By virtue of its picturesque mountains alone, Meinung (美濃) township is worth a visit. Shortly after arriving on a warm summer afternoon, I watched the clouds and mist roll in and shroud the peaks, constantly shifting with the whims of a moody storm. It looked like a slide show of Chinese landscape paintings. By sunset, the skies cleared into hues of pinks and blue, leaving just enough time for a leisurely bicycle ride.
Provided there’s good weather, bicycling remains the best way to explore this popular traditional Hakka town. Most of the historical sites downtown can easily be covered within a day or two. Pleasing sites include the East Gate (東門樓) and Zhongzheng Lake (中正胡), which die-hard Meinung residents refer to as Meinung Lake (美濃胡).
Meinung has a set of color-coded bike paths that take you through many of its smaller roads. Though some of the lines aren’t very clearly marked, don’t worry about getting lost — the mountains should keep you oriented, or listen for the sound of cars to get back on to the main road.
Part of the fun, however, can be losing your way, as you soak in the sights of rice paddies, palm trees and running brooks. You’ll catch an occasional whiff of manure (you’re in the country after all) or the sweet smell of flowering betel nut trees. As you ride, look out for the kaiji bogung (開基伯公), or roadside altars, which look like headstones.
I stayed at the Home Inn (湖美茵), a genial guesthouse at the western end of town. The area offers a generous view of the mountains, which you can enjoy while sitting on a bench in front of a large pond. If you walk around the surrounding gardens, you’re bound to run into the inn’s pet geese, which seem to only be concerned with chasing each other.
A room for two runs NT$1,800 on weekdays and NT$2,100 on weekends, which may seem a little steep for the budget-minded, but the rooms are very well-kept and the grounds are scenic enough that you could spend the whole day sitting outside, lost in a book. The proprietor (and one of the leaders of the anti-dam movement), Sung Yung-sung (宋永松), comes out occasionally with a pitcher of cold, fresh mint tea, made from freshly picked sprigs of the herb. Otherwise you’re pretty much left alone; weekdays are especially quiet.
With its spacious grounds and large dining facilities, the Home Inn also accommodates small gatherings, with catered meals available on request.
Getting there is a little tricky, though — you’ll have to either drive or rent a bicycle by the bus station in downtown Meinung. It’s a 15-minute ride on a bicycle.
And thanks to the High Speed Rail, you can leave Taipei City in the morning and find yourself pedaling through rural southern Taiwan by the early afternoon.
PLACES TO STAY: » Home Inn (湖美茵) 52, Ln 782, Zhongshan Rd Sec 2, Meinung Township, Kaohsiung County (高雄縣美濃鎮中山路二段782巷52號) Rooms range from NT$1,800 to NT$3,200 For more information, call (07) 681-7828 On the Net: blog.yam.com/homeinn Jhong-Jheng Lake B&B (中正湖山莊民宿) 30 Fumei Rd, Zhongzhen Borough, Meinung Township, Kaohsiung County (高雄縣美濃鎮中圳里福美路30號) Rooms range from NT$1,500 to NT$3,500 For more information, call (07) 681-2736 On the Net: www.5658.com.tw/zzhu
If a leisurely afternoon of high-end dining and watching the scenery roll by from the comfort of a plush armchair sounds like a good time to you, consider a trip on the Sea Breeze (海風號). This culinary, cultural and scenic experience is the perfect setting for a date, a celebratory outing with a small group of friends or a relaxing solo ride. The price tag is steep, especially if you consider the short distance the train actually covers over the 3.5-hour journey. But what you’re paying for on the Sea Breeze isn’t transportation; it’s the comfort, the service, the exclusivity, the
June 15 to June 21 According to legend, a giant from Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) named Si Mangangavang once built a large tatala canoe capable of carrying 16 people. He set sail southward to the Batanes in the Philippines, where he traded with the local Ivatan people. One of the goods they coveted was cowhide, which the Tao people of Orchid Island used to make armor. Through continued trade, the Tao and Ivatan forged close ties, and Si Mangangavang became good friends with a Batanes giant named Si Vakag. This story, collected in a 1998 book by ethnologist Yu Guang-hong (余光弘)
Taiwan’s renewable shortfall is a problem of execution, not resources. Japan’s long-cycle, joined-up energy planning is the model worth studying — but what Taiwan can borrow is the institutional machinery, not the politics. When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) used his visit to Taipei last month to warn that the country needs far more electricity, he was naming a constraint its own planners already know well: Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) expects demand from the semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) sector alone to exceed 5 gigawatts (GW) by 2030. The harder question is not whether to build more capacity but which
One of the wildest things about the reception of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in the international media is the way her words are presented without being contextualized, let alone challenged. The Financial Times, for example, interviewing her during her visit to New York, said that she blamed the halt to exchanges between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for raising tensions. “There has been no dialogue, so you can see that the situation is almost on the brink of war,” the Financial Times quoted her as saying, without any hint that the PRC, not
RSS