Lantern Festival, Teresa Teng, and Preparing for the Worst

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Lunar New Year Trip to Taiwan - January 7 ~ February 6, 2020

While we were happily celebrating this Lunar New Year with family, news of COVID-19 hitting China was already being made headline news all over the world. We would be watching the news everyday as reports of the number of people infected in China rising daily and the situation worsen in many cities. With Taiwan being so close to China, and people traveling between the two so frequently, especially during this New Year period, it became a major concern for us as we will have a return flight back to the US with a stopover in Xiamen, China. Son, who was back home in California, warned us to better cancel our return flight with Xiamen Air and purchase tickets for a direct flight back to Los Angeles. With the help of Connie, our travel agent in L.A., she was able to switch our flights and the good news was that Xiamen Air will refund the unused tickets back to us. With that we only had to pay a few dollars more for the one-way ticket from Taiwan back to L.A., and it was for Ontario Airport which is much closer home than LAX. We felt relieved. Little did we expect what would be ahead of us on our return flight back home.

I have always traveled with face masks stocked in my carry-on in the last few years. It was not because of virus protection. I found that it is more comfortable for me to have a face mask on when we are on the plane so as not to breathe in the dry cold air blowing out from the air stream. (At the same time I also wear a thin jacket, $30 from Costco, with a hood to cover my head.) It seems like I have been doing the right thing, more so from the virus nowadays. On the last flight from L.A. to Xiamen, my seatmate from the Philippines was asking where I got those face masks from. She thought that I have asked the flight attendants for them. So I shared a few from my stock with her to use as she will have another long flight ahead. 

As news of COVID-19 continued to brew, I decided to see if I can find more face masks. We still have a couple of days in town and then a week in Taipei before flying home and I was low on inventory. I was basically prepared for using face masks on the flights and not for using them on a daily basis. We won't have enough to last til the end of this trip if we have to cover ourselves everyday. To my surprise, I was able to locate a few packages on the shelves of the tiny convenient store. The cheaper ones were sold out but these ones made in Japan were still available for about 80 NTD for a pack of seven. A little more expensive than I wanted but at least they were available. When I went back the next morning, they were all sold out. Fortunately, I was able to grab seven packs the day before to last us til Taipei and left the remaining ones for our friends there. They said those were the best gifts when face masks were so hard to find.

Got some face masks for the rest of our trip here.

Enjoying all the good food available in Taiwan is one of our goals while visiting this beautiful island. MOR can get all he wants to his heart desires of the food he missed while being away. Trying out new places to satisfy our curiosity is also fun and adventurous. On this day, Smart Fish in Chiayi was totally jammed with long lines of customers because of the New Year holidays so we had to look for alternatives. We remembered that there is a sushi place inside the High Speed Rail station that we could try and that was where we headed.

Sushi on conveyor belt.

Not the best but still nice.

Sushi Express

Lantern Festival, Yenshui

The town of Yenshui is famous for the Beehive Fireworks Festival held on the 15th day of New Year celebration every year. It is a very important event for this town and visitors from all over the world come to experience the excitement of being drown in the midst of bursting firecrackers. Leading up to this event, the Yenshui township also set up lanterns near the river for all to admire. We won't be staying long enough to see the Beehive Fireworks Festival, so, enjoying the lanterns was the next best thing we could do while in town.

Some of the lanterns set up on the river.

Absolutely beautiful!

It was cold and windy on the night we were there but the crowds braved the weather and enjoyed a festive evening there.

Vendor selling colorful toys.

The Snack City looked so different at night.

Lanterns everywhere!

One more serving of stinky tofu before the end of the night.

Qingsong Restaurant, Beigang

This restaurant has become one of our our must-go places while in Taiwan. We have never been disappointed every time we were here. There is always something new and interesting being served that we have not had before. It's certainly an excellent place for family gathering.

On this fifth day of the NY, many family members had already traveled back to their homes for work so only a few could join us for this wonderful meal.

Abalone

This is something I have never had before. A new type of vegetables called 'ice flower'.

Crisp crunchy texture with some icy, dewy looking circles on the surface. Very refreshing!

Shark fin soup

Porridge with crab roe and crab meat.

Grilled ribs

Baked shrimps

Sticky rice with eel

Whole steamed fish

Crab pot

Mullet roe and some kind of deep fried rolls.

Sweet buns

Red bean soup to end the meal.

Teresa Tang's Birth Place, Baozhong, Yunlin

Teresa Tang, famous singer and supersstar was well-admired by the Chinese population all over the world. She was  born in the township of Baozhong, Yunlin. Even though she only lived here for a very short time we felt that this is a good opportunity to check this place out. It was just a short drive from the restaurant to Baozhong and a nice drive on this fine day.

This location is served almost like a memorial hall of Teresa Teng, who only lived a short life of 42 years (1953~1995) and suffered from an asthma attack at the end. She is well-remembered as the one who was so popular in China even before the opening up of the country. It was said that "Old Deng (Xiao-ping, late leader of China) ruled the day and Little Teng the night." Both of them shared the same last name in Chinese.

One can easily missed the entrance of this place since it is hidden away from the highway with only these signs outside. This is really in the country side in the middle of nowhere.

Entering the old house through this pretty walkway.

Old pictures of Teng were made as parts of the tiled wall.

This is the exterior of the Teresa Cafe and souvenir shop.

The old farm house where Teresa Teng lived after she was born.

They were having a special memorial concert that evening, but we did not stay for that.

Volunteers were setting up the stage for the concert.

The bedroom.

Main hall

There's not much to see other than the building but a good place to remember her as a fan.

We were treated with coffee and pineapple cakes by Brother-in-law at the cafe. As I remember, it was not cheap.

Inside the cafe.

Good afternoon snacks.

"Wherever there is Chinese, there is the voice of Teresa Teng."

Hidden away from the highway.

On our last day in town, we were able to visit a local park with no other visitors around.

A sculpture representing the popular activity in town, pigeon racing competition.

"I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."   -- John 6:35