Eating The Valley (The Southern Bits)

As I've said before, when I do travel posts I try to focus on some specific thing of interest rather than just publish an itinerary. Most recently, I focused simply on how much the KMT sucks in relation to a trip to Green Island. That's relevant to this post: that trip was the second half of this one.

This time, I want to talk a little bit about food. 

I noticed when looking for places to eat in the East Rift Valley that some of my friends knew a lot of great spots, and others none at all except perhaps that famous railway bento at Chihshang -- which I've still never tried. Most food recommendations seem to be for the northern end of the valley, closer to Hualien, not the southern bits.

The Hualien side also seems to be where most of the well-known Indigenous cuisine is. As you head south, the Hakka cultural influence becomes stronger, which is reflected in the large number of Hakka restaurants. (The other side of the mountains, where the coastal road runs, seems to have been overrun from Donghe to Dulan with foreigners, so that's where you should head if you want Western food). 

So, I thought it would be useful to talk about our driving trip through the southern reaches of the valley mostly through the lens of places to eat. Sadly, I did not actually take any food photos so you'll just have to settle for scenery. 

The view from our hotel room at the Luminous

We started our trip at Taitung Station, which is fronted by pretty good ice cream and tea shops selling locally-inspired products such as red oolong and hibiscus teas and custard apple ice cream. We used Avis/Budget through the KKDay app to book a rental car and drove to Luye (鹿野), about 30 minutes to the north.

In theory most of this trip -- minus Liushidan Mountain -- would be doable without a car. There's a train line running through the valley with local stops all the way up, it's a popular cycling route (and some of the more tourist-oriented towns offer bicycle rental) and there are public buses, though they don't seem very frequent. You'd have to be prepared to walk a lot. I recommend a car, but you don't need one unless you want to go up into the hills. Even the Luye Highlands are accessible by bus and tourist shuttle.

We'd been to the famous highlands of Luye before and didn't feel a need to return, but I'd booked us a few nights at the Luminous Hot Spring Resort & Spa. The hotel itself was nice -- I appreciated the balcony and in-room hot spring bath with mountain views -- though parts of the architecture were reminiscent of a public school. If you intend to forgo a rental car and just take the shuttle there and back, you'll be stuck paying resort prices for everything. We picked up breakfast for the next day at Family Mart, but we were fine with paying for one dinner at the extensive buffet. I was surprised with the quality of the sashimi; Brendan spoke highly of the braised pork rice. 

On our other night in Luye, we went to Ai Jiao Yi Dim Sum 愛嬌姨茶餐廳, which isn't actually dim sum at all. This friendly local restaurant serves tea-infused dishes (usually as part of a set menu but there's an affordable option for two people). I loved everything from the simple mountain greens braised in tea to the fried tofu with tea-infused dipping sauce. 

On the Monday evening when we ate there it wasn't crowded, but I do recommend calling ahead on weekends or during the high season. 

Ai Jiao Yi also grows their own tea, and you'll likely be invited to sit and try a few kinds if they're not busy. We came away with a packet of honey-scented oolong (蜜香烏龍). 

Our plan gave us one day in the East Rift Valley, and having driven around that area before, we weren't sure what precisely we wanted to do. After a leisurely coffee-drinking session our balcony, I suggested we check out the Japanese shrine in the lower part of town and then pick a spot for lunch that would require us to take a scenic drive. The shrine, by the way, is lovely -- it was built for the residents of what was at one point a Japanese village and has been restored -- and the fields surrounding it are pleasant to walk around. There isn't a lot of traffic on these village roads on a Tuesday morning in May.

The Japanese shrine in Luye

I had to move to Taiwan to figure out that's how pineapples grow. I"m not joking. 

I considered trying to eat at Mipu Hakka 米舖客家小館, a Hakka restaurant we'd tried years ago in Guanshan. It was truly excellent and they make their own kumquat sauce. However, they're really set up for larger groups, and were gracious the last time we stopped there with just three diners, despite not really having a menu for such a small number. Tongxin Dumplings 同心餃子館 was also recommended by friends.

