Taichung

Sunday morning I caught the 5:20 bus to Taichung, Taiwan's second largest city. Located in the central part of the western plains, Taichung is midway between Taipei in the north and Tainan in the south. According to Wikipedia, Taichung is actually one of New Haven's sister cities. When I first arrived, I explored the gritty, dark, and facinating neighborhoods around the train and bus stations, which included betel-nut vendors, Indonesian restaurants, and shops selling parrots. From there I took a free bus to Baojue temple in the Northeast of the city. The temple sports a large, laughing, pot-bellied golden Maitreya Buddha towering fifty feet into the sky. Dramatic and beautiful architecture surround majestic shrines, nuns chanting, and people leaving offerings and candles for their deceased relatives.

Next, I went to the Museum of Natural History which was incredible. In addition to dinosaur fossils, they had life-like models of dinosaurs which came to life and roared. They had interesting exhibits on ancient Chinese science, masks of the peoples of the Pacific, and an IMAX theater showing a movie about astronauts.

Before heading back to Taipei, I explored more of the Indonesian blocks near the train station. It was Sunday and the Filipino and Indonesian laborers were enjoying their day off. Thousands of them crowded local parks and eateries. On a bus, I had a nice chat with a Filipino man named Patrick. He has been in Taiwan for three years, working at a chromium plant near Taichung. The hours are long, the work is hard, and the pay is poor. He thinks he'll either head back to the Philipines for Christrmas and afterwards maybe try his luck in Hong Kong. As a foreigner in Taiwan, its easy to forget most of the foreigners here are not from Western countries such as the US or UK. Southeast Asian immigrant workers far outnumber Americans and other Western foreigners in Taiwan. In recent years, hundreds of thousands of immigrants have come to Taiwan from Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand to work in heavy industry, home care, and other low payed work. Even amongst foreign students, Westerners are in the minority, with thousands of Sino-Malaysians coming to Taiwan every year for college and graduate studies. I found a great eatery in the area near the train station which offered up some delicious Indonesian food and cold Guinness beer. Dozens of patrons were on the first floor and more were outside or on the second floor. Some sang Karaoke in Indonesian while others just talked and ate.

I arrived back in Taipei in the evening exhausted and ready for some good sleep. I definitely enjoyed seeing another city in Taiwan. Though almost got hit by a car running a red light and a street vendor tried to give me a fak coin as change, all in all I thoroughly enjoyed Taichung.

Pictures:

Indonesian immigrants enjoy their day off in a park in Taichung.

A temple in Taichung.

A model of an ancient Chinese ship.

Reggie.

Zeussie.

An American dinosaur.

Dinosaur models that could move!

The Natural History Museum.

A mural on a local elementary school.

A statue of Dizang Wang Pusa at Baojue Temple.

A statue of a laughing Maitreya Buddha.

Entrance to the Baojue Temple.

A pagoda in a park in Taichung.

A street with many Indonesian restaurants.

I think this is a matchmaking agency that finds Southeast Asian wives for Taiwanese men.

Caged birds.

Chinglish.