New Years, Mud Volcanoes and Temples, Oh my!

Well, with another short 3-day week behind us we were ready to set out and celebrate New Years, Taiwan Style (whatever that might mean).

New Years Eve found us in Hsinchu in a crowd of hundreds of Taiwanese people anxiously awaiting the New Years. We weren't in the crowd long before a friend of ours who lived nearby suggested we go up to the roof of their apartment building to watch the chaos - ah-hem, I mean festivities. So, there we were, the only ones on the roof - everybody else in Hsinchu was in the crowd - wondering why isn't anybody else up here? Of course, Taiwanese love to be where the people are whereas our natural inclination is to get away from the crowd.

So, there we were, making sure we knew how to count backwards from 10 in Chinese, when all of a sudden the countdown was upon us. Zero came, there was a dull cheer from the crowd below and a louder one from us on the roof and then the fireworks started. I think that different places in the city must compete for the best fireworks show because we literally had about fifteen different ones going off all around us that we had a perfect view of from our spot on the roof. A pretty memorable new years, actually. Sadly, we have no pictures as we both forgot our cameras. : (

We had much debated about what to do with the following days off and had settled on a scooter trip down to some hot springs. But, with the onset of freezing temperatures and wind, we decided on a change of plans. We hopped on the HSR (High Speed Rail) and within an hour and a half were in the southern city of Kaohsiung where we met up with some friends who live there. We also had some friends come down from Taipei so there were six of us total.

That night found us wandering around the city and playing some good 'ol Guitar Hero and Wii Sports. Here is Luke and me duking it out on Wii Boxing.
And, here is Luke on the guitar. What can I say...the man takes his Guitar Hero seriously. ; )
The next day we headed north to the city of Tainan. It is a former capital and has a wealth of temples and history. Here are a few pictures:
Also, we stopped in at a coffee shop called "The Narrow Door." See why?
After a leisurely morning the next day, we were back at it again with a trip to the mud volcanoes. What is a mud volcano, you ask? Pretty much one of the weirdest things you've ever seen.
Yup, that's it. A volcano formed from mud bubbling out of it. Surprisingly amusing, but you wouldn't know it from looking at the picture. This shoe lost its person. Mine almost met the same muddy fate.
And, here are the boys of our group, tempting the mud gods by throwing stuff in the volcano. Boys will be boys...
Here is a video, though it may be boring. There's my disclaimer, so don't go accusing me of uploading lame videos. ; )


Next up was Foguanshan...the mecca for Buddhism in southern Taiwan. But, oops...along the way we got distracted. Here is another fountain/temple/shrine thingy we found.
Dudesy was hard at work....I don't think he so much as stirred the whole time we were there.
So, with that detour completed, on to Foguanshan!

There was a 50 meter high buddha surrounded by 480 smaller buddhas...
So pretty!The entire complex was enormous, but we only had time to see the big buddha and the main shrine. Here is the main shrine...
It was breathtaking...
There must have been 10,000 of these in every space, on every wall.
So, that about concludes our New Years trip to Kaohsiung. But, just for good measure....here are the boys of what was our little scooter gang that weekend...