Instead, we ended up at G九屋特製私房菜 in Dongli, which I suppose could be translated as G9 House Special Private Kitchen (?) in Fuli. This brought us into the southern reaches of Hualien County on the valley side, but still a bit south of Ruisui, whose scenic roads I've been meaning to get back to for a nice drive-around. 

One lovely part of getting up here were the opportunities to turn off Highway 9, which runs through the valley (and is barely a highway in some parts) and just meander through the countryside. A lot of people are nervous about driving on those tiny roads between fields as many don't seem like they can handle two-way traffic, but this is one of my favorite things to do. I'm scared of urban driving; even the dinkiest, most overgrown rural road is cake.  

G9 is another truly excellent find. They too have set meals, there's no real menu. We were served cold crab and vegetable spring rolls in rice skin, an absolutely delicious dish of local greens with black tree ear mushroom and bacon, a unique dish of fish slices in steamed tofu served in a bright green sauce made from local vegetables, Thai-style fried chicken, and a simple but tasty soup. The rice comes with pork oil so you can make a Hakka-style 豬油拌飯. 

Although it was still just a bit too far north for us, Our Cafe 我的咖啡館 in Guangfu (a bit north of Ruisui) comes highly recommended as well. 

After our meal at G9, we finished off our tea and discussed what to do next. We weren't far from Chihshang, which offers both scenery of the East Rift Valley itself, but also a highway that crosses the mountains and drops you off at Donghe on the coastal side. It's famous for both scenery and having a troupe of Formosan macaques.

We did both on our last trip, however, and decided to beat the usual tourist crowds by driving up Liushidan Mountain 六十旦山 instead. This area is packed with sightseers when the famous tiger lilies are in bloom across the hillsides in August and September (a similar tiger lily mountain can be found near Taimali). In early May, just a few buds were beginning to show, but the scenery was still gorgeous and there was hardly another soul around. In my opinion, the perfect time to go. 

The drive up to Liushidan Mountain from Dongli is somewhat terrifying, with more switchbacks than the drive down the other side at Dongzhu, but that's the sort of driving I'm actually good at and there was no traffic whatsoever, so I didn't mind. We stopped at as many beautiful lookout points as we could, watching low clouds and patches of sun wind their way down the valley below. In most cases, we were the only people there. The drive down was just as lovely, and we took our time as there was no one around.

(Downside: all the shops that seem like they're usually open in the tourist season and would typically have restrooms were shuttered, so I had to pee behind a bush.)









When we felt ready to head back into the valley, I suggested we look for a cafe with nice views to relax and recharge before heading back to the hotel. We found the perfect destination in No. 9 Gourmet Coffee 池上鄉九號咖啡館 in Chihshang. The massive windows offer a lovely vista of the fields and mountains, and the coffee, which comes with a small pudding-based dessert,  is good too. 

There's no parking to speak of, but in this part of Taiwan you can just sort of pull over. 

The view from No. 9 Gourmet Coffee

My goal had been to take the scenic (as in, farms and fields) route back to the Luminous, but we lingered so long at No.9 that dusk began to set in and rain was coming, so we just drove directly back along the highway.

The next day we dropped off the car at Taitung Station and had a few hours before our flight to Green Island...or thought we did. With much of Taitung City's culinary scene closed during the exact post-lunch hours we needed to kill or off on Wednesdays, I searched for places that would welcome two people killing time (like a cafe) but also served food (like a restaurant) and found Taimali Culture and Creative Cafe 太麻里文創咖啡館.

Don't let the name fool you -- it's in downtown Taitung, not Taimali. The food is at the higher end of typical cafe fare, but it's in a restored wooden Japanese building with a beautiful inside-outside feel, and they have cats! 

