Taiwan is a different place.
Oh, I know, that’s not the single most insightful thing I’ve ever written, but neither is it as fatuous as it sounds.
Regular readers of my blog may remember my last trip to Taiwan where we went to visit a major tourist destination: a sheep farm. It was pleasant and scenic, but the fascination with reasonably ordinary farmyard animals was completely lost on me. In some way these sheep were “famous” in the curious Taiwanese definition of the word “famous”.
“Famous” in that context means “in some way the first of something that has been promoted as something a lot more special than it really is.” All other sheep farms now pale in comparison and any discriminating person who wants some sheep byproduct would certainly buy their sheep products from the famous sheep farm.
This trip, we’re heading to the opposite end of the island to see the famous cow farm. Bizarre though it sounds, I don’t really mind. While I can’t claim to have seen everything in Taiwan, I can reasonably state that I have been to every major area of the island, save for one.
Several years ago, we took an around-the-island tour. Taiwan is roughly leaf-shaped and running right down the middle of the island is a truly impressive and formidable mountain range. On the west side of the island, the coastal areas are fairly flat and friendly. The bulk of the island’s population lives along this western coast. The east, on the other hand, is little more than the eastern edge of the mountain range, which plummets into the sea. It makes for dramatic coastlines, but there are few places suitable for large towns.
While we made the dramatic coastal drive, we bypassed a so-called “rift valley” near the extreme south-eastern end of the island. I’m told that the rift valley is both dramatically beautiful and filled with pastoral tranquility. Hyperbole it might be but there’s one thing you can say about Taiwan: The scenery if often as dramatic as it is made out to be. (Once you get past all the concrete they’re built stuff out of everywhere.
Living in such pastoral bliss, these cows give the finest milk on the island – which, considering the entire island is lactose-intolerant, it quite funny.
Somehow, I imagine this place as being similar to a Sonoma Valley winery, where guests stay in a charming resort built on a working winery. They stay, they enjoy the weather and countryside, have a wine tasting, buy a few cases and return to their mundane lives.
In this alternate Taiwan-reality, substitute “dairy farm” for “winery” and “milk” for “wine” and you’ve pretty much conjured up the image I have in my mind. I see groups of people lined up at a table, with bottles of milk and a bucket. They move from glass to glass, sipping the milk, then spitting it out into the bucket. Like wine tasters trying not to get drunk by consuming the wine, Taiwanese milk-tasters must spit it out lest the dreaded affects of lactose-intolerance cut short their milk-tasting.
That’s what I’m imaging but I’ll find out tomorrow. Today we’re in Hualien, marble capital of Taiwan – if not Asia. Hualien is one of the few viable ports on the east cost and, as the nearby mountains are made of marble, this is big business here.
I kid you not: The sidewalks are made of marble here. Bet that’s a joy when it rains.
We took a train to Hualien, then rented a car. We sent the afternoon wandering around and sightseeing. I finally saw something that I’d heard of but never witnessed before: my father-in-law doesn’t know how to drive an automatic transmission car! I can understand not being familiar with it, but it’s automatic for crying out loud!
We’re staying in a little cement bead and breakfast south of Hualien on the coast. There’s no internet, but I can kick my iPhone on and do a bit of communicating with the outside world. While driving around town, I had to turn it on several times. It seems we can know where we’re going with the iPhone, but we get lost as soon as I turn it off. International data roaming charges aren’t cheap, so I’m trying to keep my numbers down, but it’s just too useful!
We spent some time down at a rock-strewn coastline laughingly called “a beach” and I missed the perfect photo of the day – perhaps the photo of the trip. My father-in-law headed back to the van. James realized he was gone and was chasing after him. As he approached, my father-in-law heard him and turned around and he had just the biggest, happiest smile imaginable on his face. It was quite literally that smile that only grandparents can have when caught up in the joy of having the grandchildren around. I’m still kicking myself for missing it.
You won’t be reading this post until at least after I’ve seen the cows, so stay tuned for episode 2.