Ring in the New Year in Yilan? Possibly Maybe

Still haven't made any plans for our upcoming 4 day weekend? I'm undecided myself. Should I stay or make the journey south to Tainan and see old friends. If you're undecided,  then take a chance on Yilan.


 In case a nightlife is your scene then save your trip to Yilan for another time. There is none of that. But you could catch the first morning light of the new year at Su-ao overlooking the Pacific at 6:37am. There are several coffee shops overlooking the beach.

You will find more accommodation options in Jiaoxi as its tailored to Taipei weekend goers who want some hot spring waters in their bathtubs.  However there are some hotels in Yilan City too.

Across from Yilan Train Station

Getting here:
Driving from Southern Taiwan, there are several options, either way you will come through some of of Taiwan's and Asia's longest tunnels.

From Taipei: The buses (Capitol Star and Kamalan) are faster than the train unless you get on the fastest train that goes to Hualien. Tickets are sold out by now, you can go still, but you'll be standing in the aisles. The bus from Taipei Main Station and City Hall, leave every 15 minutes and is around 120NT and the drive is around 70 minutes. The bus depot in Yilan is behind the train station, you'll need to take a taxi or rent a scooter to your hotel. Even with a valid car driver's license, foreigners can only rent the smallest scooter, you need a scooter license to rent bigger scooters.

Balagov's Ukrainian Cafe

Where to eat:
Of course Yilan City looks like any city in Taiwan, you can find noodles, dumplings, rice boxes anywhere. But if you want a real treat head to Mr. Balagov's Cafe (Guava Dog in Chinese) for homemade healthy Ukrainian food. The space itself is gorgeous with Ukrainian knickknacks, wall stencils, every corner has some folk art that Sergei the owner brought back with him. He is an interesting dude, having lived in Brooklyn for years, his English is excellent and his wife is aboriginal so she of course also speaks Mandarin. She has helped me out when I needed to find something in Yilan.  I go there once a week as a treat and often buy a bottle of Kvass to last me during the week, sometimes I splurge and buy a loaf of rye break or homemade Ukrainian sausage. My favorite meal is the set meal with meatballs and mashed potatoes that includes borscht soup, kvass and apple cake. He also serves Turkish coffee and sheesha, should that tickle your fancy. The homemade  blueberry and mint ice-cream with crepes are also good. Definately wash your meal down with a big bottle of thirst quenching Russian beer. You wont reget coming here. What never fails to astound me are the local tour buses and crowds that head to the mediocre place next door. Taiwanese tourists come to Balagov's to take photos of their gorgeous little garden and cottage and then eat at the bland run of the  mill Taiwanese place, passing over a local treasure. Don't make the same mistake.

If you want to eat Italian,Thai, Sushi Express or go to Tasty's head to Lunar Plaza, the local mall. There is also a Carrefore in the basment and parking, which is a royal pain if you are driving a car.

Beer at Piggy's

Other recommendations are Awesome Burger which is like a mom and pop TGIF set up. They have a peanut butter burger which I havent had the desire to try, tho I love peanut butter. My kid likes the bacon cheese burger and onion rings. I also like Piggy's Bar for their jalapeno poppers and Mexican lasgana. Their beer list is amazing, you can get a variety of Canadian ales, lagers and stouts some of them organic. If you are in Loudong (checking out the nearby waterfalls or Botanic Gardens), you can eat Indian at Spice Land , definitely for Taiwanese palate,so ask for hotter curry. The naan bread is too starchy for me, but the sweet, coconut naan is a great post hike pick me up. I recommend  the chai coffee, and pineapple chutney with scones are amazing. In Loudong you can have an organic brunch at Light Brunch and Cafe (03-954-3397). There is also a dynamic duo who drives around Yilan County and makes custom pizzas out of their truck which has a built in stone oven. Sunday they are in Touchung, Wednesday they're in Nanfang'ao, Thursday in Jiaoxi, Friday in Zuangwei, and Saturday in Su'ao (0963-623210). There is also Tavola's, and Brown Taffy, which I still need to check out.