Of course, something had to go awry. Our flight to Green Island was canceled due to a sudden rainstorm and we had to spend the night in Taitung (we took the boat the next morning). I was in the mood for something in the general category of yakitori, so we ended up at Kasugabe Japanese Home Cooking 春日部日本家庭料理, in a lane which also boasts an interesting-looking Italian restaurant, a highly-rated super-modern Thai place, and a funky cafe that I would have happily checked out if we hadn't wanted to be in bed early. 

Kasugabe was far better than its mediocre Google ranking. I was pleased with everything, though the spicy mentaiko cheese potato sticks in my memory as particularly great. I commented that they seemed to have laced it with pure unadulterated crack, and Brendan commented that it was probably just all the butter. 

Although it's a little far away, Seasonal 漁采時令料理 is another friend-approved, highly-recommended Japanese restaurant, but it was a bit too far from our hotel and we had already turned in the car. 

The bad weather had cleared by next morning we were finally able to head to Green Island, so that was the end of our East Rift Valley adventure! 

Please enjoy some more photos: 

A Tiny Ceramic Flag and the Sweet Southern Wind: Day Tripping to Xigang and Xuejia

Years ago, a fellow foreign teacher I befriended in China made an offhand comment that he'd thought I'd run out of things to do in Taiwan after I'd already lived here for far longer than I'd ever lived in China. He didn't explain his reasoning, and the comment was not meant to be mean-spirited. He'd visited Taiwan before, so he was aware that the country lacks the big-ticket tourist spots that China boasts -- which I mean in both senses of the term. 

I don't remember my exact response, but it was along the lines of "there's a lot more to do here than people realize." 

Of course, I did not mean that there were undiscovered 'big ticket tourist spots' that the rest of the world was unaware of. I meant that years of living in Taiwan have given me a deeper appreciation for the intimate and local. Culture, history and the ins and outs of daily life here hold my interest more because I actually like living here, which I could never say about China. Not only do I not need a Great Wall or Forbidden City, but smaller-scale things like a tiny ceramic flag on a small-town temple arguably hold my interest just as much.

With that said, I come down to Tainan fairly often these days, a combination of business and personal travel. Usually, a very close friend drives up from Kaohsiung and we pick a destination or two outside the city to visit -- places you have to drive to get to (of course I make up for not driving by paying for lunch and other random costs). 

We started in Xigang, at the village of Liucuo (劉厝) -- literally "Liu House" because a branch of the Liu family  once settled there. I had also been mapping out all of the traditional mansions (古厝) I could find in the Tainan area with the intention of visiting any given one that might be on the way to something else, and the Liu Family Mansion (劉氏古厝) happened to be on the road to Xuejia. 

What we found was a quiet, friendly village in an agricultural area, with an absolutely stunning traditional three-sided house. In addition to being very well-maintained -- swept and gleaming with sparkling white paint and blue trim and new window and door frames -- the Liu mansion features a set of windows out front with a stylized "long life" (壽) pattern in faux brick. If you look carefully, you'll see that they're painted to look like bricks but are actually solid. The front gate says Xun Nan Feng Lai (薰南風來) -- Sweet Wind from the South (or Fragrant Southern Wind), which is just lovely.

Very often in these places, if you just turn up and ask if you can take a walk around the grounds (I never go inside unless specifically invited), people are quite happy to have you around. 

As the gate was closed and nobody appeared to be home, we asked around at the community center that looks like a temple next door, where a friendly auntie went over to an ancient neighbor's house, as she knows everyone. Grandma says that visitors usually call in advance but anyway, we could just step over the low brick wall surrounding the compound. 

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!" she said, as she put on some flipflops and hopped easily over, despite having obvious back issues and looking to be about 100 years old. My friend and the two women -- likely Liu family members but I never did ask -- chatted as I wandered around and took pictures. I was pleased to see them growing hibiscus in the back the way my family used to have a berry brambles; a tray of drying hibiscus flowers sat on the low brick wall just as a bowl of fresh berries might be found in our fridge growing up. I'm a big fan of hibiscus tea -- really just brewing the dried flowers -- for its flavor and blood-pressure lowering qualities. 

