Thursday, August 6, 2009

Taoist Temple: Hsinchu, Taiwan




Right behind the inglorious bulk of the Ambassador Hotel, Hsinchu is this gaudy but beautiful Taoist Temple. I'm sure there must be a lot of them around, but this is the only one I can recall ever seeing. It's in use (you can see the lady in the shadows burning incense).

I got back from the long walk (about 3 hours) dripping with sweat and mildly subburned. At dinner that night, my colleague Tommy asked if I'd stayed in the hotel all day. No: why? "It was the hottest day in 40years in Hsinchu: 39.4C". That's 103degF: no wonder I stopped at every 7-11 on the way to drink Kirin Afternoon Tea! [Note that Kirin Afternoon Tea is the official tea drink of the Joys of Travel Blog until someone pays me to say otherwise].

Safe Travels! Des

2 comments:

  1. And here was I thinking that Kirin was a beer!

    When I was in Japan in June, I spent a morning with She Who Must Be Obeyed at the the Toji markets - after the cash had expired (there were no useable ATMs nearby) I felt I was going to pass out because I was sweating like a sweaty thing and it was a good 35C+, which wouldn't have been too bad but the Toji markets are within the temple grounds - surrounded by a 2 metre wall so zero airflow!

    As an aside - given that you travel quite a bit, how do you go with the whole non-metric/metric bit?

    ReplyDelete