Biking along Yilan Riverside Park

Where to workout:
Yilan Sports Park has a weight room, track, outdoor rings, parallel bars and huge rollerblading rink. You can also rent a bike hit a trail and bike on a bike path all the way to Loudong Sports Park. There is an indoor pool.. You can hit 3 hiking trails in Jiaoxi near the waterfalls or outside Su'ao. You can also run the stairs and so some yoga at Yilan County Government Building. The green field looks great for a run, but the ground is treacherously uneven under the thick grass. Better to run at the empty track at Yilan sports park or any of the bike trails. You can pick up a detailed map of all the bike trails at the Tourist info center at Yilan Train station.

What to do:
It will probably be cold, so warm up in the hot springs, Jiaoxi, Fanfan or in Taipingshan. If its not raining, bike along the coast or head to any of the lakes and rent bikes. Jiaoxi, Nanao and Loudong have some great waterfalls (see my post "Whats Not There To Do Here").

If its raining, you can still enjoy the hot springs, but there is also a local brewery, honey museum and farms galore.

What Taiwanese tourists do when they arrive at Yilan is take photos of the train station, and across the train station is a hanging train which I suppose is interesting in its own way. What is also standard is hitting the night market in Yilan (Dongmen Night Market) and Loudong. I'm over night markets, they seem to be all the same to me, but there is a guy in Yilan,"The Watermelon Prince" who has a stand near the bridge and he sells the freshest juices. Other than that, its just like any other night market, dumplings, stinky tofu, greasy and fried anything. The morning market in Yilan is far more interesting.

I might of convinced myself to stay here and relax.

Hot and Au Naturel

Walking to Fanfan to cross the river

Here is a brief summary of more hot springs in the Yilan area. I already have mentioned hot springs in Jiaoxi, these outdoor Japanese pools (see My Family's First Visit and scroll down). My favorite hot springs are right in the river.

These are known as  梵梵溫泉 (Fàn Fàn Wēnquán) Fan Fan Hot Springs and are beside the small aboriginal mountain town off Highway 7 in Datong Township on the way to Taipingshan. Its about a 40 minute drive from Yilan up a winding mountain road. You can either park your car in the village and walk 10 minutes along the river, cross the river (shin deep) or continue your drive past the bridge and turn left under Highway 7 and park. You will see other cars.

There are always people here on the weekend, but the river is gracious, you can walk along the river and there will be pockets of boiling water, enough for everyone.

Fanfan

The sound of the rushing river drowns out any loud, obnoxiousness, its very tranquil like that. I arranged the rocks the way I liked it, and when we got to hot, went into the freezing mountain water. I really want to camp here though.

Renze

The second springs is further down the 7 inside of Taipingshan National Park 太平山森林遊樂區, called by either Jioujhihze or Renze Hotsprings. You will have to pay a not very cheap entrance fee for the car, per person, dogs are not allowed.

Renze 

 My friend brought his dog, so my kid had to beg and plead for us to keep her in the car just long enough for hot springs. The hotsprings itself is a typical entrance for a nice public pool. They have private rooms with giant tubs as well. The water was very slippery with all the silicon, great for soft skin. A 2 minute walk from the car park, there is a touristy geyser people boil eggs and corn. I really want to return to the park sometime this winter and see, hopefully snow. Being in the hot  springs in snow, is not to be missed.

Christmas in Yilan

This is our 7th Christmas in Taiwan and our first in Yilan, so it was a cold and rainy Christmas, and on top of it I had to work. And even more joys we all have to work on Saturday, the fun doesn't stop. Fortunately I have an easy schedule and am just teaching " How the Grinch Stole Christmas" to all my reading classes, tweaking the level content as needed.

