A Visit to Beautiful Bi-tan (碧潭) in Xindian (新店)

Today is 2/28, a national holiday in Taiwan. I won't explain it in detail in today's entry, but it's in honor of the thousands of people who were killed by the government under martial law in Taiwan before it became a democracy. If you're interested you can read more here.

Since it's a holiday, the Taiwanese family I'm working with decided to go on a picnic to Bi-tan ("The Jade-green Pool"), a famous beauty spot in Xindian. At least famous enough that it's in all my Chinese software dictionaries and comes up as a suggestion when I begin to type it on both my computer and my phone, which seems reasonably famous to me...

I had never been before, and accepted their invitation to join them. And I'm glad I did! Now I know a relaxing spot for a day trip on the very south end of the Taipei Metro, like Danshui is at the north end.

Both Danshui and Bitan are more or less riverside walks, but Bitan is relaxing and the focus is on nature, while Danshui is more lively and has lots of food, although Bitan has a little food and Danshui has some scenery, so both places are great. Choose depending on what you're feeling more like that day. 

You get to Bitan from the Xindian (end of the line) station of the MRT, basically come out of the station and it's pretty obvious which direction to go. There are buses that go there as well, and you can rent a city bike in the vicinity with your transit card.

I took lots of pics, here are a few from throughout the day...

"Bi-Qiao," the Bi-tan bridge. (Characters read right to left, the old way)

Crossing the bridge. As a foot/suspension bridge, it moves around like the deck of a ship.

There was an event going on since it's a holiday, but I don't think it had anything to do with the holiday itself.
(My friends said it was a government-sponsored organization that did anti-drug events or something to that effect)

Looking north. Paddle boats are the thing to do here, it would seem.

The spot's name comes from the deep green color of the water here. It's apparently also nicknamed "Little Red Cliff" because it looks a little like a famous spot in China. (If you've seen the Battle of Red Cliff, it's that place)

Knife massage, anyone?

Some of our picnic snacks.

The sun was going in and out of the clouds.

A peaceful day. Except the event over there was blaring loud music.

I like this one.

"People hill, people river." (A little less than "人山人海")

Restaurants along the river front.

A white egret (center left) flies over the emerald water.

A little colony of white egrets.

Lots of people were out walking, bicycling, etc.

Sun comes out, and an eagle soars overhead.

For a small fee, a boatman will take you across. I'll check it out next time.

On a street full of old businesses. This shop has been operating for 100 years.
It's a noodle turtle! I am informed these are getting rare.

A snack-turtle designed to be offered in a temple. The character on the turtles' backs represents longevity.

There's a mini-night market here as well.

Find more than a dozen people in one place on the street in Taiwan, and there will be people selling food there.

Heading back to our bus stop.

It was a peaceful place, and we only saw part of it. There are also hiking trails up into the mountains. I'll definitely be coming back here, hopefully I can get a real camera and get some better shots of the eagles and white egrets too...

Bonus Picture Post! #3 - A Walk Through My Community, Part 2

My walk continues as I pass by the street I live on, and head towards the renovated area around the new HTC research center. (HTC is a Taiwan-based smartphone and tablet manufacturing company, their HTC One phone was relatively popular in the US as well)

I live down this way

Recycling truck on the move

Garbage truck. There are no household garbage cans to put on the street in Taiwan, or streetside dumpsters.
If you don't live in a highrise, you take your garbage directly to the truck and toss it in there.
They run on a daily schedule and play music (like an ice cream truck) so you know they're coming.

I have no idea what this is, except I think it's a plant and not an alien life form.

Coming out of the residential area, towards HTC. Notice the drying clothes blowing in the wind.

HTC's new research facility, a big boost to the local economy.

HTC built a corporate park for their employees, it's quite nice.
That stuff in the water is fountain equipment.

Some team of architects/designers is proud.

