind of sausage meat came with those noodles...
After our lunch we found a hotel and rented a room for about $33/night. Joel and I shared a hotel room that was very nice and had a strong Asian feel to it. However, the girls' hotel room had a slightly more...ummm..."romantic" theme to it when it came to the room's adult-rated décor
Buddhist worshiper
.The next morning we woke up and enjoyed a delicious McDonalds breakfast. Although back home I am not a huge fan of the Mac-Attack in the early morning hours, breakfast food here in Taiwan is nothing like it is in the states. They serve more lunch-oriented food like chicken sandwiches. So a good Egg McMuffin was a welcome sight after over a month's worth of limited breakfast choices.
After our bags were packed and bellies were full, we hit the road and visited the town of Lugang. It is a relatively touristy town that was built in the 1600's near a major trading port along a now-dried up river. It is well-known for its markets and Chinese lantern shops.
Our first stop was the town market, where we visited the Tinhou Temple, which is a building that was built in the 1600's. There were a lot of people who were visiting and worshiping at this beautiful temple, and it is always impressive to be in a building that has been around for such a long time.
After watching a television show on the Discovery Channel the night before about a man who goes all over the world tasting weird and exotic foods, I stopped and ordered a snack for all of us on our way out of the town's market: grilled squid-on-a-stick
Cat-Mouse Noodles
.As expected, my offer was greeted with "ewes" and "I'm not eating that." However, all of us meat-eating teachers gave it a try and survived. It was very chewy and tasted like a soft sea-food version of beef jerky. I was the only one who went as far as to try a tentacle, which was a little bit crunchier than the other parts. I feel that it would taste a bit better if it was a little spicier or had some hot sauce (which the vendor offered to put on, but I wanted us to try it without what can be a sometimes overwhelming Taiwanese hot sauce on the palate).
After we flossed our teeth from the squid (which left a strong taste in my mouth for the remainder of the afternoon), we visited a Chinese lantern shop and made a few purchases. We then visited the local folk art museum where we saw some artifacts from ancient Taiwanese culture. The town is well known for a Dragon Boat festival that they hold every year (on a much bigger scale than the one that Racine holds in mid-June) so we all decided to have our photo taken in the museum's dragon boat that was on display.
It was fun mini-road trip and we all hope to make quite a few more in the coming weeks.
Comments
I like your blog
Man....I like your blog. I am a Taiwanese. Currently I am working in Northern California (Bay Area).
To watch a foreigner writing the experience about Taiwan is really lots of fun.
I never know that a grill squid is a weird food for American. That is one of my favorite grill in Taiwan!
You should try 'Merme 美而美' breakfast in Taiwan. Those sell Taiwanese style sandwich and hamburger small breakfast store. According to my foreign friends, they love it a lot.
Please keep writing your blog. I can not wait to see other new experience you will have.