“Typhoon Gaemi” has hit Taiwan. The government have announced closures so work’s cancelled and we all have to stay inside for the next couple of days. From my window, as I type, I can hear hail smashing against the metal roofs opposite and the odd massive gust of wind that rumbles down the street; threatening to tear the fronts from all of the buildings. It’s crazy. Luckily, I’m a cheap bastard and have pre-made meals in my freezer and a load of instant noodles squirrelled away. Time to settle in and ride it out.

So, what better a time than to get all of my pictures and stuff sorted.

Last year I wrote about the process of getting here, the journey, the quarantine, a bit of the COVID-19 situation, global politics, we even had a nice little tour of Taichung and some of the further afield places that I’d visited. It had been a big year of uproot and change but ultimately it was really exciting (the year was exciting, not the post). This year, despite typing this with hurricane force winds outside, I don’t have anything that’s as new and exciting. So, for this one, I’m just going to give a bit of an update about life and then load up a load of pictures of some outings and some stuff that I’ve been up to.

This year, it’s all been a bit more calm, settled, this was the year that I’ve got into DIY. I’m in the same flat, but, I’ve made a few improvements; I bought some new furniture and stuff. I’m seriously considering getting a hand dryer for my bathroom and one of the sci-fi Japanese toilets. I bought a soap dish! Who have I become? It’s like the Two-Face quote in Batman, “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become a house-proud cunt”. The first year was the crash landing on Mars, the second was the year I got a system going. Not quite Matt Damon growing potatoes in his shit, but there’s certainly a bit less turmoil in my life.

Works been going pretty well as well. I’ve got more than 2,500 teaching hours under my belt now and, because of the short-term nature of the contracts here, having renewed my contract for what will be my third year, I’m one of the old guard.

Being an old guard has meant that, almost by default, I’ve gone from an NST (Native Speaking Teacher) to an HNST (Head Native Speaking Teacher), which I really appreciate, but, it’s as Gareth Keenan as it sounds, my days haven’t changed much.

I got an award as well. This was great fun, I got to go up to a massive conference centre in Taipei to pick it up. Then I did a quick speech about it at the end of year meal back in Taichung.

I got to be a judge at the annual ECC (English Competence Competition). This was a whirlwind. 36 students, 36 prepared stories, 36 improvised stories. All to be ranked within the space of 45 minutes in a number of different categories. A lot of pressure but only a fraction of the pressure that some of the competitors had put on them.

Someone would have stolen that if we were in England

Throughout the year I’ve kept a note of the times that I’ve said, “Look at that, someone would have robbed that if we were in England”. It still blows my mind that people just leave their scooter keys in the ignition, with their helmet and gloves and stuff. Students leave their school bags and all of their equipment on shelves outside the school, ready for their return later. Claw machines leave the prizes on the top of the machines, ready to replenish if someone wins (these claw machine shops are usually unstaffed). If you’re working in a shop and need a piss, sure, just leave your laptop and stuff on the table, of course they’ll be there when you return. It’s incredible to see.

Sports

I’ve managed to get to a few sports games this year. Baseball itself is still shit but it’s all the stuff around it that’s fun. I love how the Taichung Brothers fans do a silent kind of Macarena dance to motivate their team. En masse it looks great, like a Poznan.

I tried to watch a football match, look at how good the league info’ looks on Google. There’s even a Wikipedia page. When I showed up however, the pitch was about the size of the astro-turf at my old school. No seats or anything and nowhere to buy tickets. Chances are, knowing myself, I went to the wrong place. If any of you reading have been to a Taiwan Premier League game, please get in touch.

And, last thing about football, check out the 10 New Taiwan Dollar coin… these remind me of the promotional coins that Sainsbury’s made for the 1998 World Cup, specifically the Andy Cole coin.

Workers

Jobs around town have two extremes. There are either way too may people for the job…

…or no people at all.

Mid-Autumn Festival

I was lucky enough to be invited to a barbecue for Mid-Autumn Festival by a mate from work. Although I still don’t speak Chinese, everyone was really friendly. No frozen burgers here or rubbish little sausages, the amount of effort with the food was incredible. He’s off doing his compulsory army service now but hopefully he’ll be finished by festival time later in the year.

Dogs

Meet the dogs from around my area. Big Boy, Marty, Chunk, Natty, The Haunted Dog, and Dave are the celebrities, the others are just bonus.

Christmas

For Christmas we went out to the Shalu district to get the nighttime view of town. Turns out there were some massive beautiful dogs there so we had a bit of a photoshoot.

Dakeng trails

This year I managed to get out to the tougher trails (1-5). The trekking is hard going at the start but once you’ve reached the top it’s really nice.

Rainbow village

No need to break into The Rainbow Village anymore (see last year’s post). The renovation is now finished and I even had the privilege of meeting Rainbow Grandpa before he passed.

Taichung Jazz festival

Every October, around the Calligraphy Greenway, Taichung has a big jazz festival and artists from all over the world come to play. Everyone sets out lovely little picnic blankets which end up covering the whole area. It’s a really nice peaceful thing. I tried to get a photo from above (there’s a perfectly positioned carpark at the top end) but they’d blocked out all of the views from the car park.

Chiayi and Alishan

For the first few days of Chinese New Year we headed out to Alishan. It was so beautiful but so cold. We decided to take the Alishan Forest Railway out to Zhushan to watch the sunrise, and even though it was really busy it was still freezing. From Zhushan station (the highest altitude train station in the country) you can walk around and take in views of all of Taiwan’s tallest mountains, it’s amazing. If you go, when you arrive at Zhushan I recommend making the effort to trek up the hill for about 20 minutes or so. You get the best views and you get away from the crowd. We made the mistake of hanging around too long at the top, but, luckily there was a park ranger type guy that gave us a lift back into Alishan. If he didn’t show up we would have had to walk. The trails around Alishan were really beautiful as well, I loved this trip. The last pictures are of our bus breaking down on the way back to Chiayi, and then us being picked up by a “replacement” bus that was about a quarter of the size.