Kids playing in the park area under the watchful eye of their father (offscreen).
The apartments to the left have one of the most interesting uses of empty space I've seen around here.

Sweepers making sure it stays picture-perfect. Note the mountains in the background, they're never far away in Taiwan.

It's a very nice park, and for community use as well as HTC employees. Looks like the perfect spot for a quiet time to me!

One of several schools in our immediate vicinity.

Many areas lie behind gates in Taiwan, access is restricted to those who have a reason to be there.
It's a good metaphor for the barriers to ministry here; relationship is the key that unlocks them.

Another school, this one right behind the community center in Part 1 where our church will theoretically be meeting.

It's getting later in the afternoon, time to head back home.

In my current (temporary) residence, a floor above my Taiwanese coworkers.
This is the view out the front...

And this is out the back.

Well, this concludes our little exploration. As you can see, we have everything in Dapinglin, from affluent community parks and high-tech global companies along expanding subway lines to Chinese traditional markets and alley mazes along concrete drainage canals. It's a diverse and growing community, and I'm excited to be working here.

Bonus Picture Post! #3 - A Walk Through My Community, Part 1

So I thought I'd take you all on a little walk around the area surrounding my current residence in Dapinglin, which is the same set of neighborhoods to which our church -once planted, God willing- will be reaching out.

There is a wide socioeconomic variation within a small area here, as you will see. One church cannot reach these tens of thousands of people with very different life circumstances, but it's a start, and with God's blessing we hope it will be both a quickly reproducing church and a model for planting similar churches in other locales.

Let's go!

This is the community center where we'll start teaching classes soon, and eventually hope to have a weekly service

This is a fairly typical major street around here

There's Gigabyte, for my computer savvy friends. Left foreground is a gas station

An extremely common sight along Taiwan's streets

One of the many convenience stores sprinkled throughout the area.
If I turned the camera to the left, you'd see another one less than fifty feet down the road

One of the reasons you can have so many convenience stores... population density

Let's get off the main road and find some less affluent neighborhoods

There are more cellphones than people in Taiwan,
but you can still find payphones dotted here and there...

Wandering more or less aimlessly... I find an "unimproved neighborhood"where there's a local market.
It looks worse right now than usual, I'm just there when everything is closed and deserted.
I'll try to go back again when it's more lively!

Going deeper into this lower income community.

Rather deep... (Same picture as above, different perspective)

Apparently if I want some Chinese medicine, I should go here. I was later told that somewhere back up in here is a tree that is thought to be inhabited by a spirit, and worshiped accordingly by some in the community

For anything else I could possibly need, there's this little shop.

(Skipping a few pics where I show how I manage to find my way back to the main road out of a tiny maze of dead-ends and back alleys. I was never far away from it, but in the older parts of town here the streets aren't straight, and you can't figure out how to get "there" from "here")

I said micro-community earlier because every picture so far (and all the pics in Part 2 of this post too)
are within two or three square kilometers' area. See any names you are familiar with in this pic?

Probably about 300' away from that drainage ditch, I could be somewhere in NYC.
Although I suppose that drainage ditch looked like some parts of NYC too...

Construction for the new subway line. Dapinglin's Metro line station is about to become a transfer station.

This new subway line will make things a lot more convenient for those of us out in the "suburbs" (there is no such thing as an actual suburb in Taiwan that I'm aware of, but in the sense of outlying-but-connected cities that are part of a metro area) south of Taipei City.

So that was my foray into a poorer micro-community and back. I discovered one tiny local church while in there, I am told attendance is about 10-20 people. I might try to drop by sometime later and see if my not-very-good Chinese is sufficient for a conversation!

Just for fun: Do you want to go on a similar walk? Copy and paste this into Google Maps: "台湾新北市新店區寶安街Leben Cafe 喝杯咖啡" You'll be starting more or less in the middle of where I took most of these pics. Use street view to zoom all the way in and explore the neighborhood!

CONTINUED IN PART 2...