Our Christmas here was subdued to say the least, simple and spare.There is no chance of our Christmas being an excuse for consumerist over consumption, I can't afford it and am saving for upcoming excursions. It began with our tree of course. I had ditched our Tainan tree on the move north to Yilan and I guess all the hand made ocean theme ornaments along with it. So this year, our tree was simple, I like it better. It just had red ribbons, candy-canes, red apple ornaments, origami stars (that were addicting to make) and real pine cones dipped in red paint. The lights didn't look right, so I took them off and we put them in my kid's room for fun. My daughter started making her own origami creations and writing notes and stuffing them in the tree. She had no stocking this year.


Christmas presents almost didn't happen for my daughter. On Wednesday she lost her black clog like shoes that are apparently necessary for her "fancy" uniform she wears only once a week on Wednesdays (the other days is her sports uniform). On Wednesday after school she has her badminton class, so she changes her shoes. Well, she lost her shoes, couldn't find them Wednesday morning, and livid, I told her if she didn't find them I was taking her presents back and using that money to buy her new black shoes. Luckily for her she found them under the car seat;a real Christmas miracle for her.

Christmas Day at the Kindergarten department

I sound mean, right? Well losing and forgetting things, water bottles, coats, umbrellas is far from an isolated incident. I don't bust my ass at work and buy her nice things, so she can just lose them...Scrooge Mom.

 


On Christmas Eve she opened her smallest gift, a pink alarm clock that she asked for. In  Taiwan giving someone a clock or watch is a major faux-pas, I had no idea! Not that I cared, I didn't have a Taiwanese mom filling my head with superstitious fluff like its bad luck to give someone a clock. But it was nice to learn something new, we lived here almost 7 years and I never heard that one before. Surprisingly my daughter hadn't heard that either and she knows more about things like this than me. (To offset the bad luck of receiving a clock or watch as a gift, the receiver must pay the giver a penny or 10 NT piece).

On Christmas morning, it was just another school day.  I woke up at 6 am, had a coffee, checked the headlines, did a workout, same old routine. I said she could open her 2nd present if she got ready for school on time. So she jumped out of bed 15 minutes early all by herself, not needing her new alarm clock. Her second present is some kind of purple and pink shooting arrow contraption, called "Rebel" so she can play "Hunger Games" -not that she ever saw the movies, but she saw the trailers and apparently that's enough to knows she likes it.

By the end of Christmas day I was too tired to drive us to a nice restaurant to eat. I had planned having a delicious, Christmas dinner at Balagov Ukrainian restaurant. Their cottage is so nice and cozy and European feeling, it would be perfect for Christmas. However, the rain just made me want to stay home. I made a simple, not very exciting lamb and chickpea stew with steamed millet. For desert my kid ate a candy cane and I had the last shot of Amarula.

Kindergartens parade in the teacher's room, Christmas combined with Halloween

The highlight was my kid opening her third gift. Instead of opening it as soon we came in the door, she waited. She took her shower first and then happily opened and played with her new doll. She wanted a real doll that pees and poops, and this one does. It also talks and giggles. I enjoyed watching my daugher be this doting new mom, she was so careful and gentle and responsive. I enjoyed playing with baby dolls so much younger than her, its interesting she's interested in this kind of role play now. She forbid I should tell her friends at school for fear of being called a baby, but I think its sweet. This doll is pretty demanding, but the giggling makes up for it. I had to pry her away from play to eat her simple dinner.  She named her doll, Jazz.

 



Our Yilan Christmas was quiet, plain and mellow.
Last night, her new pink alarm clock started ringing at 1:30 am, she of course slept right through it.

Sweet Talker: Enter the World of Taiwanese Speech Competitions

Early the other Saturday morning, I had to get my daughter ready for her first (and last?) speech competition. We both didn't realize we had entered into this hornet's nest world of school and parent competitiveness.  The whole process started out innocently enough, from her class competition over a section of their reading book to a full on process of elimination,class by class,then school by school. Her class competition had to to be video recorded because last year parents accused the staff of favoritism (" How dare my little genius lose!")

