Dragon Boat Festival

Dragon Boat Festival is a 4-day weekend in Taiwan, but as with most 1-day holidays falling during the work week, an extra vacation day or two is added to connect it to the weekend, and then the entire country works on a Saturday to make up the connecting work days missed. That’s just a long explanation to say that even though we had a 4-day weekend, we had to work on Saturday. Having a Saturday “make up day” for a holiday is very common here, and I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before in my blog. It’s usually not to make up the holiday itself, just the days off used to connect it to the weekend.

Anyway, the festival lasted the whole weekend even though the “official” holiday was May 30th. The story of Dragon Boat Festival is actually quite interesting. A loyal servant to the Chinese emperor named Chu Yuan was forced to leave and return to his village after some of the other servants spread harmful lies about him, which reached the emperor. Chu Yuan was distraught having lost the trust of the emperor, and he missed his country. While he was home, he wrote many poems about his country. Eventually, on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, his depression caused him to drown himself in the Milo River. The people living by the riverbank respected him and went to search for him in dragon boats. They threw zongzi (rice wrapped in bamboo leaves) into the water and beat drums to keep the fish from destroying his body. Every year since, people have raced dragon boats and eaten zongzi around late-May or early-June to honor his memory. Here’s a short video illustrating the tale:

 

I went with Adriana on the festival’s final day. We hiked up the stairs of a tall bridge to cross the river where the dragon boat races were taking place. The bridge had an excellent aerial view of the boats.

Every 20 minutes or so, two or three boats with teams in matching colored shirts paddled to the starting point to get in position. When it was time to start, a team member at the front of the boat would steadily beat a drum, guiding the team to row in sync. When they crossed the finish line, one team member was responsible for grabbing a flag.

Intricate dragon heads decorated the front of the boats, and they inched forwards and backwards with their competition.

Rowers involved in the competition ran up and down the riverbank cheering on their friends. The weather was overcast and a little rainy, so once we had seen a few races, we were content. It was late afternoon, so we decided to check out a restaurant called Modern Toilet.

Modern Toilet

Modern Toilet is a novelty restaurant that serves its food and drinks out of small western toilets, squat toilets, and urinals. The atmosphere goes all-out with the bathroom theme, featuring closed toilets as chairs, spiral lamp shades, and plexiglass covered sinks and bathtubs as tables. Faucets stick out of the wall above bench-style seating lined with spiral, poop-inspired pillows. The restaurant concept has been a bit of a global phenomenon ever since it was featured in some viral videos a while back. In Asia, there are more and more poop-themed restaurants popping up from China to Japan.

 

We met up with Howard at the restaurant, and since it was still early evening, just ordered a snack. We both got desserts that came out in mini squat toilets, with a stack of spiral, brown ice cream right in the center. I also ordered rose tea, which came out in a mini western toilet. It was quite cute and even had a handle like a large mug.

When we had gotten our laugh at Modern Toilet, we headed to Tamsui to meet up with some others to play board games. There was a massive parade going on with fireworks, dancers, and tons of people walking the street. We had quite a good view from where we were playing board games. As we left, the parade was still blaring music and little, yellow papers were scattered all over the road. I can’t be certain, but these were probably thrown in the air and burned as part of a cultural celebration of Dragon Boat Festival.

Baishawan

As part of the 4-day weekend, George and I went to Baishawan, a white sand beach on the northeastern coast of Taiwan. Even though Taiwan is almost always unbearably hot, we managed to pick the one day it was cold and rainy for the beach. However, it didn’t stop us from taking some photos, watching the sunset, and having a delicious fish and chips meal at a British pub overlooking the water. The beach was fairly remote, so there was only one or two shops around our hotel. It was nice being away from the city-life of Taipei, even if just for a night. We played 2-player Citadels, which has a much different mind-game element than playing with more people. I liked it, but I also won.

In the morning, we ate at the fish and chips pub again, and watched windsurfers catch huge air on the water. They would defy gravity by staying in the air for so long, eventually crashing back into the water and doing it all over again.

Then we checked out the North Coast Exploratorium, which had a very easy surfing simulation game inside. It wasn’t very big or exciting, so we went on a walk on a nearby scenic trail. George taught me some words in Chinese, and we decided to head back to Tamsui, where we played board games with the same friends mentioned above. I wish the weather was nicer, but I suppose we can always go again! It was fairly easy to get to via MRT and bus.

Hot Air Balloon Festival

Howard and I have talked about going to the big hot air balloon festival on the east coast for a year now. So when there was a smaller one a little bit closer by, we took the opportunity. He drove us and two of his roommates, Oliver and Gabriela, to the Riverside Park in Daxi, Taoyuan for a day of balloon viewing.

The event staff said it was a bit too windy to release the balloons into the air, so we decided to take a short hike and get a better view for the light show at night. On our way up, we saw a man take a large fish out of a tank and into the street. He threw it on the ground and beat it with a club as it flopped around, eventually coming to a lifeless stop. We were impressed and a little stunned by what we just saw, but were sure that we had to get seafood later. After the show, we ate at one of the seafood restaurants on our way back down the mountain. It was great to make some new friends!