18 May 2023
Surprise sea of flowers
National Taiwan University area
As the worlds lead uneducated buffoon, it is my god sworn duty to go to the area surrounding the most prestigious University in each city I somehow end up in. In Taipei and Taiwan for that matter, that is the National Taiwan University. Very clever name.
This Uni is quite a distance from the centre of Taiwan, which means about a 15 minute subway journey. I got off a stop early to explore the area.
First there was the Hakka cultural garden, Hakka being the name of an earlier group of Han Chinese that fled northern China in the Qing dynasty, and named themselves after a dance invented by the New Zealand rugby team.
After performing the dance myself, I proceeded along the river, and through 2 different surprise sea of flower areas. Then it was up into an artist village, and then down into the bustling University area where I would not be able to get dinner, so I fled to... a food court!
Here is the Hakka cultural park. This is the nicest bit. Ancient incense burner.
Most of it was literally an overgrown vegetable garden.
The view from the bridge out of the park that leads down to the river was however, superb!
The first surprise sea of flowers. I did my best to get in the way of everyone's photos. Note you cannot see anyone in my photos, that is because I am standing in front of everyone else.
Second surprise sea of flowers. This walk along the river area was quite a bit longer than I thought. Lots of people.
Looks like I am getting to the end of the park area, time to head uphill.
This is very hard to photograph, but built into the side of a hill is a creative village, which is to say, artists who live and work in tiny shacks that are kind of open to the public.
Here is an example shot through a window, where a guy makes robot art, apparently.
I walked around a nice elevated trail at dusk, which came down here, at what used to be a historic train station.
Overpass time! The actual University is on the right, I dare not go in there though.
There is an old fashion indoor market complete with very cheap eating areas. It reminded me of the neighbourhood food markets in Hong Kong.
It quickly became apparent I would struggle to get into any sit down restaurant, they all had lines, and groups of people. I briefly thought about having one of these, but it is just dough and green onion slices. I am sure it is delicious though.
Bustling street area of Gongguan.
And so, I retreated to a food court for a late (for me) poke bowl, with surprise prawns. Pretty good, pretty healthy. Now... tomorrow is a hiking day. It is supposed to pour with rain, it is actually supposed to be raining now but it is not, it is still 34c. So it will all depend on what the weather is doing when I wake up tomorrow.