The Bishan Suspension Bridge + Temple

It's been a good while since I've updated this blog, and since then, summer has settled upon the island. The weather has turned even more humid, and rainy days are a common sight. Up here on the mountain, though, life is flourishing - birds and butterflies of all sorts are constantly arcing through the air, and all the ivy and vegetation looks like a green winter. School has been out for me for about a week and a half, and I've been taking some time to write, relax, and, of course, explore the island. 


A great note - this summer, we're taking a vacation to the Mediterranean, travelling around in Spain and Morocco. We're also going on a cruise for about a week, and the spots include Tunisia (a country in northern Africa) Turkey, and Italy. It's going to be amazing. I'm not taking my laptop, and internet spots will be few and far between, but I'll be taking lots of photos, which I'll post as soon as I return home. 

Yesterday was a national Taiwanese holiday: The Dragon Boat Festival, also known as duanwu. It's supposed to stem from the celebration of a man named Qu Yuan, who was an ancient Chinese scholar, and to remember his death, but these days it's more about the dragon boat racing, which is both fun to watch and fun to do. I didn't have a chance to head down to Danshui, where the races took place, but we did go somewhere: the Bishan Suspension Bridge. It was one of the few sunny days this summer. 


By the time we got there (about four o'clock) it was pretty crowded, full of other locals that had just the same thought as us. It didn't take away from the natural beauty of the land, though. The bridge was supposedly built to look like a "wriggling dragon bone." I didn't really see that image, but maybe I just wasn't looking at it the right way. 


The bridge itself was pretty packed, but it must have been built pretty well, because it barely wobbled as we trekked across it. It's not that long - maybe a few hundred feet at the most, but it looked quite impressive. 


At the other end of the bridge was a trail, which led onwards to a kind of "tourist" spot...actually, I'm not quite sure what it was. But there were fields of strawberries, lemongrass, and ponds full of koi and lillypads wherever we went. Flowers were everywhere - a kind of preperation for the 2010 Flower Expo, which is coming up soon. 


Anyways, we walked along the trail for awhile, watching the birds and smelling the strawberries, until we found the best part of the entire walk: the temple. 


Okay, I just have to say that I absolutely love the temples in Taiwan. They're beautifully built, with amazing carvings and colors everywhere. But this temple is by far the most magnificent one I've ever seen. 


It's called Bishan temple, which I *think* translates to "Jade Mountain" temple - it makes sense, seeing as it's so green here. I could be wrong, but that sounds pretty logical to me. One great thing about Taiwan is that the people are much more relaxed about having tourists like me poke around their temples; in China, you were barely allowed to look inside, let alone take photos. Maybe it's the island "chill" vibes, but it was really awesome. One of the temple guards told me in plain English, "Go look inside, look around." Thanks, temple guard. 


I suppose I could go on about the temple, but pictures are worth a thousand words: 

I'll be posting more pictures on my DeviantART account - there are a lot of really good ones. When I do, I'll post a link on here. Until then, zaijian. 


-Ari

Winds of Change

Hello there again, nonexistent readers of my unknown blog. How lovely to see you all again.

This weekend I haven't done much, thanks to getting about a pint of blood drawn for testing and resulting in me becoming extremely giddy (dui, for some strange reason I get into a drunken-like state after losing blood) and then having to lie down for awhile. But I did manage to get some sightseeing in, and am I amazed. The hospital I went to is near the area where a lot of old government buildings, and all of a sudden my and my mom stumbled upon the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall.

And wow, is it amazing.

For those of you who don't know, Chiang Kai Shek was one of the men who helped build Taiwan and made it independent from China. (Note: Never assume that Taiwan is part of China. It's not, and the Taiwanese would like to be very clear about that.) There's mixed feelings about him on the island, but they still built a huge memorial for the guy, and it's beautiful.

The gateway actually reminds me of a place from my story. The picture to the left is the actual memorial (thanks, Wikipedia!) and even though it doesn't quite capture how big and grand the building is, it's a good shot. Within is a big statue of Kai Shek sitting on a chair - yes, similar to the Lincoln Memorial, except this has Asian style. :)

So I saw that, and also some other beautiful buildings in the area. Personally, I think it's the best looking part of Taiwan, save Yangmingshan, of
course.

