Taipei Day 2

There was several places on the to-go list for the day, namely :

Bao-An Temple
Confucius Temple
Martyr Shrine
Maokong
Shenkeng Tofu Street
Shilin Market

We woke up pretty early on the day, so that we could fit most places in for the day, especially Shenkeng as that was not in the city itself. We had breakfast in the hotel, which was pretty good as it had a combination of both asian and western. Their congee was fabulous, I had it everyday :D.

Anyway, we made Bao-An and Confucius Temple out first stop. It was just 2 stops away by MRT (MRT Yunshan). We actually saw Bao-An Temple on our way to the hotel yesterday while on airport transfer and it made an impression.

Bao-An Temple

Located just a minute's walk from Confucius Temple, this Taoist temple is dedicated to the god of medicine. Built in 18th century, this temple had also won the 2003 UNESCO Asia Pacific Heritage Award for it's great wooden structure with attentive details.

Opposite Bao-An Temple

The temple in Daluntung houses the revered icon of Wudao, the God of Justice or also known as Master Wu, who commands a great following as a master of medicine. The temple is actually a branch of the mother temple in Mainland China built by devotees from the Fujian Province.

Offerings for the deity :)

It was a nice surprise when we found out that the Baosheng Cultural Festival was being celebrated while we were there. Apparently, it is yearly event that last for a couple of months, starting from the 3rd month of the lunar year. It started on the 4th of April this year. Bao-An Temple holds a parade on the day before Baosheng Dadi's birthday every year where more than 50 performance groups will clear the way and escort the deity around the neighbourhood. We were there on this day, by chance *grin*. So we sat along with the locals on the wooden planks made for the festival and waited.

Prayers and incense

As we happened to stumble on the procession by chance, we didn't have any idea on the times of the performances and decided to just stick around for a bit. Lucky for us, there was a little parade (little coz I don't think it's the main one as that was meant to be in the afternoon) where there was several deities in the parade and performed in front of the temple for a short while.

The Parade

The first performance :)

The Gods do a little walk in front of the temple and then bowing several times before doing another walk in front. The next God then walk forwards and they somehow either bow to acknowledge each other before the earlier God walks away, and the cycle continues. A pretty interesting sight, one that I am so so so GLAD we managed to catch! :)

There was still other performances scheduled for the day, but as we still had quite a few places to go that day, we left after about 1.5 hours there. Definitely a detour from our original schedule, but an absolutely worthwhile one! :)

Our next stop was Confucius Temple which is located just across the street.

Outside Confucius Temple

Confucious is a famous figure in chinese history as the great teacher & philosopher, influencing many races and countries. His influence so great that, the government has declared Confucius's Birthday on the 28th of September as Teacher's Day.

The Confucius Temple that we see today in Taipei is a rebuilt in the 20th century. The first Confucius Temple was built in 1879, during the Qing Dynasty which served as a centre for Confucius rituals and education but after the Sino-Japanese war in 1894, the temple was destroyed . It was then torn down in 1907 to make room for a Japanese School.

The temple was reconstructed in Dalongtong (the present site), in 1925 from funds and donation from the public. A famous craftsman was hired from Quanzhou to design the new temple and oversees the construction which was completed in 1939. The style of the building models apparently models after the original Confucius Temple in Qufu. The temple was donated to the state in 1971.

Da Cheng Hall

This is the main hall of the temple, housing the tablet of the great teacher, Confucius. Above the tablet is a plaque inscribed by the former President Chang Kai Shek - 'Education knows no class distinction'. There were other tablets to both sides of the hall, which honours Confucius's most important followers. There is also a seven storey pagoda at the top of the building, which is said to drive away evil spirits.

On one of the column walls

The Pan Pond (Half Moon Pond)

The pond comes into view as one passes the Li Gate, the gate of rites. The red wall to the right is the Wan Ren Palace Wall aka wall of Supreme Knowledge, which is at the southernmost area of the temple. To the centre of the wall is a picture of Chinese Unicorn standing above 4 treasures symbolizing good luck and peace. The bridge over the pond is known as Pan Bridge which resembles sections of bamboos which symbolizes noble character and definitive virtues.

