The Yangmingshan Run / A-dou-a

We woke up at our usual laggardly hour :P I got up and breakfasted, and as usual was joined by a sleepy Winnie a few minutes later. It is startling how quickly the new becomes a comfortable routine!

Mei, Jim--Gosh, I feel odd using their names now that I’m used to the Asian custom of calling them aunt and uncle—Winnie and I set off, Winnie’s dad driving, to the Yangmingshan national park just north of Taipei city. After a relatively short stretch of highway, we were driving up twisting mountain roads at sickening speeds. Winnie and I took turns napping on each other in the backseat, but I found it quite difficult to nap and read more Way of Kings instead.

We arrived and ascended a short distance to a little visitor’s center. The landscape was quite picturesque, dense trees growing on the slopes all around, and a little tended garden amidst it all. Mei didn’t want to hike around, so W and I abandoned her parents at the visitor’s center and poked around a little bit. We found the biggest spider I have EVER seen tending an enormous web stretched across a side path. The spider was about the size of the palm of my hand and was painted in terrifying black and yellow colors. Its every motion caused the web to shake. At one point it dropped almost half a foot and caught itself on the vibrating web.

After the rendezvous at the visitor’s center (I bought a little coaster for Grace!) we stopped for a snack at a little booth. I got a whole, piping hot sweet potato and a little pig’s blood cake (Winnie said it might not be made with pig’s blood anymore). Nom nom nom! The sweet potato was super creamy and delicious.

We rode to another section of park, up higher. Here the slopes were covered with large fern-like plants, and there were vents where hot sulfur gas boiled from the earth. Again we left Winnie’s folks in the visitor’s center (I felt a little bad but Winnie also really wanted to go hiking—she did all the communicating with her folks—and it did seem like sitting in the visitors’ center looking at doodads and snacking was what they wanted to do). We checked out the sulfur vents and then started on a long uphill climb. The climb, on a beautiful stone path surrounded on both sides by bamboo and ferns, was exhilarating. I find it less draining to climb at a rapid pace than a slow one, but the rapid pace was demanding on W and we took lots of breaks to admire the beautiful view.

By the time we reached the first viewpoint, I was so excited, I was jogging up the stairs and taking push-up breaks. The view was spectacular. Peaks framed lush valleys sloping down farther into farmland, and in the distance a misty Taipei City could be seen, painted in the bronzed colors of the horizon.

We had to turn back to rendezvous with Winnie’s parents again. I tried to instruct Winnie in the way of the mountain goat. Initially she was quite nervous of the steep rocky steps, but by the end she was bounding down the more flat regions. For a while I positioned myself so as to stop her fall.

Back at the visitor’s center Jim handed me a big chunk of glutinous rice wrapped in a leaf and adorned with a topping of meat. (All the snacks are huge in Taiwan, although they are usually mostly carbs.) I chowed down and bought three bottles of water. We talked a little bit about Taiwanese history. Mei often waved off Jim and Winnie when they tried to explain history to me, saying it was too complicated. It was very complicated.

We went to one more place, where it was said that the water cows, or shui nio, (the actual ones, not me and Winnie) could be found. It took us a while to get there—we had to wait in a line of cars. But it was worth the wait. The cows loafed around everywhere, evidently oblivious to the tourists that snapped their portraits. The trail was also lovely, and again here the temperature was cooler. Winnie and I set off on our own, talking contentedly. We wanted to make the full circle trail, but the trail was misleading. As we thought we’d be rounding the bend, we realized the trail meandered off into the surrounding hills and valleys. We decided to go anyway, at a jog!

We hauled, exhilaratingly, along the trail. I kept to the grass as I would be less likely to trip. Got to a stone cairn thing, pulled myself up to the lip of it, went back to the ground, kept running, Winnie a few paces behind me. We went down a hill, round a bend, past some surprised hikers, and up another hill. Up and down again and Winnie needed a break, so I scooped her up and kept walking up the hill :D It was really fun. We were drenched in sweat. We got finally to the straightaway part of the trail and hauled along. Winnie was yelling with panic and exhilaration as we ran across the bumpy grass hills and knobbly cobblestones. Hikers and cow-watchers looked up as we passed. For the final stretch, I piggybacked Winnie, which occasioned more excited exclamations as I pounded across the stones.

Finally we met up with Winnie’s parents, grabbed some water and a tasty grape popsicle at the little visitor’s center, and headed back home again.

We stopped briefly by home to change clothes, then drove off again. It was cool to see a new part of the city as we drove to a restaurant. When we got to the restaurant, which was in this cavernous building with long corridors like a middle school that also seemed to be hosting a huge gala, we encountered three huge tables and a bunch of relatives milling around. This was a celebration of Father’s Day (the equivalent) mostly for Winnie’s grandpa.

I got introduced to lots of people (having been trained beforehand on the right way to address people, by “shu shu” or “ai” or “ye ye” or just “grandma” depending on their age or gender. I got to hand my bottle of whisky over to the old patriarch, who was dressed in an impressive suit, and received several small gifts from him and a few aunts in return. There were a couple cousins who spoke good English, but I didn’t get to speak to any of them at length.

Finally we sat down at our table and enjoyed a steady stream of tasty food (sushi, chicken, other seafood, bacon and veggies, scallops embedded in tomatoes). (I still preferred the food we’d had at the little traditional place by the stadium.) There was also barley tea and a couple of containers of orange and guava juice. This felt like a comfortable family gathering, without too much formality or presentational ado. The “jolly uncle” I’d met before was sitting next to Winnie’s autistic cousin, which created a lot of merriment and vigorous hand shaking. The uncle got a bit fed up with constantly being poked friendly-like by the cousin, but in the end it was fine.

We also did some toasting, which was very similar to the toasting in Chongqing 2 years ago. Winnie’s jolly uncle kept addressing me as a-dou-a, which is colloquial for foreigner, and literally means “big nose”. Winnie eventually couldn’t contain herself and burst out with hysterics at the appellation.

On the drive back home, I learned that the jolly uncle was quite wealthy due to the family real estate business. Back at home, we tried to find “The Cat Returns” Miyazaki movie. It took us forever to find it, so we only watched half of it.