On other notes, the weather here is definitely taking a turn for the...different. Apparently Taiwanese winters are foggy. Really foggy. And rainy. Basically, very damp. I'm not sure if it will snow or not, but since I live on a mountain, I'll probably be the first to know. Today we celebrated Thanksgiving at my church, and we get two days off from school this week.

Writing-wise, my story's going pretty well. I'm writing the end, and it's quite exciting. It's not an action-packed ending, but it's really emotional, and definitely bittersweet. I don't like happy-happy endings. For me (and in my writing) everything comes with a price, and this time the price is big. NaNoWriMo's starting to wind down, so my heart goes out to all the novelists scrambling to get in their 50k quota.

Also, time for some book recommendations! The library at my new school is much better than the one at my old school, so I've been checking out books like a mad woman. Right now I'm in the middle of Cybele's Secret, a book by Juliet Mariller. It's the second in the Wildwood series, but it's not so much a sequel as a a loosely-related book in the same universe, through a different character's eyes. If you like historical fantasy and rich Ottoman Empire-inspired cities, then this is for you. Of course, I recommend reading the first book, Wildwood Dancing, first. It's vaguely based off the fairytale of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, and it has the same magical feeling in it. The cover art is just as beautiful.

I think that's all for now. I'm really having fun with this blog, and I'm going to keep adding on more to it. Enjoy.

Sarn Progress: 111,000 words and going strong.

Cheers,
Ari

My Life's a....Soap Opera?

Apparently so. It's been a long time since I've updated this thing (approx. two months) and a combination of guilt and boredom propelled me to post on it again. It probably doesn't matter much, since nobody reads this thing, but I think it will be good to keep tabs on my life once in awhile.

So. One of the main reasons I've been so lax in writing lately is because I've been sick. Got surgery when I was ten and I guess it wasn't ready to kick the bucket yet, because I'm still having some complications related to it...or something. It's been two months of testing and we're still not sure what's wrong with me. Something to do with my immune system and my endocrine system. All I know is that I'm getting sick of being sick.

But enough about me. Despite being housebound 75% of the time, I've managed to see a bit more of beautiful Taiwan. It's getting chilly here, which I didn't expect - winter clothes are coming on. It seems like time's moving pretty fast; next week we have our Thanksgiving break, and after that Christmas is just around the corner. And this month is November, which means...

NaNoWriMo. Possibly the most insane fun things ever invented in the history of writing. I'm far behind blogging about it, since November is more than halfway over, but better late then never. I'm not in NaNoWriMo this year - working on last year's draft suits me fine - but a load of my friends are, and I wish them luck. May rushed prose abound wherever you type, you guys.

Sarn Status: 107k, writing the ending. Hope to be done and editing by Christmas.

My Dream...and My Nightmare

So we had a four-day weekend this week, which was really nice. Unfortunately I spent most of my time studying - I've been in Asia way too long, man - but I did have some time to go out and explore Taiwan some more. I went to the Taipei Zoo, and a market known as Ximending, and they are both very well-known places, especially for tourists. I usually prefer to take the road less traveled and all that, but this was pretty cool, I have to admit.

Right. I'm not trying to give Asia a bad name, but I have to say that zoos here are usually...held up to a lesser standard than in Western society. Sometimes it can't be helped - on the whole, Asia doesn't have as good a quality standard of living as America and co. does, so they don't have as much money to make the zoos all awesome. But the Taipei Zoo is very, very cool. It's kind of far out - we had to take the MRT for almost an hour - but it's worth it. There's an aviary - my favorite part - a section about the animals endemic to Taiwan, a nocturnal house, an African section a Rainforest section...I could go on and on. I took a lot of pictures; they're not posted on here, but you can go to my DeviantART gallery to see some (I love photography.) We spent the whole day there, walking around in the humid Taipei heat, having a ball. The crowning jewels, of course, were the pandas, recently imported from China. There was a parade in their honor; yeah, people are that excited about them. But seeing how Taiwan and China are constantly on edge, it makes sense.

The day after, my sister and I went to Ximending, a sort of market, but not the kind I'm used to. No idea what the word means in Mandarin, but I'm guessing it's something like "the anime/manga lover's paradise." Because that's what it is.

And let me say that I really dislike anime and manga. My sister loves it, so she was totally enthralled by the market, and I was mildly amused and somehow horrified at the same time.

