Taiwan
Keelung

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    • Day 182

      Keelung, Taiwan

      June 11, 2023 in Taiwan ⋅ 🌧 81 °F

      New-to-us port #51 … with an overnight.

      We arrived at noon into the port city for Taipei and headed off to see what we could on a short afternoon before the sites closed down for the day.

      In the meantime, unbeknownst to us, this is what was happening in the skies over the Taiwan Strait … in the eternal struggle between Taiwan and China.Read more

    • Day 183

      Keelung: Night Market … Daytime

      June 12, 2023 in Taiwan ⋅ 🌧 79 °F

      A quickie post to wrap up our short second day docked in Keelung.

      Downtown once again after following the curvy road down from the Big Buddha Temple, I suggested we try to find the ruins of the old Khoo Tsu-song Mansion. Overgrown with vegetation, it seemed like it would make for a photogenic stop. Besides, it was close to the Night Market where we hoped to grab lunch before returning to Insignia.

      With umbrellas open against the steady rain, we wandered into a narrow alley and walked up a number of wide steps that meandered this way and that. We were obviously in a residential neighborhood, so we were careful not to veer off into anyone’s property.

      Finally we found the ruins of the house … dating back to 1913. It apparently belonged to a local politician who served during the Japanese colonial period. Mui and David braved the overgrowth to go inside the ruins … Younga and I opted to photograph what’s left of the mansion from the courtyard.

      It was barely 10:00a when we left the alley and walked the short block to the night market.

      What a difference a night makes. Where it was packed with people walking shoulder to shoulder last night, today the street with the yellow lanterns was all but deserted. Most of the tiny eateries were closed … a few were cooking in preparation for the crowds that would be descending at lunch and later tonight. Having breakfasted early, we were hungry, so we went in search for a place that could serve us.

      The plan had been to go to the kiosk from where Younga bought mushroom rice and vegetarian soup last night. It was still closed. Mui found another stand from which he got mushroom rice. The rest of us got noodles with garlic sauce from a nearby stand where we all sat down to eat. Younga and Mui also ordered the cuttlefish soup, which they proclaimed to be quite good. We were joined there by others from the ship when we told them the food was very tasty. In fact, our fellow-passengers found the noodles so delicious that they got an extra order to go. I was tempted, but with no means to warm up the noodles once on the ship, I resisted the temptation.

      After lunch, we searched for a kiosk to get some fruit or dessert. But didn’t find any. So, we stopped into a 7-11 store — they are all over Taiwanese cities — to pick up some pre-packaged ice cream bars on our way to the ship. Not the wrap up we were hoping for … but hey, who can say no to ice cream?

      Next up … we head to Japan!
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    • Day 26

      Keelung, Taiwan

      March 24 in Taiwan ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

      Morgens gibt es zwar Gewusel und Kommunikationsschwierigkeiten mit den Fahrrädern, dann noch Strafe wegen geschmuggelter Äpfel - aber letztlich reisen wir in Taiwan ein und die Radtour kann beginnen. Was wir zuerst merken - es ist heiß und feucht und es gibt unheimlich viel Verkehr. Zu zwölft kämpfen wir uns da durch und das ist echt nicht einfach, denn die Taiwaner Auto - und Mopedfahrer sind nicht sehr rücksichtsvoll, aber 💪💪.
      Wir radeln durch die brodelnde Stadt und sehen sofort - das ist Asien live. Einfache und einfachste Behausungen, Straßenstände ohne Ende, Mopeds überall, Gewusel sowieso und Krach und dazu Müll und Dreck, der überall herumliegt. Irgendwie krass, diese Stadt. Nach der Sauberkeit in Shanghai und Japan fällt uns das besonders auf. Aber alles ist sehr sehr spannend!!!
      Erster Stopp ist der Geopark im Haping NP. Hier können wir Sandsteinformationen sehen - viele Taiwaner wollen das auch, denn es ist Sonntag. Aber hier fahren wenigsten keine Autos 🫣.
      Weiter gehts durch den Verkehr Richtung Elefantenfelsen. Der Weg dorthin ist leider gesperrt, dafür sehen wir aber einen tollen bunten Tempel.
      Nächster Stop ist am Change-Date-Felsen. Das ist eine wichtiger Vermessungspunkt, unverrückbar 14 Meter tief in den Boden gerammt 🤔.
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    • Day 13