The Liu mansion was built in 1864, and is said to be the oldest house in the Xigang (西港) area (Liucuo is in Xigang). It was built by a descendant of Liu Xi (劉喜), who himself was a descendant of Liu Dengkui (劉登魁), one of the original Liu family immigrants to Taiwan from China. Liu Dengkui was born around 1640 and died around 1722 -- I looked it up from this post but I can't promise that my double-check of which calendar year corresponds to which emperor's fancy-name year is perfect. Liu Xi settled the area now known as Liucuo around 1710. The Liu family were both in the military and known for cultivating farmland in the area, and this branch is quite populous in Taiwan now. 

Behind this mansion was another old farmhouse, less immediately appealing but with some charming details. Grandma easily pushed the heavy gate open, swatting away my hand when I tried to help and let us in. The owner, who was outside watering his plants and wearing a baseball cap for the local temple, didn't mind. The paintings around the doors on this house are very well-preserved and well worth a look if you can find someone to show you back there. 

Both houses are decorated with Majolica tiles along the roof beams which are also worth a look, although they're a bit hard to see. 

Auntie recommended that while we were in the area, we also check out nearby Bafen (八分), where two more mansions could be found; one was well-maintained and seems to house some sort of employment or community center. Behind it was another one that had burned down some time ago and was slowly being taken over by tropical plants. 

They can be a little hard to find as they're not visible from the main road, but a friendly local who himself has a very nice courtyard house pointed out the way to us. The whole area smells like a pigsty -- an honest, agricultural smell -- but it's absolutely worth it, if you're into old houses. The well-preserved house in front has some gorgeous Majolica tilework to admire, and the one behind it is a picturesque ruin.  

I just want to take this opportunity to tell you where my interest in random old houses comes from. I grew up in one, built in the 1850s (making it older than the Liu mansion). As a kid I hated it. Drafty and creaky and far from everything, with everything in a constant state of needing renovation, and we didn't even have a decent television because my parents didn't think it was important. I don't even believe in ghosts but if they do exist, that house was definitely haunted (my mom, sister and I often thought one of the others was calling us, usually around 8-9pm, when none of us were. I'm not joking). I spent a lot of time outside and a lot of time reading until my friends were old enough to drive. I complained constantly, but it's given me an affinity for life in an old house. Now, I'd consider buying one if I had enough money to renovate it to my standards. 

While driving through the pig-scented countryside, my friend told me about 草地郎 (cao deh lang), or 'good country folk', which everyone we met had been. A good English translation would be 'salt of the earth'. I wouldn't go so far as to call myself that, but despite some cultural differences, my rural childhood wasn't entirely different, growing up in an old house in the middle of nowhere, supplementing our food with things that grew in our backyard. I didn't have a baseball cap from the local temple, but I did have to go to church every Sunday.

In Bafen there is a very old temple once known for producing a particular kind of special incense that was used in many temples across Taiwan. It's been renovated and doesn't look particularly special, but if you're in the area a quick stop is worth it; the interior has a few vintage features including a very pretty mid-century floor with a lotus design near the altar and a lovely banyan tree out front. 

Apparently this temple, the 八分開基姑媽宮 (Bafen Kaiji Aunt Temple is the best translation I can offer) was founded in the late 1500s and honors the four goddesses of Yin, He, Li and Ji (鄞， 何，李，紀). Apparently there's a couplet in the temple that references Koxinga, but I didn't see it.

The 16th century seems early, but there were a few Chinese fishing and trading outposts in this part of Taiwan then, before serious migration began in the late 17th century. It looks newer because it was rebuilt several times since the 1700s, most recently in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Several stele have been gifted to the temple over the centuries, some of which have been lost, while other ones can still be seen.

Another story about this temple is that those resisting Japanese colonial rule could pray here to find out where the Japanese army would be, so they could head in teh opposite direction.

