Johan and I headed up around 3pm, and before we headed to Peggy's place Johan wanted to go to the gym for a few hours. I figured since I had a few spare hours, that I'd go to the Immigration Office to see about extending my Visa. Johan and I headed our separate ways with Johan going to Guting, and me going to Xianomen.
When I arrived at my destination I walked out of the MRT, figured out my bearings despite the terrible signage/maps, and headed towards the Office. The walk was only 5 minutes from the MRT, but when I saw the gates on the door I realized it was Sunday, and they were closed. crap! Well that was a waste of a trip :P Luckily, I had my Tapie tourist map with me and the immigration office was only perhaps a 30 min walk away from the Longshan Temple district. I could have gone back onto the MRT to get to Longshan but I decided to walk. It was a great walk even though it must have been in the 30's.
 |
| Some of the streets on the way to Longshan |
Within 30 minutes I arrived at my destination: Longshan Temple! There were so many people around! And all around the temple were lots of little markets with food. I love how everywhere in Taiwan there's just tons of places to eat good cheap street food.
I made my way from across the street towards the temple. There was traditional Chinese music being played from somewhere in the distance and random bursts of firework explosions would emanating from the surrounding area (though I could never see the source). No one paid much attention to the fireworks so I presumed that it is a regular occurrence.
As I stepped through the outer gates into the temple there was a large common area leading up to the temple doors. To the right was a large rock wall with water falls spilling over them. To the left was a small pond with a fountain. I proceeded to the temple doors.
Now this photo of the temple doors doesn't look like it's very busy here, but that's because everyone is packed inside :)
As I walked through the doors into the temple all the street sounds diminished and the air was filled with the sound of 100's of people chanting in mandarin. There were multitudes of candles lit all around the place, and tables of food offerings such as watermelons, other various fruits and snacks. After snapping some photos I started paying attention to the rituals that were performed at the temple. I wanted to partake in the activities to get the full experience. After observing for a few minutes I picked a random stranger and sort of followed him through the temple, copying him to see what he was doing.
First thing you do is visit a monk who is distributing packs of incense sticks (she gives you a bundle. maybe 7 incense sticks at one time). Once you get the sticks, you go to this small station where there are several small flames that allow you to light your sticks. Once they are all lit, you blow out the flame and you hold the sticks out in front of you between your finger tips. I realized later that it's better to hold the sticks slightly above from the base because the base of the sticks has this red powder and gets your hands all red.
Then you slowly walk around the temple visiting numerous key spots in the temple, which are usually marked by a large cauldron full of fire and ash. You say a little prayer while you put the incense sticks up to your forehead multiple times. Once you are finished, you take one of the sticks and toss it down into the cauldron. You want to try and toss it down so that it sticks into the ash at the bottom like a javelin would stick out of the ground. You repeat this process at the various cauldrons until you have no more incense sticks.
It was a truly unique wonderful experience to partake in and I'm looking forward to taking my parents and Eliza here :) (After getting home and looking through the pictures I realized I didn't take a whole lot of pictures of the inside of the temple. The main reason is because I wanted to go through the whole "experience" without interruption from taking pictures. So I only took a few pictures at the very beginning and then the very end of the temple. When I go back perhaps I can take some more pictures of the inside for you :D)
The instant I stepped back outside the temple onto the street, the street noises filled my ears. I was really amazed how much the temple could block out all the noise pollution. Either that or I was just blown away by the inside that I didn't pay attention to the street traffic.
Anyways the surrounding area is known to have many older buildings and more night market stuff so I wandered around the area for the next hour or so. I saw on the map that we were really close to the Dahan river, which is a large river running through Taipei. I thought I'd go check it out. The closer I got to the river the less people there were. I crossed a large street under an elevated highway and there it was! The Dahan river.. err... marsh? There wasn't actually any "river" that I could see, but it was a huge span of long grass and vegetation. I snapped some photos and figured I'd head back through the night market to the MRT station to meet Johan at Guting
Johan and I had perfect timing and we met inside the MRT station to take the green line to Xinden City Office to have diner at Peggy's appartment. The ride was about 10 minutes and it felt nice to sit down after walking for a while.
Once we arrived at the Xinden City Office MRT station, we stepped out of the station, and literally right above the station was peggy's appartment. It was so convenient! It's like stepping outside of the Granville street skytrain station and then your apartment is The Bay.
We took the elevator up to the 18th floor and Peggy and Joe welcomed us into their appartment. It was a small place, less than 800 or 900 square feet, but it was really nicely furnished. Apparently when they moved into the unit, they did a complete $40k renovation and changed the entire floor plan. Their view was also phenomenal and next time we are back I will snap some photos.
Peggy had cooked us some rice with this ground pork topping, some egg with shrimp, a green veggy (similar to spinach) and this type of fish. I didn't get a picture but the fish was probably 8 inches long or so, and everyone got their own. It was baked with only salt in the oven but it was really crispy and tasted great :)
After visiting for a few hours it was time to head home! Jeff wanted to hang out so him and I went to 7-11 to grab some drinks before heading back to the apartment. It was pouring rain so my roommates, Jeff, and Rebecca hung out in the lobby chit-chatting and eating some snacks until 1am or so. Even though I can't understand most of the conversation, I quite enjoy being a part of them. I sometimes feel like Bill Murray in Lost in Translation where they go out on the town to some bars and karaoke with the japanese youth and they don't really know what's going on, but that's part of the fun :D
No comments:
Post a Comment