Z with me and her teachers (my coworkers) after her speech

Since she is not a Taiwanese citizen she was grouped into an entirely different category from her classmate, into a larger pool, with older kids. On the contrary had it been a Mandarin speech competition, she would still be with her age group.

I was asked to write her speech (and her classmate's) which was basically her take on the meaning of Christmas using two poems, one about a pine tree and an acrostic poem. Her judges were a panel of 4 foreigners. I think being a foreigner for any period of time here, you either are teaching and preparing a student for one of these or asked to judge one of these. Much rarer it to parent a kid for one of these, yet I saw a whole bunch of western men married to Taiwanese women, with their kid in my daughter's group. It was my first time seeing any of them, but Yilan County is massive.

The parent room for her group

She had to use her precious lunch breaks (which she uses to finish homework) to drill her speech, over and over again. My coworkers also used their precious time to coach her. Memorizing her lines is not problem, she gets that down in 5 minuets whatever the language. She was nervous speaking  in front of judges. Its a new and unknown experience.

A photo from the screen in the parent room.

The competition itself was definitely a downer. We were  not all together  in some gymnasium or stage with an audience. I was ferried into a classroom with a  screen and ghetto sound system that had sound delay and echo and if I hadn't written her speech myself, would not understand or hear what she was saying. She was incomprehensible to anyone else other than the judges. The reason for this was last year, some parents complained that the microphone on the stage was too far away and affected their kid's performance (basically their kid lost). We all had assumed it would be like a conventional set up. She was so looking forward to finding my face in the crowd. I was bummed that the experience of feeding off the energy of the crowd, of being on stage was denied her .

I could tell she was nervous, she did not flash her heart melting smile even once. Later she told me when she arrived, they took her alone to a classroom where she remained for sometime, waiting. She cried. I think it cruel, like unnecessary solitary confinement-- at least have the competitors together, make it communal. She told me her knees were shaking, and I could tell by her eyes which radiated fear from the screen.

Afterwards when she finally found me  (her teachers and I were not allowed to see her until it was over), she cried. It was definitely not how we had expected it.The whole process seemed devoid of human interaction, relating. Parents weren't required to be respectful listeners in the audience, we were on our phones, eating breakfast drinking coffee walking in and out of a sterile classroom. Her saving grace was believing that even if she lost, she could teach people that Christmas was more than a consumerist or hedonist holiday.

In the end she didn't win, she didn't make the top 3, but she did get some sort of special recognition, that the other kids didn't get- probably cutest kid or biggest effort.

On that Sunday night I asked her what was the favorite part of her weekend, and it wast playing at the rad park across our street or our leisurely bike ride along the Yilan coast (see "Easy Riders"), but unbelievably it was her speech competition. She even said she wants to try for the Mandarin one next semester! " Are you sure?"I kept asking. We will see.

Easy Riders

The gorgeous, empty and accessible bike path along Yilan's coast

I was sort of lamenting my kid's lack of biking skills, which is my fault, I mean practice makes perfect. She doesn't have my childhood of free summers cruising on our  bikes, making jumps, going to the library alone, unattended. So it is no surprise she isn't as adequate a biker, with zero street skills, its a completely different life for her.

Our morning commute to school is ideal for a refreshing morning bike ride, and getting some exercise on a non rainy day. I envy all the walkers on the numerous path while I drive to work, as I constantly admire the view of the mountain range which looks different everyday from my car. I want to be out in this notoriously clean Yilan air.

With her insane amount of homework and her massive carry on, luggage like school backpack, I don't know how she could pull it off on a bike.


Still, its a kind of goal, dream of mine that we can bike to school in Zhuanwei from our house in Yilan, when Spring 2015. (Its a ten minute drive, so a 30 min bike ride).

