A big golden Buddha and a walk in the woods

Spending our weekends in the Hsinchu area is typically quite enjoyable (unless there is a typhoon) and we always find new things to do and see just a scooter ride away.

We enjoyed a leisurely Saturday morning.  I felt like a teenager because we slept until 9:30 am.  That means the sun has been up in Taiwan for about four and a half hours.  Here's our morning fruit fest!

We left the apartment around lunch time and headed to visit the large golden Buddha statue.  We saw it from the peak of a mountain we hiked recently.  The ride to the place was gorgeous.  We drove through rice fields.  The rice is perfectly planted!  James said it reminded him of the movie "Last Samurai" with Tom Cruise. We arrived at the golden Buddha and found the gates were closed during the lunch hours to enter the large "temple." Luckily, a vegetarian restaurant, Joyful House, associated with the place was open.  The meal was by donation there.  We enjoyed a big bowl of noodles, veggies and tofu that looked like meat (but fortunately did not taste like it, too).

Rice fields

I spy a Buddha!

These rules from the restaurant are going on our front door: Non-vegetarian food, smoking, alcohol, and pets are strictly prohibited  :) ....well cute dogs are permitted for a short stay (Clifford & Layla)

We took the "Nature Loving Wonderland" walk around the lake as we waited for the gates to open.  The name fit the lovely walk. 

When we entered the gate, the greeter gave us a long list of rules.  We were not allowed to wear our sleeveless shirts.  Fortunately, we had our long sleeved shirts to prevent sunburning while on the scooter with us.  I was also required to wear this wrap they gave me so my knees would be covered.  I saw a few other women with these lovely "skirts" on, too.  I am dressed like a yellow Big Bird!!

We entered through the arch on the far right - the arch of joyfulness we were later told

These clocks (and matching wrist watches) are promoted within this group.  Each number is associated with a "good attitude" such as cheerful, amicable, faithful, etc. 

Meeting our English tour guide, James

James in front of the Buddha. The Buddha is almost the same height as the Statue of Liberty. 

As we were walking to the main temple and taking pictures of the many Buddha statues, our surprise English tour guide, James, met me with an UV protection umbrella.  He is not the normal English tour guide as his English is only "simple" he said.  He took us to the large building you can see in the pictures.  We were required to put footies over the bottoms of our shoes to protect the floor in the building.  The building and statue were completed in 2011.  They are welcoming of all religions.  James was an engineer for the project and now he volunteers and lives full-time on the grounds.  I think he might be training to be a monk but he never said that in English I could understand.  We were not allowed to take pictures inside.  We saw many, many, many Buddha statues. The values are incredible and very true that are practiced by this religion.  I say "this religion" because by the end of the tour we were confused exactly what religion this group actually is.  We think it is a mix of Buddhism and Taoism but there seems to be an extra emphasis on loving nature. From what we understood, the principles are great to live by! They addressed the religion as "The Universal Family." Also, the tour included a world map with locations. There were maybe thirty-ish locations around the world.  The US location is in LA. Here is the website but it does not explain much: www.naturelovingwonderland.org

Anyway, we saw a ton of Buddhas and learned the values of being cheerful, putting people before money, loving nature by eating vegetarian, etc.  We thought the tour was almost over...  We entered the building with the big golden Buddha so we could walk around the top.  Well, instead we were given a tour of the first floor of the building with more Buddhas.  Then, after going to the top, Tour Guide James asked if we wanted to watch a Chinese movie about the place.  We said no but somehow we ended up watching the movie anyways.  I guess he did not understand our English. After two and 1/2 hours, we left the grounds!  We felt like we were there for six hours for some reason.  Apparently, the normal English tour is one hour but we received the VIP tour instead :)  Overall, I would recommend the place for a visit as the big golden Buddha is quite impressive!  Ohh, as James was explaining the clock to us, the hands happened to be pointing at "Casual Elegance" and "Actualized."  He asked us if we were feeling that way currently.  My James and I looked at each other and told tour guide James, " I am not really sure."  We discussed later that "Causal Elegance" sounds like a dress code at a fancy event.  I suppose these are an awkward Chinese to English translation?

JUST in case you are interested in purchasing a watch :)  http://www.dmg-brighttime.com

On Sunday we headed to Neiwan with our hiking buddy.  Neiwan is a small town in the mountains about a one hour scooter ride east of Hsinchu. 

The bridge over the river in Neiwan.  People swim and fish in the river in this area. You can rent boogie boards and floats!

Old Street Neiwan - Lots of food and drink vendors (and stinky tofu smells...yuck)

We continued into the mountains after a short stop for food on the old street and drove up a wild mountain road to get to the trail head.  The hike was pretty wild!  We hiked for four and a half hours!  The hike highlights included climbing wooden ladders, using ropes to climb up the steep areas to the peak (my arms were sore on Monday), a waterfall, VERY large cypress trees, and meeting a hiking group of retirees.  The retirees hike every few weeks in different places.  They carry a very large amount of food with them and cook lunch on the trail.  They offered us a full lunch that had cooked.  Seriously, they carried a massive pot to make a soup, lots of water, tea pots, and other such things. What?!  We wanted to make it to the peak, so we continued on our way after a short conversation.  The whole hike was extremely humid and muggy.  I think all the moisture in the air made the pictures blurry (that were taken with my handy iPhone 4). We had a rough climb to the peak since we took the trail less traveled (and did not know what we were about to get ourselves into).  Some of the sections of the climb required full use of your legs and pulling yourself up using a rope. We would have turned around but we did not want to go back down the stuff!  I was so focused, breathing so hard, and sweating so much that I forgot to take pictures of these climbs. The peak was disappointing.  We were literally in a cloud so there was absolutely no view.  We did have a lot of pride by making it to the peak the hard way though!  I completely forgot I had a sinus infection after all of that!  We took the much more enjoyable hike down on the well-traveled trail. Anyway, on the way back down, the group of retirees were still hanging out.  We were not surprised that retirees would still be hanging out :) We enjoyed some tea and coffee with them (James was sooooo excited about the coffee).

Wooden bridges

Ladders

That's a big tree and a good looking guy!

This waterfall seemed so magical that I took a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2H7NmBuP1Q&feature=youtu.be

We don't know the other hikers but I decided to include them in the video!

This large tree was actually hollow and mostly dead.  We assumed it was hit by lighting.  

Action photo!

The prettiest part of the day was actually the drive down the mountain.  Sigh...the views were gorgeous!!!!

That's about it for now except  I officially opened a Taiwanese bank account today!  Also, James has a friend from college traveling to Taiwan that we look forward to sharing next weekend's adventures with.  

Zai jian!