Garden at Pan Pond

We spent a fair bit of time in this temple, taking in the quiet serene environment it exudes, despite being filled with people practising the dragon dance for the Baosheng Festival and a group of school children. The temple is built in a simplistic manner but yet, it is rich with beautiful cravings on the walls filled with colours. It is truly a temple that one cannot miss if they're in Taipei.

West side of the building

As we were leaving the temple, we heard the beautiful sound of the flute which really complemented the place and it's peacefulness. It was played by an elderly man, who was oblivious to his surrounding and concentrated only on his music. The music was so soothing and calm that it reminded us a little of a scene from those chinese movies set in ancient days. Plus, there was a lady sweeping the floor on his far right. Definitely a movie-set picture!

Man with the beautiful music :)

We left for Marytr Shrine via MRT to Jiantan Station. It is not walkable from the station, but there are a couple of buses to the shrine, which was great as we weren't exactly keen on walking under the scorching sun for several kilometres!!! The bus driver told us specifically where to get off when we arrived at the station, and he didn't charge us for the bus ride :). Which we only found out later. LOL.

The iconic gates

Martyr's Shrine, located near the famous Grand Hotel in Taipei was built to enshrine the soldiers sacrificed in war, fought on behalf of Republic of China. The complex is huge, covering about 5000 sq metres is also famous for the changing of guards ceremony which occurs at every hour. The guards on the inner area are dressed in blue whereas guards on the outer gates are dressed in white.

Towards the main building

Guards at the main building

Note : Slippers are forbidden in the area *where the guards are*. We were both in slippers as we didn't know prior to arriving. But we managed to sneak in and had a look anyway, prior to being told, as there was no signs that said so. But I think the prohbited area was only just a small part, right between the main hall and the guards, which was fine with us :).

We managed to catch the changing of guards, which was pretty fun to watch, though we didn't exactly chase after them. The sun was winning the battle at this point.

Changing of guards

View of the gates from the inside

Guards at the outer gate

We contemplated taking a taxi back to the station as we couldn't find a bus stop near the shrine, and an officer who was working there, didn't know too! Anyway, while trying to catch a taxi, we walked towards the left as we left the place and came upon several bus stops. It was a game of mix and match with the chinese characters, looking for an MRT staion on the bus routes. But we won the game, and got a bus back to the station :).

We wanted to head towards Maokong as our next trip, but the gondola service to Maokong was suspended while we were there. I was really looking forward to spending some time on the Gondola ride as the views from the gondola was apparently gorgeous and I also wanted to go to Yuan Xu Yuan Teahouse which is said to have glass floors to look at fishes. *sigh* Such is my luck. "Suspended service till further notice".

So we decided to stop at Muzha and headed towards Shenkeng directly. There are several buses towards Shenkeng from Muzha, namely bus 15 &16 from Taipei Bus Company, or 660 with Zhinnan Bus Co. or 666 with Shin Shin Bus Co. *Courtesy of members on TripAdvisor :)*. One has to cross the street to catch the bus though, which we didn't initially. So we stood for at least 15 minutes on the wrong side. LOL.

The bus ride was about 15 minutes away, and the driver was really helpful. We tell him that we wanted to go to the tofu street, so he called out the street name for us when we arrived :).

Start of Tofu Street

The whole place was filled with tofu stalls, most of them serving stinky tofu, which wasn't something that we looked forward to. But I am sure plenty of others love it. Surprisingly, the street did not smell with all the stinky tofu, as I imagined it to be. There was a stall that was recommended by lots of people, serving grilled tofu with barbeque sauce. The only thing was, there was plenty of them at the same place!! How are we to know which one? Anyway, we tried one of them, and it definitely did not make a good impression :(. So we went on a hunt for other tofus.

Tofu galore~~

Yummy fried tofu

While it wasn't something exquisitely special in type, this fried tofu was definitely one of the best I've ever had. The crispy skin on the outside with the soft, juicy tofu on the inside. An absolute delight! :)

Fried yam balls

We didn't try any of these as we both weren't big fans of yam, but it certainly looked delicious!

We also tried the tofu ice-cream and cold sweet beancurd (Tau Foo Fah), the latter which was pretty nice. The tofu ice-cream that we tried though, tasted a little funny as it had a burnt after taste. But I think it was more of the flavour of the ice-cream that we went wrong with. We had the almond flavoured one I think.

