Cingtiangang,Yangmingshan (Yangming mountain) National Park 擎天岡，陽明山

On a lovely July weekend, I decided that I haven't been exercising enough, so I called my friend F and invited her to do a short hike. There are too many hiking trials in Taipei, so we randomly picked Cingtiangang. I have been there once, but the weather wasn't clear that time, so I decided to go again, to see the beautiful view people have been telling me.

The easiest way to go is to take the bus "xiao 15 (小15)" from Shilin MRT or Chientan MRT to the last stop. It was those kind of mini bus, crammed with people, all longing to breath some fresh air during the weekend. Often being car sick, it wasn't such a pleasent ride, but it's worth it. By the way, for a long ride like that took only 15 nt, cheap cheap cheap.

We misjudged the weather. It was TOO SUNNY. It was a total grass mountain, beautiful though, but too hot and no trees to get away from the sun. The hike itself was pretty easy, but we were beaten by the poisonous sun, and didn't finish the whole thing.

But anyways, it was a nice day to remember, and I still strongly recommend the place for an easy hike.

Waterfall in Taipei: Wulai 烏來

Wulai was always a place I wanted to explore, it's in the south peak of Taipei County, a nice refreshing place not far from the city.

Lynn and I met near National Taiwan University and rode our own motorbikes there. We rode down Roosevelt Rd. and them follow signs, it wasn't difficult to get there. It took probably less than half an hour.

The waterfall was refreshing, I believe there are a few trails to walk , but we didn't have much time. The outter part was the so called "old street", in my opinion it was a bit touristy there. I also learned that this is a place where you can find aborigines, I thought they were all in the east or down south, didn't know some of the tribes live in Taipei. Wulai is also famous of it's hot springs, maybe I'll try it some day.

The next time I want to get away from city life, I'll know there's Wulai.

Wulai English Website

Chinese Music Rocks

Dear people interested in traditional Chinese music, you can’t miss the two concerts on June 1st ! The two main Chinese orchestras in Taiwan: National Chinese Orchestra (NCO)(http://192.192.14.59/) and Taipei Chinese Orchestra (TCO)(http://www.tco.taipei.gov.tw/) are holding two concerts that are both so brilliant that makes me difficult to decide which to go to!


Double Concussion–En Shao and Yiu-kwong Chung, Shanghai Chinese Orchestra and Taipei Chinese Orchestra
2007/6/1 Taipei Zhongcheng Auditorium, Zhongshan Hall 19:30
Prices: 300 500 800 1000 1200
TCO’s concert “Double Concussion” is truly an all-star concert, they invited the ShangHai Chinese Orchestra, which is one of the three main Chinese orchestras in China, and perform masterpieces, such as the erhu concerto “The Great Wall”. This concerto is one of the most important concertos in Chinese music, it is very powerful and strong with feelings, the erhu instrument tells stories and emotions surrounding the Great Wall. TCO invited Master Min to perform the piece, since she was the first musician to perform this great concerto. Ironically, the conductor of that historical first performance was Mr. Chu Chun-chuen, who is now the conductor of NCO.


NCO Concert -Silk Road Fantasy
2007/6/1 National Concert Hall 19:30
Prices: 300,400,500,600,800
While TCO sweeps the audience by their strong cast, Mr. Chu leads NCO performing an exotic concert. The highlight would be “Silk Road Fantasy”, which is a daring piece challenging tradition. Though NCO is not as rich as TCO, being able to invite a whole group of stars from China, their music is usually considered more completed than TCO. Their skills are the same as TCO, but their passion in music is considered stronger than TCO. They don’t have money to advertise their concert, so last weekend the musicians, who mostly have a great position in the industry, decorated their own cars into a “Silk Road” theme, and drove around the city, to introduce their music to everyone.

Personally I would probably go to the NCO concert, I have seen Master Min with NCO a few years ago, and I’m satisfied with that. I believe lots of people would go see TCO’s performance, so I decide to support the people who have real passion and professional attitudes, but if it’s your first time for traditional Chinese music, TCO would also be a good choice.

Towns and villiages: Sansia(三峽)

Last week my friend Tomoko and I visited Sansia. It was the second time to be there, and the experience was as well as the first time.

Sansia is an old town located in Taipei county, centries ago,it was once a prosperous town producing dyed cloth. I'm not going to go on with the whole history, people could check out the Sansia township website, it has some brief introdution about the town, in English too.

