A while ago, when I came across a trailer for the film 「看見台灣」, titled “Beyond beauty, Taiwan from above” in English, I was initially sceptical - Taiwan’s landscape and scenery is undeniably exceptionally beautiful in many areas, and having visited some of these areas and seen other media displaying such e.g. Formosat-2 imagery, I wasn’t so inspired by a movie showing this - I’d much prefer to go and see these places for myself; but then the trailer said 「。。。理解她的美麗跟哀愁」- “understand… beauty and sadness” and so with the promise of balance rarely found and more information than just pretty pictures, 「看見台灣」 went on to the list of movies I’d like to go and see.

Yesterday in a quirk of fate a friend invited me to watch a movie and it turned out to be an open air public preview of 「看見台灣」 at 中正紀念堂. As I’m writing this you’ve likely realised the film is either worth shouting about or shouting at… It’s the former. The movie depicted the great beauty and extensive change in Taiwan’s environment in a tranquil way whilst leaving you to draw your own conclusions. It had a logical flow that made it easy to understand the interrelationships between various aspects.

A few of my thoughts…

Living in a world of contrasts… Not a soul on the beach or the mountain, while the turtle children line up on a sunny rock waiting for bird teacher to begin class in the park. Yet just down the street is the clamour of a mardi gras in full swing:

Typhoons are still coming and going but the weather seems to be calming down a little. It’s been really nice to go out with friends and get out of the Taipei City basin steam whenever time permits, and so I’ve trekked up a couple of baby mountains recently.

Jenny and I climbed up 磺嘴山 (912m) in 陽明山 with her colleagues. Although I wore sandals, silly me, and thus ended up with a few small cuts on my feet we had a good walk to the crater of the volcano and a giant dinner afterwards!

The rain was insane on the first day of my weekend in 九份, despite this we made a valiant start up 基隆山 but shortly realised that it wasn’t such a good idea in such a torrential downpour. In Sunday’s sunshine we made it to the top, although I was truly exhausted …surprised myself, considering 基隆山 peak isn’t very high at all (588m), but maybe continuous steps in the sun is harder than a jungle path - there is a stone staircase all the way up 基隆山.

Most recently Grace and I went to 阿里山 (~2500m) with her lovely senior high school classmates. Not so much walking, but tons of crazy fun :)

中秋節快樂! (Happy Mid-Autumn Festival) It’s a national holiday here in Taiwan, time for gathering with family, barbecues and moon cakes.

臺灣國立師範大學 (NTNU) gave every student a little moon cake to celebrate Mid-Autumn, so I thought I’d post a picture with some of the other yummy things I’ve nibbled in the last couple of months. The photos are nowhere near enough to capture the variety and wonderfulness of the cuisine in Taiwan: I’ve been trying not to eat too much, and often things are so good that they have been eaten before they could be photographed, especially the more traditional / local dishes!

Similarly to 侯硐 and it’s cats, 十分 （Shih fen) is a town that grew up around mining and now has created it’s own tourism niche. 十分 is famous for three reasons: it’s waterfalls, sky lanterns (as is 平溪 district generally) and the railway line which runs through the street. I spent yesterday afternoon enjoying the sunshine there…

Getting to 十分 on the train from 台北 is easy, but not very quick - about 90 minutes each way. Two things you should know:

• You can only use a 悠遊卡 (EasyCard / Yo-yo card) to get to 瑞芳 (Rueifang), where you have to change trains. From 瑞芳 to anywhere on the 平溪 line, you need to buy a paper ticket, ~20NT$. Despite the numerous signs and announcements to this effect, I spotted several people getting assisted by the train conductor upon discovery that they were travelling without a ticket.

• Contrary to quite a few web articles I’d read about visiting 十分 you don’t need to, and shouldn’t, walk all the way along the railway track to get to the waterfalls - you’ll get mushed by a train! Follow the signs along the road, it takes about 20 minutes. When you get to the road fork and there is a waterfall sign pointing in both directions, you can go in either direction. I’d suggest the right-then-left-u-turn i.e. the lower road to get to the falls. Come back via the Eyeglass waterfall, across the suspension bridge, and you’ll find that’s the higher road - a nice circular route.

The seventh lunar month is Ghost month - the gates of the underworld open and the spirits come out to play! Throughout the month there are various ceremonies and rituals - One of the most vivid is the mid-month parade in Keelung (基隆), which happened on August 20th this year (the lunar date is fixed, thus the Gregorian date varies year by year).

The parade