Tofu Ice-cream

When we were walking earlier, just after having the fried tofu, we came across a stall that sold 'San Chu Yuk' which is Wild Boar Meat. It looked really yummy, but we couldn't possibly fit anymore food at that time. But we definitely had some when we retraced our steps back. And my, that was a fabulous idea!! It was absolutely divine! Tasty, soft, juicy.. you name it! A must try for anyone heading there!!!! *The stall actually has a sign that says, money back if it isn't good*

San Chu Yuk

As we left the street, through the start of the street as we retraced our steps, we saw a stall that had a long queue for it's grilled tofu. While I did see the stall when we first arrived, there wasn't a queue. Perhaps this was the recommended the stall instead of the one we tried earlier (which was directly opposite), so we decided to join the queue. One of the best decisions made. The tofu on this stall was definitely yummy, a stark contrast to the one we had earlier!

THE tofu stall

For anyone heading there, this particular stall is the first stall to the left of the street (when you are facing the street). The queue grew longer and longer as we waited, and the tofu doesn't stink. If the one you've had isn't yummy, you've probably gone to the wrong stall like we did initially :P.

We were going to finish the day off at Shilin Market, but as we skipped Maokong, we had a bit of time to kill, so we decided to head towards Chang Kai Shek Memorial Hall (also known as National Taiwan Democracy Hall since 2007).

Gate towards the Memorial Hall

There was 2 magnificient buildings just to the left and right of the gates, before the memorial hall. One was the National Theatre, and the other, National Concert Hall. I have no idea which is which, and am definitely not going to try guessing. They looked really similar to me.

The famous blue octagonal roof building

The memorial hall is built to commemorate the late President Chiang Kai Shek, is located just above the MRT station, of the same name. There 2 sets of stairs that leads to the main hall, which houses the big bronze statue. The stairs is said to be made up of 89 steps, which is the age the president when he died.

Steps leading to the hall

The bronze statue of President Chiang Kai Shek

Once again, people in slippers aren't allow near the statue, so we only took photos from afar. There wasn't that many people in the area, so it wasn't hard. The place opens from 0900 till 1830, not as said till 1700 as we first thought. So we had a bit more time to spend in the area, taking more photos.

Pretty isn't it? :)

Building to the right

Building to the left

One's the National Theatre, the other the National Concert Hall. Which is which, I don't know.

From here, we headed back to Jiantan Station to go to Shilin Market for food. The place was only about 2 minutes walk from the station, and all one has to do is follow the crowd. Everyone seems to be heading that way. The market reminded me of Ladies Market in HongKong, or Petaling Street in Malaysia. But an experience nonetheless.

Hot Pot Dinner

We had dinner in the market at a place that sold mini hotpots, which the food was only an okay. the environment though, was different. The place however, did have a very long queue. Hhmm.. maybe we ordered the wrong meal come to think of it, :(. Opposite the shop was another shop that sold fried chicken. That, I thought was pretty yum. And the queue again, was very long.

Fried chicken fillets

There was a little temple next to where we had dinner, which was not touristy at all. It was like finding a gem in Taipei in a way, as most places that we've been to were filled with tourist and pretty commercialized. This temple wasn't packed with people, there was a handful saying their prayers and a little ceremony at the main table. There was donations on every corner, mainly sacks of rice donated by the public for the less fortunate. And I loved the lanterns on the ceilings. It made the place looked so pretty! It was very, temple-ly if I have to describe it. * I have no idea what temple this is, as eveything was written in chinese :( "

We only bought a couple of things in Shilin as nothing really caught out eye. But there was a little 'vendor raid' when we were there. There was a vendor officer patrolling the place earlier in the evening, which sent the vendors who laid their goods on the middle of the street panicking, quickly packing up their stuffs and running. Not exactly the safest place to be with a kid if that happens. But it wasn't that bad either :). It probably only last for about half a minute or so as they packed up REALLY quickly. It's those with the rolly poles that you need to lookout for as they might knock you down as they're running.

We called it a night and headed back to our hotel, but not before a dose of good coffee in Starbucks near the MRT station. Ah, how I love coffee *grin*. I have to say that Starbucks is my new best friend, as I can find it anywhere and the coffee are of similiar standard (well, except Japan :( ).

:)