The collected writings of a Renegade Tourist

Tag central Taiwan

The Ride to Tainan

Last year I went to Tainan to participate in the Yanshui fireworks festival. Unfortunately I had misunderstood the schedule and managed to miss the whole thing. This year I was determined to join so I planned it better, double checking the schedule several times.

The festival was going to start on Monday with the main celebration Tuesday night until Wednesday morning. I originally planned that I and Renegade Wife could ride my motorcycle together over the weekend ending up in Tainan, so we could see the fireworks. Sadly my wife’s aunt passed away during the Chinese New Year so we … Read the rest

Cross Island Highway

A couple of months ago, Renegade wife and I climbed the peak of Hehuanshan, which is roughly half way along the Cross Island Highway. Due to time constraints we were unable to drive all the way to the east coast so we promised ourselves to come back another time. Since the government has given us new years day off, we took the opportunity to go this weekend. On New years eve we drove south to Puli, a small town just on the edge of the central mountains, and celebrated new years eve in our hotel room (sad perhaps but never … Read the rest

The Edge of Adventure

Today was the last day of our central Taiwan trip. We started slow, getting up late and having a long breakfast, leaving the hotel around eleven. The evening before we had checked up a few places we wanted to go and the first one was some kind of statue park. When we got there it was closed even though the sign on the gate said it should be open. The next one was a long suspension bridge across a river. It was, in fact, so long that there were two pillars holding it up, basically it was three bridges connected … Read the rest

Wedding and Earthquake Museum

We left our hotel pretty early in the morning thinking we would reach the wedding ceremony in good time. When we were just a few kilometers from Sun Moon Lake however, we got stuck in a massive traffic jam. When we finally made it into town the main street was closed for cars so we had to go around. When we got to the other side, that was also blocked and it took us a while to figure out a way past; by the time we had parked the car we had already missed the ceremony. Luckily that is just a … Read the rest

Climbing Hehuanshan

One of Yinis cousins is getting married this weekend and the wedding is in Sun Moon Lake. It also happens to be a long weekend due to the national day, so Yini and I decided to go play in central Taiwan for the weekend. We would stop by for the wedding banquet Saturday lunch then continue playing on Saturday afternoon and Sunday.

We started after work on Thursday evening driving south to the small town Puli on the edge of Nantou county, just so we could cut down the driving distance today. This morning we got up at a decent … Read the rest

Wangong harbor 8:44 pm

I walk around the corner, leave the noise of the restaurant behind me, the voices of playing children trail off as the darkness envelopes me. I look out over the harbor, there are four street lights on the pier opposite me, illuminating the surface of the water, forming orange blotches that shimmer in the darkness. A breeze ruffles the waters surface, making the orange blotches dance with a waving motion, and whispering softly in my ear. I didn’t realize until now how loud the dinner was, now I feel at peace.… Read the rest

The moving island

Recently my good friend’s father passed away in cancer (my condolences Kai) so on Saturday me and Yini headed south to meet him up and comfort him in these hard times. We arrived in his hometown of Tianzhong in the evening and spent a couple of hours with him. Knowing that he felt comparatively good, we said good bye and went out to find a hotel. We ended up in a kind of motel where I promptly burned my lip on the what looked  like a drinking fountain but turned out to be a hot water dispenser. Not the nicest … Read the rest

Big surprise on a small outing.

This weekend we are visiting Yini’s parents. Normally that means staying in their house and playing with her nephews but this time Yini and I decided to go on a small outing instead.

We started by driving to Beigang and had a late lunch nearby the kind of famous Mazu temple there. After lunch we took a stroll through the temple area and the market there. There was a big pedestrian bridge spanning the nearby river and two huge temple guard statues at the bridgehead, which was pretty impressive, but nothing overwhelming.

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Disappointment and wetlands

I have been reading a bit about several abandoned amusement parks in Taiwan, and I would dearly like to visit some. The most famous one, katoli world, was taken down some years ago but a place called Encore Gardens was rumored to still exist. Me and Yini managed to find it on the map so we took the car and headed out. We did eventually find the place, but it seemed the owners were planing to do something with it because there were some workers there preventing us from entering. Since we were in the area we decided to check … Read the rest

By the side of the road

Yesterday me and Yini drove down to Erlin to see her parents and today, while driving back, we decided to take the express way rather than the highway. There were road works on one part of the road, which led us down to the normal roads, which was lucky. Just as I was about to turn back onto the expressway Yini pointed out an interesting house just off the road, so I took right just before the on-ramp, and parked by the roadside. Having a chance to look more closely, it turned out be he remains of an abandoned factory, … Read the rest

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