The dread filter of OUTLINE mode descends again, as the haze
of time passing descends upon my memory. Therefore, the breakfast of this
morning is lost to me.
We arrived at the Songshan stop and walked a little bit. We
were near the downtown, and there were high-rises on either side. Suddenly, a
hill covered with thick tropical rainforest appeared, and at its base, a Daoist
temple.
I was excited to check it out, so we went in. Up a flight of
decorated steps, we found ourselves at the foot of a beautiful shrine. Brightly
colored red pillars and red boards on the floor separated us from the realm
beyond. Framed between each pair of pillars, a different entity and its
attendants were honored. In the center of the floor where we stood, there was a
great ceremonial cauldron, or *ding*, which was filled with sand and spent
incense; a small lighter stood smoking to receive more. Incongruously, the
*ding*'s top was wrapped in a little plastic smoke shield.
We walked around, still on a little balcony open to the air,
to find another type of oven where different offerings were burned, along with
a set of hand tools. I found it really interesting that the ceremonial
distinction between production and consumption (roughly, I'm not sure if I'm
satisfied with this neat idea) was not nearly so prevalent in Taiwan.
Construction sites were everywhere half-finished, with materials just sitting
on the ground (like at my family's house!) Here at the temple, hand tools that
the monks used were just lying around on the floor and on tables next to the
oven. We saw some stairs with no particular markings, and Winnie said it would
be fine to check out the upstairs! There was another shrine, which was much
larger and looked like it also doubled as a congregation space! This whole time
there was nobody there. We exited, into a little rooftop garden. We took
different stairs down, which led past a set of doors that Winnie said were the
monks' apartments. They would stay here and take care of the temple and
(presumably) lead prayer.
We had just reached the balcony where we’d entered when a
tremendous downpour started. The rain pounded on the roofs, some of which were
evidently corrugated metal. The sound was awesome. How romantic, I thought! We
hung out in the temple a little longer, then decided to start the hike. Winnie
produced her umbrella from her bag, and we walked up the stone steps into the
jungle. It was, indeed, very romantic. We clung tightly together under the
umbrella and made out just a little bit. Winnie thought I was like a little
grotto or something, a little oasis of shelter.
We continued upward to a beautiful scenic outlook, where we
took lots of lovely pictures and rested for a while. We talked about whether I
should do theoretical physics, and how nice it would be to follow t’Hooft’s
advice and just spend five years learning all the foundational physics at
graduate level, turning a blind eye to the rest of the world.
The stairs got steeper and steeper as we ascended. Finally,
we reached a flatter area with a lot of big rocks, which we had fun climbing
on.
We kept walking, got scared by a giant bug that zipped past,
investigated a temple with some scary looking dogs. We walked back down. Winnie
fell and scraped her leg (probably my fault for moving so fast). When we got to
the bottom, an older fellow beckoned Winnie over and applied some weird
traditional medicine stuff to her cut. I didn’t do anything, which was silly,
but we were a little worried afterwards. (It turned out fine).
It took us a while to work our way back to civilization from
that exit of the park. We passed a big, wealthy looking high school in the
rain. I was super hungry, so when we made it back to a city-like area, we hit
up a 7-11 for snacks and water and then went looking for some “small eats”. We
initially passed a little restaurant with some plastic sheeting for its front
door, with nobody in it, which looked super sketchy to me, so we kept looking.
But after a while, Winnie made the call; we went back there. And it was great!
As soon as we showed up, a couple more people went in. And the food was
amazing! Our drenched shirts chilling in the AC, we drank hot soup with little
soft delicious bao (I forget the name!). Then there was this little bowl of
nothing but noodles with some sort of spiced tofu on top. GAAAH that was
incredible! I couldn’t believe how tasty that tofu was. It tasted so rich and
meaty.
We had to hustle back after that, so we could take showers
and then go over to the grandma’s. We all, some aunts and uncles included, had
dinner at a little traditional food place where we shared lots of little
plates. It was quite delicious, especially the fatty bacon. Nobody back home
uses bacon correctly for that super-rich flavor with cabbage and stuff.
I don’t remember what happened in the evening after that!
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