There is more to this temple, so it's worth reading their Wikipedia page, linked above (Mandarin only). 

From there, we drove on to Xuejia (學甲), famous for milkfish, first stopping for a delicious milkfish congee. My friend thought it was a bit sweet; I just thought it tasted like Tainan food. 

Xuejia's famous Ciji Temple (慈濟宮) is where we finally meet our tiny flag. 

When you first approach the temple, look up at the three roof gods (known as the “three stars” or 三星). They appear on most Taiwanese Taoist temples. If you didn’t already know, these are 福祿壽 (Fu, Lu and Shou) and represent fortune, prosperity/happiness and longevity: the three things essential to a good life. Each is associated with a star in Chinese astronomy. In Western astronomy these are Jupiter, Ursa Major and Canopus, respectively. Each generally carries a specific item: Fu carries a baby and a scroll, Lu carries a footrest (though I’ve seen him with gold ingots too) and Shou carries a longevity peach.

What’s interesting about Ciji Temple is that, while Fu’s child typically holds a toy, this particular child is holding an ROC flag. 

Grateful to be rambling the countryside with a friend fluent in Taiwanese, we asked about the reason for this. Apparently, when the Japanese took over Taiwan, they razed several temples and replaced them with Shinto shrines. We appreciate the shrines which remain and want to preserve them as part of Taiwan’s heritage, but the fact is that at the time they were a colonizing force, just like the Chinese architecture and administration that replaced the Dutch, after the Dutch sought to replace the social and religious systems of the Indigenous tribes. After the Japanese, the ROC again razed as much of the previous colonizer’s architectural mark as they could and re-built either in mid-century concrete, northern Chinese-or “Eurasian” style which has nothing to do with Taiwanese culture or history. 

So, to protect their temple from Japanese administrators who would have happily demolished it, they gave the child on the roof a small Japanese flag to demonstrate their “loyalty” ("loyalty" meaning "please don’t tear down our temple"). It worked, and the temple was left alone. You can see a reprinted picture of the temple with the original Japanese flag in the exhibition hall. When the temple was renovated in the mid-20th century to protect the remaining priceless ceramic work, the Japanese flag was covered with an ROC flag to demonstrate the change in government. You can still see a photo of the original flag in the exhibition hall that contains the old ceramics, which is well worth a visit.

I can think of no better metaphor for Taiwanese history than two temples, a short drive from one another, one of which has records dating to before the Dutch or Koxinga and which helped people avoid the Japanese, and the other of which features art by a 19th century master -- more on that below -- where a tiny ceramic Japanese flag still flies, albeit covered with a Republic of China flag.

Ciji Temple, which is dedicated to Baosheng Dadi (the same god as Bao'an Temple in Taipei) once contained a great deal of 19th-century Koji ceramic work (交趾陶), which on temples usually involved painstakingly sculpted, glazed and fired figures and backgrounds arranged into elaborate story scenes.

This particular Koji ceramic work was done by the famed Yeh Wang (葉王, born Ye Lin-jhih 葉麟趾, a 19th century Taiwanese artisan and Chiayi native, the son of another pottery maker. He was -- and is -- famed for his mind-blowing attention to detail who is considered one of the 'creators' of this art form. He’s also responsible for some of the finest examples of this art form across central Taiwan, including several temples in Chiayi. He was invited to work on Ciji Temple after an earthquake in 1853 caused a great deal of damage that required restoration which happened in the 1860s.

To put it another way, he's famous enough in Taiwan that you can buy a children's book about him.

By the 1960s, Yeh Wang’s work on Ciji Temple was becoming a bit weatherbeaten, so the temple was renovated using modern glazing techniques. The new work was done by more contemporary masters in ceramics and glazing.



Fortunately, much of the original work is preserved in the exhibition hall next to the temple. Even better, the entire exhibition is bilingual, although not all of the story scenes are fully explained (there is a rather long and awkward passage about a rich guy who “loved ducks” -- geese in Chinese -- however.) 