      Fuenfter Stop in Taiwan

      April 23, 2023 in Taiwan

      Wir sind pünktlich in Keelung Taiwan angekommen. Nach einem sehr zeitigen Frühstück hat uns unser Ausflugsbus nach Taipeh gebracht. Fritz, unser taiwanesischer Reiseleiter, zeigte uns wichtige nationale Gedenkstätten, wo wir sogar die Wachablösungen beobachten konnten. Gestärkt von einem taiwanesischen Mittagessen, eroberten wir den ehemals höchsten Turm der Welt, den Taipeh 101. Leider war die Sicht nicht so gut. Wieder zurück am Schiff mussten wir mit vielen Hundert Passagieren am neuen Terminal anstehen, um auf das Schiff zurück zu kehren. Es war ein schöner und anstrengender Ausflug, aber morgen können wir uns am Seetag ausruhen.Read more

    • Day 13

      Keelung/Taiwan

      March 22 in Taiwan ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C

      Ein sehr grünes Fleckchen. Wir haben Glück, denn es regnet eigentlich jeden Tag hier. Wie hatten super Wetter mit Sonnenschein. Besucht haben wir einen Geopark und einen Fischmarkt. Ich kann nur sagen, Susi im Snackparadies - und alles lecker 😋.
      Ji-Long wird der Name übrigens ausgesprochen.
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    • Day 183

      Keelung: Steps & More Steps

      June 12, 2023 in Taiwan ⋅ 🌧 77 °F

      Thanks to the overnight we gained in Keelung, today we opted to explore this city instead of going back to Taipei. A better plan on a short port day.

      With rain in the forecast, we grabbed our umbrellas and went down to the gangway at 7:15a to join up with Younga and David, who had a plan similar to what we wanted to do … hike up to the Big Buddha Temple, which sits high atop a hill overlooking the port.

      But first we made a detour … inspired by one of Chef Farid's Facebook postings. What had caught my attention was a beautiful marble lotus floor. When I asked him which temple it was, he replied … “near the ship.” Hmmmm! There were several temples near the ship. We got the full answer to the question from a guard at the port gate. It was the Fo Guang Shan Ji Le Temple. Plugging the name into Google Maps, off we went.

      Fo Guang Shan is an international Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhist organization and monastic order based in Taiwan. We visited the Buddha Museum at the monastery in Kaohsiung on RTW2017 … an amazing place. The followers practice Humanistic Buddhism, and are known for their efforts to modernize Chinese Buddhism. They are also one of the largest charitable organizations in Taiwan, offering services in particular to the needy in remote villages.

      That we had the temple to ourselves doubled our pleasure in the place. The marble inlay floor was amazing … the murals decorating the walls eye-catching. One of the monks came out to give us her prayer card and one of the volunteers handed each of us a happy Buddha charm. Such nice, thoughtful gestures. Nothing was expected in return, but we put some Taiwanese money in the donation box on our way out.

      We were just walking away when a local man approached us with a small box. Intended as an offering for the temple’s Buddha, he instead gave the box to us with a smile and said in English that he wanted us to have it. Another lovely gesture. We, in turn, left it as an offering at the Big Buddha Temple later when we finally managed to get up there.

      Next up was the planned hike to ZhongZheng Park to see Keelung’s Guanyin statue … aka the Big Buddha. Like so many places in Taiwan, the park is named after Chiang Kai-shek … ZhongZheng being the name he chose for himself sometime around 1917-1918.

      Unfortunately, we hit a couple of stumbling blocks in our quest to reach the temple … and I don’t mean the many, many, many steep steps we had to climb in our quest. Rather, due to restoration work being done on the Zhupu Altar, which was also on our list of places to see, we had to detour via the main road instead of through a park-like setting. At least we were rewarded — stinging mosquitoes notwithstanding — for those initial stairs we ended up climbing by finding the Martyr’s Shrine … though it was closed.

      The shrine was originally known simply as the Keelung Shrine. It was converted from a Japanese Shinto shrine to honor the martyrs of WWII after the war. In 1969, the original structure was demolished and a new one in the style of a northern Chinese palace was built. The big torii [Shinto shrine archway] was also rebuilt and named the Chung Cheng Park Monument.

      The interesting thing we noted before we took the detour further up the hill was that the initial steps we climbed took us to the Xiner Bomb Shelter Square. These places are a necessity in Taiwan because of China’s aggressive stance. In fact, we read this morning that yesterday Taiwan had to scramble fighter jets when 10 Chinese warplanes flew across what is deemed the sensitive median line.