First off: the people. I have never seen people like this before. Little girls with hair dyed so much it was kind of orange, with one-inch nails adorned with lots of glitter, waaaay too much makeup, mini-skirts and high heels? And then me: no makeup, jeans and a t-shirt, no jewelry. I almost died laughing - after I managed to rip my eyes away. And the guys were just as bad, if not worse. Skinny jeans and hair that looked better than mine, and so many piercings I wasn't sure where to begin counting. They're living anime characters, or so they want to be.

Second: The stores. Oh, the stores. I have never seen so many cosplay costume stores in my life. Maid outfits, schoolgirl outfits, whatever - it was there. Then there were these cafes where the waitresses were dressed up in lolita (some kind of anime style) dresses and spoke in whispery little voices. Yeah, to me. I've had nightmares like this. I wish I had taken pictures, but I forgot my camera at home.

Taiwan is definitely different from Shanghai.

Tune in next time to see where I go next, hmm?
-Ari

Exploring

So today after school I decided to go exploring around my neighborhood a bit. Like I said before, I live on a mountain known as Yang Ming Shan, so the roads aren't really very flat. More like steep hills and winding little pathways everywhere. No two houses are at exactly the same height. And it's really quite interesting, because everywhere the jungle is trying to creep back into where we've cut into the face of the mountain. No wall doesn't have budding vines and ferns creeping on it, and all the trees become tiny little worlds all their own. Even with all the tiled houses (some of which are more like palaces) it's obvious that this is a wild place.

And it's actually kind of sad. See, all the houses here are completely walled in, so that everyone is protected - or trapped - from the world outside. Not like in America at all. I don't even see our neighbors. And that raises a question. Why are we even living on this gorgeous mountain if we're trying so hard to keep it away?

Just something to ponder. Let's see what else I can find out.

Books and Taiwan

Hey there, everyone. Instead of talking about books, I figured I'd talk about something less common: my life in Taiwan as far. For the record, I'm American, and so white I glow in the dark, so I kind of stand out in Asia. But I've been living here for eight years and counting, and Taiwan is the eighth place in a long list of areas I've lived.

So far, it seems pretty awesome. The people are nice, the food seems pretty good (milk tea!) and my school is good, albeit hard. In my opinion, Taiwan is a mix of China, Thailand, and Korea. The people speak like Chinese (mostly), but they don't act much like them in some areas. They drive kind of crazy, like Koreans (no offense, you guys; I loved living in Korea) and the markets and stray dogs remind me of Bangkok. Somehow it manages to blend together in this place I now call my home.

And, for the first time since I was eight, I'm living in a house. A real house, with a yard. And a pool. Not to say I'm biased or anything. The only downside is that my dogs are in America at the moment, because customs are being kind of picky. We have to wait until Christmas.

Now, the one thing that I have to say about Taiwan is: God, it is freaking gorgeous here. I live on a mountain called Yang Ming Shan (Shan means mountain, but I'm not sure what the other two words are yet), and it's about twenty minutes from the downtown area where my school is. Okay. Remember how I said Taiwan is kind of like Thailand? Scratch that. It's more like Malaysia, or Indonesia, or some beautiful, tropical place that is simply brimming with life. No one told me I was going to live in a rainforest. Well, I am, and it's awesome. There are birds galore, monkeys, tropical bats, mice deer and way too many insects for my liking, but what the heck. Yesterday my family and I went on this flat hiking trail not far from our house, and I swear it's like you stepped back in time, way back to the Jurassic. I'm talking giant ferns, big leaves and vines hanging everywhere, mossy outcrops and little streams flowing around. Gorgeous. Breath-takingly so.

Not to mention the fact that I appear to be living on some sort of volcano-like structure. Forget shan. My house is on Yang Ming Freaking Volcano. There are geysers and natural springs everywhere (and yes, sulfur really does smell horrible) and it looks like there should be dinosaurs, or someone from Lord of the Rings, roaming around. So far I've lived through two (minor) earthquakes and Typhoon Morakot.

I'm starting to think this is a sign. The first book in a fantasy series I'm writing takes place back in Shanghai, which is known as the Zhongshui in the future, about one thousand years from now. I was kind of disappointed when we moved because I wouldn't be living in the city of my story anymore.

I found out I moved somewhere even better. Taiwan is the exact place I imagined that Book Number Two (which I'm tentatively calling Bone Teller at the moment) looks like. Not kidding.

I'm really thinking it's a sign.

Over and out
-Ari