Tainan CNY Lantern Festival

For the second half of Chinese New Year we went to Tainan to watch the lanterns, see the fireworks and have an explore. The yellow papers at the end are bundles of fake money that people burn as offerings; sending fortune to passed loved ones.

Tainan Art Museum

This gets its own title and block of pictures. Swipe to the end for an expert bit of vandalism.

Sun Moon Lake

Sanyi

We wanted to do the pedal ride things on the old railway but it turns out you need to book way in advance. We ended up having a nice day regardless but we’ll be back here soon for sure.

Xitou and The Monster Village

This was a bit of a trek from Taichung but well worth it. Lovely clean air and plenty of peace and quiet. The Monster Village is a bit of a tourist trap, but the history is actually pretty cool.

I stole this next part from https://www.nickkembel.com/xitou-monster-village-taiwan/ .

“There is actually a cute story behind the Xitou Monster Village (Mandarin: 溪頭怪物村 or 松林町). During the Japanese colonial era in Taiwan (1895-1945), a Japanese man named Kubota (久保田) was the head a Taipei university forestry institute in Xitou. He became close friends with a Taiwanese man Matsubayashi (松林勝一).

After WWII, Kubota returned to Japan and opened a bakery. Years later, his wife died in a bakery fire. Matsubayashi sent some money to Kubota when he heard. Kubota made a wooden sculpture for Matsubayashi in return, but was never able to give it to him. Kubota’s descendants finally brought the sculpture to Taiwan in 2009.

Ming Shan Resort built the Japanese-style village to memorialize the friendship of these two men.

So why the monster theme? There’s another story that says long ago a bear saved the local villagers from monsters, and you can see images and signs for Kuma (bear in Japanese) in the village. Or maybe it was just a clever marketing scheme?

And why the long red nose on the monsters? They are modeled on Japanese Tengu (天狗 or “heavenly dog”), a folk deity or kami in the Shinto religion. Tengu are portrayed in many ways, often as a bird, but usually anthropomorphized as a angry looking dude with a red face, with the unnaturally long nose representing the beak.”

Taipei for Dragonboat festival

A hot couple of days up in Taipei for the Dragon Boat Festival. On the first day we went to Dajia Riverside Park to watch some races. The next day we went up Taipei 101 and trekked up Elephant Mountain. Picture 29 is a lad that went up the whole Elephant Mountain track, backwards, on his hands and knees. Absolute mentalist.

Wuqi Harbour

Just a few pictures of Wuqi this year but it’s still one of my favourite places around Taichung.

Sunsets from around the place

A “Tourist attraction“

Have you ever scrolled around Google maps and seen the blue scenic point camera pins? This was one of those pins. A last resort pin. I was pretty close by to this one and thought, “That looks alright, a little model village thing? Could be fun, and it’s walkable. Why not?”. The start of the walk was actually really cool, but, soon it led out to a massive motorway. I decided to keep going. Then, there were stray dogs circling, I kept going. Then, when I finally got there I looked around and snapped to my senses…”Oh, it’s a little model village thing…under a motorway… this is shit!” The models were like someone had rearranged the rubbish at the back of an industrial estate garden centre, then left them there for a while.

After looking around for a bit, to top it all, my phone ran out of battery so I had to walk all the way back into town. Disaster.

Taiping Viewpoint

This, on the other hand, was a successful blue camera pin Google point adventure. Houbi First Lookout. To get up to this viewpoint you have to walk up an insanely steep road (at points I was nearly crawling) but once you’re there it’s one of Taichung’s nicest places. There are a few other viewpoints nearby but I haven’t explored those yet.

Buses

Although I’m convinced the drivers are incentivised to ignore/ hospitalise, buses are the best way to get around town. Buses are really cheap, free for short journeys, about 15NTD for longer journeys around town (~£0.36), or more if you go further afield (~200NTD to Sun Moon Lake (~£4.74) – a two hour trip).

I love how the drivers personalise their buses; with everything from bright lights to TVs, flowers to 6ft Teddy bears. I also think it’s great how people bring their own chairs to sit on while they wait for the bus. And of course, theres no crime so they can just leave them at the bus stop ready for when they take the trip again in the future.

Also, I don’t know why, but a lot of the backs of the chairs are covered in chalk. This means you will ordinarily have chalky knees at the end of a bus journey. (Picture 8).

Temples

The BGB has had a make-over! So now, instead of The BGB (The Big Gold Bastard), he’s now The BGB (The Big Grey Bastard).

Scooters

A tribute to Taiwan’s scooter culture. Scooter’s are absolutely everywhere, all over the pavements, in doorways, shop fronts and even people’s front rooms (when you look in some buildings it’s not clear if it’s a business, a front room, a garage or a temple). Also, because they don’t need big vehicle access, around Taichung there are loads of interesting little passageways and alleyways and stuff. If they needed big roads everywhere we would miss out on loads of interesting little places to explore.

The End

And, with that, I’ve reached the limit for the number of pictures I can load into this website. For next year, maybe I’ll upgrade to the plan that lets me upload videos and stuff. Anyway, it’s hours later from when I started writing this and the rain is still pissing down. The wind has let up though so I think we’re passed the worst of it. Time for a meal I think, a succulent Chinese meal.

Thank you for reading, I can’t believe it’s been two years here already. Here’s to more good times ahead.

Happy travels,

Jack