      Our next stop, after walking through an area that was probably off-limits due to the restoration work, was the Zhupu Altar. I had noticed the temple as Insignia was coming into port yesterday and found it very photogenic. Apparently it is associated with the month-long Ghost Festival, which is held during the seventh month of the lunar calendar … usually in August/September.

      By the time we arrived at ZhongZheng Park, having climbed up through a woodland area where mosquitoes were swarming, the on-and-off drizzle was starting to pick-up. What we didn’t realize at the time was that we had entered the park through the rear instead of the main temple entrance. That explained why our first glimpse of the Guanyin statue was from the back.

      A short segue here to explain about Buddha vs Guanyin. Which begs the need to describe what a bodhisattva is. As I understand it, this word comes from Sanskrit and refers to someone who, in Buddhism, seeks awakening [bodhi] … thus is an individual on the path to becoming a buddha. Guanyin, a figure in Chinese Buddhism is the bodhisattva of “infinite compassion and mercy” … and is referred to as the most widely beloved Buddhist Divinity, with miraculous powers to assist all those who pray to her.

      The first thing we noticed at the park was that it was possible to climb up inside the Guanyin statue … for a small donation, of course. We paid up and decided to check it out. In my case, I was thinking that there would be some kind of an observation terrace at the top. There wasn’t. But we didn’t figure that out until we had climbed several very steep, narrow stairs with small platforms in between. On each floor, the walls were decorated with scenes depicting the life story of Buddha. We went as high as we could to find that the last section — where the stairs became ladders — was off-limits. Those ladders probably led up into the head of the statue.

      At this top-most level, we found a small altar to Guanyin and left the little box of goodies that we were gifted earlier as an offering to the Goddess of Mercy. Then it was time to negotiate the steep stairs back down to the ground floor.

      By the time we stepped out from the statue, the rain was coming down … light but steady. Opening our umbrellas, we strolled around to the front of the Guanyin statue, which is guarded by two golden lions. After a wet but fun photo-op, we wandered the grounds, checking out a gazebo in which a lotus-shaped wishing well is topped by four statues. Then, following a cloister-like passage lined with red columns, we walked over to the giant drum and took the time to ring it … not as easy as one might think (as you will see in the video).

      A quick stop into the temple itself and we were ready to leave. That’s when we found the main gate through which we would have entered had we not detoured into the forest on our way up. We opted to return by way of the road, thus avoiding the mosquitoes.

      Our day wasn’t quite complete yet, but having reached the max number of photos I can attach to a footprint, the rest of the story will have to wait until the next post.
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    • Day 14

      Keelung - Taiwan

      March 22 in Taiwan ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

      Eine alte Hafen/Arbeiter Stadt.
      Schön ist was anderes, aber auf den 2ten Blick entdeckt man auch hier schöne Oasen.
      Gleich früh morgens haben wir uns auf den Weg zum Tempel gemacht.
      Da der Keelung Tower noch zu war, hieß es gefühlt 1000 Stufen hoch zu gehen.
      Aber es hat sich gelohnt. Auf dem Weg nach oben, kommt man an vielen kleinen Buddha Statuen vorbei. Zwischen drin wunderschöne Tempelanlagen. Oben dann der Buddha, soweit der liegende Buddha.
      Insgesamt ein herrlicher Morgenspaziergang.
      Anschließend ging es mit dem Bus nach Juifen. Ein kleines Dörfchen, wo man, mitten auf den Bahngleisen, Himmelslaternen steigen lassen kann.
      Zuerst werden Wünsche oder Bitten oder Sprüche mit Pinsel und Tinte auf den Ballon aufgetragen. Anschließend lässt man sie in den Himmel steigen. Die Wünsche sollen dann in Erfüllung gehen.
      Nicht weit weg haben wir dann den Juifen Waterfall besichtigt. Der größte Wasserfall in Taiwan. Sagen wir so: eine nette Parkanlage mit Wasserfall.
      Größe des Wasserfalls dürfte ungefähr die Hälfte vom Rheinfall sein.
      Es war ein sehr schöner Tag und auch der erste richtig warme mit ca 25Grad 😁
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    • Day 156

      Keelung

      April 2, 2023 in Taiwan ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

      Da das Wetter am Sonntag überraschenderweise doch schön war, habe ich noch einen kleinen Tagesausflug gemacht nach Keelung, einer Hafenstadt etwa eine Stunde nordöstlich von Taipei. Habe mir ein Moped ausgeborgt um die Gegend zu erkunden.