Look at the fingernails he created in his Drunken Li Bai 李白: 





Li Bai was quite the alcoholic, saying that sober men never go down in history, only drunkards get famous.

And the furrowed brow on this fellow: 





...and recall that these figures were often places on roofs or under awnings, where such details might not even be seen by visitors.

At the entrance to the temple, there are two people riding lions who have distinctly non-Chinese features, one more obviously than the other. On one side, a man with dark auburn hair, a Caucasian nose and a square jaw is holding an urn and a lotus stalk. On the other, his friend with big round eyes is holding another urn, and a banana leaf (the original ceramic banana leaf is lost). The man who told us about the flag said that they were Dutch (胡人 or "Hu People", which my friend translated as Dutch), and carried gifts because they ‘brought good things’ (tributes and gifts, I suppose) to Chinese leaders. The exhibition hall confirms they are Hu, but describes them as being nnorthern Chinese Hu (a nomadic group from the steppes) offering tribute. In any case, the items they carry said together are "甕甕蓮蕉" (urn urn lotus banana), which sounds like 旺旺連招 in Taiwanese. This is a spoken expression in Taiwanese which means something like 'good things come at the end' or 'the outcome is good fortune' (or something along those lines; I am not as proficient in Taiwanese as I'd like to be).

The current ones can be seen on the temple roof: 

And the Yeh Wang originals are preserved in the exhibition hall:

While Yeh Wang's lions are highly stylized in the traditional way and thus aren't meant to look exactly like real lions, I am quite certain he never saw a real tiger in his life:

Not his fault, of course. In the 1800s one was probably better off not coming across tigers.

There are some other interesting things to see in the exhibition hall: the top floor boasts some ancient archeological finds from Indigenous settlements and the old temple doors with door gods painted by yet another master artist. This area offers no bilingual signage, however.



In short, if you are interested in Taiwanese temples, history or art, Ciji Temple and the exhibition hall are absolutely worth your time. 



From here, we drove out to the Laotang Lake Art Village (老塘湖藝術村), a piece of architectural art composed of old, weatherbeaten building bits and pieces put together by The Mad Painter (or Hyper Painter), an artist from Kaohsiung. It costs NT100 to enter if you're not from Xuejia.

Instead of trying to explain it, here's a picture of the explanation for this place:

The artist is also known for his quick-painted depictions of famous people, and a few re-paintings of famous works (there's a quick-painted Mona Lisa, for example). There's a small exhibition near the entrance. 

This place is truly out in the middle of nowhere; you have to drive past rows of fishponds to get there. Apparently, the Mad Painter created it to evoke the backdrops of old martial arts films, which are meant to be dilapidated and weatherbeaten. The entire area surrounds a small lake (Laotang Lake, I suppose) with an island at the center, and it seems as though a few shops are open on busy days. We were there towards the end of a quiet day, so very little was open, but it was peaceful and lovely at sunset. 

There is one issue, however: the whole area smells of some combination of sewage and garbage. As my friend pointed out, there is a cafe and it would be a great place to stop for a drink, if it didn’t smell so bad. 

I’m not quite sure what to make of it otherwise. It’s not a tourist trap; it’s not well-known enough for that. Xuejia residents get free entry and it seems as though several older people take advantage of this. A few cosplayers were photographing themselves in the picturesque scenery, too. The area is home to several animals who look clean, fed and cared for, and are friendly to visitors. 

Xuejia is not far from Madou 麻豆, which not only has the Animatronic Hell Temple (Madou Daitian Temple, if you want to be formal about it) but also a famous savory rice pudding bowl (碗粿 -- I don't really know how to translate that but it's a typical Tainan breakfast food) restaurant called 麻豆碗粿蘭 right on the traffic circle heading into town. The restaurant remains open and serves the dish well into dinnertime, and I can honestly say it's one of the best I've had.