Turtle Island in the distance

 Until then we are biking 5-8 km leisurely along the Yilan coast just for pleasure on the weekend, getting her more comfortable with longer distances. I want to be able to cruise to work without worrying about being late.

 Our go to path is 5 minutes from our school, the Yongzhen Bicycle Path (永鎮海濱遊憩區) apart of the Zhuanwei Coastal Park ( 壯圍海濱公園). From Highway 2 there is a sign next to a massive Taoist temple. (Directions are here at the Yilan Guru).

My friend AJ with my daughter

You can rent bikes cheap, 100NT for 2 hours from a super nice couple who proudly display their daughter's impressive art work.  After a ride we treat ourselves to a Taiwanese ice cream, with shaved peanuts and fresh coriander rolled up in a rice tortilla (Peanut Roll ups 花生 捲).

Going north, the path is short, you have to get on the 2 and find the bike path again. There are several covered picnic areas should the weather change or if you need a rest.

The best thing about this path besides the roar of rolling waves crashing on the empty beach, during your entire ride, is having the path all to yourself.

One Tuesdays my Yogini coworker and I head here for some much needed vinyasa. We ditch school to come here on our lunch break. On warmer days we have brought our daughters here during the school week for a post lunch swim which is like taking a holiday in the middle of the day.

Me in Prasarita Padottanasana

It's unbelievable that no one uses this beach other than the lone fisherman and the stray beach dogs, and of course us.

Yilan's Best Kept Secret is My Backyard

It just so happens that right across the street from my apartment building is Yilan's best kept secret. I'm not too worried about announcing it. In fact I'd like to promote the space. Its big enough to share at 230 hectares. It's the ideal venue for a concert, wedding or festival. It certainly is my favorite spot to do some yoga, read a book, hang up a hammock, do a quick workout, or watch the sunset. I spend some portion of my Saturday or Sunday morning there and when the days were longer, after work too. I even dedicated a photo album to just this space.

So where is it? Its Yilan's County Government Building, located outside Yilan City off of Zhongshan Road. Its a great place to have a picnic, bring the dog for a run, admire the botany and architecture.

The nooks and crannies this space provides are endless, with different views of the mountains, the green fields and trees and art.  They kept and incorporated some ancient cypress trees that have long died or become petrified, they resemble ancient pillars coming out of the grove.

The second floor terraces of office are full of rock gardens, trees, plush grasses, rows of empty picnic tables with views, terraces, stone tables and chairs. Whenever I am here it is empty, which is another bonus- although having some kind of festival with music, food and theater would be awesome.

looking down onto the 2nd floor terrace

This facility has several canteenas, a beauty parlor and two coffee shops. All that's missing is a yoga studio, sauna, and gym. (I wonder if they have a breastfeeding room?) Of course on Saturday when I'm there its all closed. I wish I could visit during working hours just once and see how its like, go have a coffee and people watch.

In the inner field there is a shallow moat, devoid of life except for for green algae, water spiders and a  breeding ground for mosquitoes (bring repellent). From here admire the brick pillars and open skylights that let blocks of light in for dramatic photos. Sunsets here are nice with the sky's colors reflecting in the water, with the ancients trees like a temple in the background.

Walk back behind the trees for some metal sculptures that act as mirrors, and walk up the steps to the second floor terraces or even higher for open views. I marvel that this is someone's daily work space. I might just inquire if any of the offices are available to rent, it would be a rad apartment studio.

Despite everyone's foreboding warnings, this winter has been pretty mild.I half joke that my daughter and I brought the Tainan sunshine to Yilan. I think winter might have started last week, but the weekends have still been blessed with sunshine and clear skies, despite even last Friday's typhoon warnings. So I've been grateful to come here and veg, bring a yoga mat and my daughter and enjoy how lucky we are to have this magnificent playing ground literally as our backyard.

Why I don't see wedding photographers taking their happy couples here is beyond me. Its a photographer's and bird lover's paradise. (At least in my opinion).