A few shots which start at Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport and then to the Hukou Old Street area
Hui-chen took some time to explain some of the rituals that people perform at temples in Taiwan.
This is the temple at the end (or beginning of, depending upon your viewpoint) of the Old Street.
After the Old Street, it was time for lunch, and here’s a taste of Xiao-hui’s!
All of our favorite dishes were in attendance.
This overview shot tells the story: we covered the table with dishes.
John sang many of the few English songs in the karaoke machine.
Then there’s downtown Hukou. Most foreigners go to Taipei on their first trip and most of them stay in Taipei (where they can speak English). I was determined to give my brother a more genuine Taiwan experience by spending very little time in Taipei and going around the island, showing him how everyday people live.
Here we see John checking out the Hukou day market.
This was our lunch, from a little corner restaurant in downtown Hukou.
Not far from the city hall building is Hsinchu’s oldest temple, Cheng Huang 城隍廟.
Outside, someone was selling these odd snacks.
They have a layer of taffy inside, some peanut powder and cilantro.
More local offerings.
We stopped for lunch at this duck restaurant. Enjoy the photos of what we had.
In the evening, we got an invitation from Shawn, owner of Titty Tea, to join him at the Ikki Grill in Zhubei.
Everything at the Ikki Grill is great.
This woman grilled the stuff for us, right on the bar in front of us. It was a nice dining experience.
On the way back to our car, we stopped by the local pet store, where we found a tank containing a pair of Nautilus. This was my first time seeing one in the flesh. They are very interesting creatures!
Near our home is a coffee shop on the side of a mountain. We took John there to enjoy the view. Since John’s visit, this place has been torn down and a new viewing platform is being built.
In Sanyi, there is an old broken bridge from the Japanese era, called the Longteng Bridge. It’s really something to see in person – photos don’t do it justice. We were in Sanyi, checking out the wood carving places and decided to drive out to this bridge.
Notice the lights in the foreground. We didn’t see it all lit up but I bet it looks cool.
We took a little footpath to this pedestrian bridge for some photos.
There are 2 more abutments nearby. These can’t be seen from the main part of the bridge because they are on the other side of the river.
You can walk up a path to the top of the ridge, and we did so. I wanted to see if there were remains of rails, and sure enough, there were.
This is the view of the top of the abutment remains.
As you can see, something is being built beside the broken bridge. Some kind of park, presumably.
That evening, we went to Chubby for dinner.
Delicious!
Former field engineer MJ Klein now lives in Taiwan, and writes articles that primarily feature photographs of travels of MJ and wife Hui-chen, plus daily goings on in the bustling island nation of Taiwan, and other places in Asia. Articles feature people, culture, food, situations and sometimes the trials and tribulations of traveling in places such as China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Laos and of course Taiwan.
