Pam in Taipei

Merry Christmas from Wulai!

For Christmas Day we got a holiday from our buxiban (private tutoring school) so we decided to make a break for it and get out of the city. We took the MRT (subway) to the South terminal stop of the red line -- Xindian Station (the opposite point to where we were yesterday in Beitou) and took a scenic half hour bus ride to Wulai - a beautiful and quaint little town nestled in the mountains that caters to the hot spring crowd (all vacations in Taiwan have to do with hot springs, as we have quickly learned). The drive up reminded me of driving along the Nova Scotia coast (minus the mountains) with little cafes and art stops along the way. (Except that you could never reach all that Nova Scotia's coast has to offer by public transport! That was my biggest frustration as a non-driver living in Halifax).

Finally we arrived:
Ahh... peace. Today I finally felt like I was travelling. Being in Taipei is awesomely fun, but not that much more foreign than any big city can be, after all, big cities offer the Modern, the International, the Worldly, and therefore are all somewhat the same in appearance.


But not this place. We'd finally reached countryside. The beautiful majestic mountains with tree-sized bonsai trees (you know what I mean) and palm trees cascading down the cliff faces. Sticky rice sold in bamboo shells and finally, SPACE. Room to stretch out and breathe and escape from the crowded city.

(The bottom of the cliff face, near the river. Don't they look a little like furry Dr. Seuss trees?)

We ambled through the busy touristy main stretch where every manner of souvenir was thrust at us (mainly factory-copied versions of aboriginal weavecloths of the Atayal tribe of Taiwan). We did manage to buy some tasty rice wine for NT$150 (CAN$5).

We took a cable car up high into the mountains over a grand cascading waterfall and arrived at an amusement park the size and character of one you would see at a county fair. It was deserted since it was a Monday. Brian played archery and we rode a cheesy but super-fun ghost ride on a caboose for kids through a tunnel where ghoulish figures cackled and sprung out at us (how classic!)
We took a path further up the mountain along some hiking trails and left all civilization behind. At the top of the mountain was more fun - the "Mountain Training Field" where we climbed rope walls, navigated rope bridges and slid along pulleys in steel chairs (like those made for toddler swings) across a river! What wonderful magical fun! All this in a lush mountaintop forest where we could hear a waterfall trickle down the rocks and only the sound of birds chirping in the trees. At the end of the obstacle course were rope hammocks strung up between some trees. What little mountain elves left us this little magical adventure? We wondered.

When we finally rocked ourselves out of our hammocks and made our way back down to the cable car station and down into the town, we had a wonderful non-traditional Christmas feast. We ate Atayal specialties -- green papaya and chicken broth soup, bamboo sticky rice, basil pork, steamed ferns and a fragrant fungus mix, washed down with more tasty rice wine. "This is the life!" We sang to each other as we rubbed our satisfied bellies.

To cap off the evening we headed down the road to rent a hot tub room - a small closet with a deep tiled bath where you can mix piping hot 53 degree spring water with cool 23 degree water to achieve your optimum temperature for lounging. In our private room we polished off the rice wine and let our muscles and skin be soothed back to health after our trek and "training".

By the time we caught the public bus home (that comes every 20 minutes from the city I might add!) we were ready to doze off to sleep. All before our families had even woken up to open presents on Christmas morning.

Sad not to be home, but the best Christmas I ever spent away I think!

posted by Pamplemousse @ 9:50 PM