We'd driven past Pingxi on any number of occasions over the years and visited her fellow villages multiple times, including Shifen, Joufen, Ruifang and Houtong. We decided on the spur of the moment, on a beaming Sunday morning, to make a dedicated trip to the village to tick it off our "list"!
Of course before you get the payoff of beautiful bucolic visions of Chinese water colour painted mountains, one needs to negotiate some of Taiwan's rather hectic expressways! The dedicated arteries traversing the length of the west coast, criss-crossing one another at various intervals, also bullock their way through the mountains of the north, all the way to the port city of Keelung. We chose the "1" over the "3" for no particular reason and got swept along with thousands of cars, buses and trucks as we hurtled ever northward. Eventually, and mercifully, we spotted the turnoff to Nuannuan, the gateway to the forest villages, and we were spat off onto a gentler byway!
Through a few towns and villages, meandering up mountain passes, and negotiating tunnels and bridges, we found our way to a busy Pingxi and made use of a car-park that an enterprising local had fashioned from a spare lot next to his house. We wandered round the well-signposted historic district and politely declined the many opportunities we were offered to add to the environmental chaos on the surrounding hills: the lanterns are surprisingly large, as big as a small child, so it's no wonder they cause such damage. The idea is to write various wishes on the lanterns and then set them free with a burning ember inside, to watch them rise and rise till eventually they're out of sight (and out of mind). I feel sorry for the local traders: they re-invented the village with this gimmick, only to have it come back to bite them a little.
Ruifeng (mine tours), Houtong (cats), Shifen (waterfall tourism) and Jiufen (old town and food) have all re-invented themselves as they, along with Pingxi, were economically devastated when the local mining companies shut up operations. There was little work, and young people left the village. They've all done an amazing job at luring day-trippers from the big city, and Pingxi has developed a world famous lantern festival, which on one crazy night in March, attracts 80,000 visitors: we couldn't imagine this pocket-sized village swelling to such proportions!
We had a pleasant weekend all round, and the day before our country adventure we'd gone to the movies to see the brand new "Terminal" starring Margot Robbie. It had its world wide premiere in Taiwan! We'll be interested to see what the critics make of it: it was quirky to say the least. Cass really loved it but I had certain misgivings. It reminded us a little, and had overtones of the dystopian film "High-Rise" that we saw a number of years ago, also originating in Britain. Afterwards, we whisked over to Shilin to get some gourmet bespoke burgers at Burger Ray's, but alas, it had disappeared without a trace!
A new burger joint with a signature point of massive up-sizing and a super-hot, ghost chili sauce was firmly ensconced in Burger Ray's shop. It didn't have any vegetarian options, so we tried the interesting looking cafe next door, Tino's pizza cafe, to try their pastas or pizzas. Cass got some peanut butter covered french fries(!) to accompany her cheese pizza, while I had garlic seafood on my pizza and we each got a giant, uber-strong coffee...pretty good!
It's all happening here at the moment: the blue magpies continue to dive bomb us every day, reports are being written in every spare minute, social events fizz away every weekend, and Cass has the all-consuming middle school play this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We'll take a deep breath and get back to you next week!