I remember my last time here, it was "zhong yuan jie"(中元節), the festival in the middle of the ghost month. There were ceremonies arround the temples, we could see some really fun stuff going on, like people worshiping the gods, and preparing food for the ghosts' visit. But the main streets were still under construction, we didn't have the chance to have a glance of the old ages. This time, the construction was done, the houses showed their faces, what I call "Japanese-Baroque" style.

But this time we didn't spend a lot of time in the most renowned place in Sansia: The Sansia Qingshui Zushi Temple. I heard about artworks and music compositions about this great temple, all the carvings and paintings inside the temple has a story behind, I remember reading a book about the temple, and it was just writing out what stories the crafts are talking about. It is a beautiful temple, definitely worthwhile for someone that is interested in it, but probably not easy for others to understand. But that's ok, there's no reason not to visit a beautiful temple.


Walking down the Sansia old street, it's hard to not notice the people playing the whirling top. Obviously this kind of traditional sport is quite popular here, people play in magnificent skills, they could make the top to spin on Coke bottles, strings, very small surfaces, and all sorts of stuff. I can't even make it spin. People seem to play for fun, they don't have a jar to throw coins in or something to earn money, maybe they think it's just cool to show-off in front of tourists.

Of course there was plenty of eating (Come on, we're in Taiwan...), also some traditional shops to see, I even saw some old fashion grocery stores, which I haven't seen for a long time. As I grew up, 7-11 gradually took place, and most grocery stores disappeared before I noticed. It was an interesting day to see everything so old fashioned, and Tomoko told me Sansia was her favorite place we went together.

Thanks for the pictures from Tomoko.

Clubs and pubs in Taipei

Taipei has a selection of clubs and pubs, some are not bad at all.

Personally I enjoy pubs with live music, Zee(主婦之店) is where you go out and enjoy the typical old cheesy Mandarin love songs, mostly it's full of older people, but that doesn't mean the music doesn't appeal to youngsters. They have 3 shows everynight starting from 9.45 pm, and goes on to 0.30 am. The singers have a good interaction with the audience, and most of them take song requests.

Riverside(河岸留言) is my favorite, all the best independance bands you can count of have once played here. Monday night is the "Open Jam" Night, whoever wants to preform on stage can go up and give it a try. Perhaps because of it's location, which is just next to the National Taiwan University, the place is often filled up with students and shares a young atmosphere.

When I feel like having a Jazzy night, there's always Brown Sugar, though it's often jam packed on friday night, and I would have to either make a reservation or stand through the night.

With Riverside being packed, I've been to Oldie Goodie twice on Saturday night, it's like an old friend, they might not specialize in a certain type, sometimes old English folk songs, sometimes Latin music, mixed with some Taiwanese pop songs, sometimes songs writen by themselves.

Then it's a personal secret, friday night 9 pm, Outdoor Cafe at YungHe, the young singer 蕭煌奇 sings there. He's a talented young man, being physically blind does not block the vision of his heart, nor does it stop his passion on music. I would go there, find a seat and have a coffee (which is really cheap), listen and take requests, and go over have a chat with him after the show ends. He could only sing songs that he have memorized before, but he sings the funniest happy birthday song if you ask him to. He also sings his own work.

I don't know a lot about dance clubs, the only one I've been to in Taipei is 9% and besides the all-you-can-drink, it doesn't really impress me. If party animals would like to join me, I'd like to explore Luxy, Room 18, MOS....these are the famous places where everyone knows.

Carnegies is popular among the foriegn society among Taipei, I don't really get what's so special about it, maybe it's because I was never there on weekends.

I watched my world cups at Brass Monkey, it's a cool sports bar and also the place to see football (so called soccer) which is usually not that popular in Taiwan. Otherwise Tavern is the place to go when I want to watch certain sports, they have more than 40 satelite TVs and lots of channels, I love their onion rings.

Picture from Tomoko, at Riverside, with the band 四分衛.

New Year at Taipei 101

I went alone. I guess all my friends got scared by the experience for the 2000 count down, so none of them were willing to come out since then. This is my second time to go out since 2000, it is still extremely crowded, but the city has learned how to handle that much people now.
Mobile communication was still busy, too many phones were trying to call, and the cells got packed. But it is much better than 2000. And the MRT learned to control the amount of people trying to take the tube, now the flow was smoother, and I got home before 1 am, pretty quick.
The fireworks were great, too bad no one to share with.