      Am Weg zurück habe ich dann noch Totoro besucht.

      Als ich am Abend dann wieder in Keelung war, kam es mir so vor als wären alle TaipeianerInnen nach Keelung gepilgert um dort auf den Nightmarket zu gehen. Zumindest haben sich die Straßen des Markts so angefühlt. Ich wollte eigentlich mein Abendessen dort erledigen, aber es warn mir einfach zu viele Leute um mir etwas zu essen zu finden.

      ###### english ######

      Since the weather was surprisingly nice on Sunday, I made a small day trip to Keelung, a port city about an hour northeast of Taipei. I borrowed a moped to explore the area.

      On the way back, I visited Totoro.

      When I was back in Keelung in the evening, it seemed to me that all Taipeians had made a pilgrimage to Keelung to go to the night market there. At least that's what the streets of the market felt like. I actually wanted to have dinner there but there were just too many people to find me something to eat.
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    • Day 148

      Taipei-Keelung, Taiwan Eve TEMPLE- 3of3

      June 11, 2023 in Taiwan ⋅ 🌧 81 °F

      In the middle of the market was a beautiful Dianji (Holy King) Temple (see the warrior on the horse out front) in the middle of the craziness. The Dianji Temple was built in 1873, and is the biggest Temple in Keelung City. People worship Kaichang Holy King (and other Gods) here since the ancient people of Keelung mostly came from Min Nan. Sometimes outdoor performers and other entertainers perform near the temple as well. Note: the small divining blocks. We watched as people prayed with these block many time over the time we visited this Temple and others. The half-moon shaped blocks are made of wood or bamboo root and are known in the Hokkien dialect in Taiwan as bwa bwey.

      The person looking for guidance or answers to questions from the Gods, waits until both crescents have come to a standstill before deciphering and recording the information that has been delivered. He/she then says out loud what the Gods have communicated. It is then repeated over and over in a rhythmic pattern. When the blocks have fallen with the flat surface down, it indicates the God’s dissatisfaction or disagreement with the question posed. If the crescents land with one flat side and one rounded side up, then the response is considered positive, or affirmative. The third combination, both blocks fall with the rounded side positioned down, meaning the “gods are laughing” and their advice is inconclusive. Often, the process goes on for a long time. Very intense (and interesting) to watch as people pray to the Gods and wait intently for an answer.
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    • Day 182

      Keelung: Night Market

      June 11, 2023 in Taiwan ⋅ 🌧 77 °F

      With the sights in Taipei all closed for the day, we had a decision to make.

      We all agreed that next we wanted to go to a night market. The question was which one? Stay in Taipei and go to the Shilin Market? Or drive back to the port and go to the Keelung Market? We decided on the latter … which would give us some time to dry off en route.

      We set off from Taipei under pouring rain. By the time we arrived in Keelung around 7:00p, the rain had stopped. Bidding the driver good bye at the head of the Night Market, we hopped out on a narrow street decorated with yellow lanterns on both sides.

      The full name of the market is Keelung Miaokou Night Market. Miaokou is a Mandarin word, which appropriately means “the doorway of the temple.” We later popped into the Dianji Temple, but first a wander in the market was in order.

      Making our way up and down a couple of streets, we checked out the various street food offerings. We found some delicious corn on the cob to munch on as we wandered. Then, Mui and David tasted some chicken skewers … after making sure they weren’t chicken butts. Mui also tasted a sausage. Later, we found some delicious rice with mushroom. Yummy, yummy! All tasty … all quick … all inexpensive.

      It was after 8:00p when we returned to Insignia, our feet ready to call it a night. After arranging to meet them at 7:30a for what we anticipate will be a steep climb to a temple in Keelung, we bid Younga & David farewell. We were on our way to the cabin when we decided to detour to the Terrace Café for dessert. My favorite Humphry Slocombe ice cream was on the menu … Regatta Royale … chocolate with a hint of orange. YAY!

      Time to rest up for tomorrow … luckily the rain has stopped so I can do that on the veranda with the city lights glittering in the distance.
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    You might also know this place by the following names:

    Keelung, 지룽 시, 基隆市

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