Biking to Lukang and Taichung Port

Drew speeds through Changhua City.

Went out to Lukang in Changhua on the bike today with my friend Drew, who wrote the excellent analysis of the ECFA comics a couple of posts below this one. Lukang is where my wife's family is from, and I have a deep, longstanding affection for the city.

The really great thing about this guy is that he is wearing a bleach advert on his shirt.

Chatting in front of the temple.

Drying skin.

In market garlic sellers hawk a product that has been smuggled from China since the early 1990s.

The restaurant hasn't opened, but the day's supply of noodles waits on the countertop.

Chatting on the corner in front of Lukang's most famous bakery.

If you look carefully at many of the older buildings, you can find old phone numbers still emblazoned on them.

At an old time barbershop, the barber cleans a customer's neck and back.

At the famed Matsu Temple, the major rival to the one in Dajia, Drew watches a ceremony in progress.

Heads of dancers.

Lighting the incense tapers.

Men from a troupe of lion dancers take a break.

Gazing at idols.

Drew pointed out something I had never noticed: these Japanese-era Shinto style pieces in the back.

On the rear the dates have been scratched out. The KMT had no trouble desecrating Shinto shrines and architecture. Just try changing the name of the CKS Memorial, however....

Outside the temple the food stall all sell the same stuff. This makes choosing easy.

Pastries.

Lukang's famous alleyway.

This Japanese-era building, constructed in 1928, has been beautifully restored on the exterior.

One of the many shops selling traditional stuff.

Tourists rest from a hard day of excursioning.

In the lovely Lungshan Temple, my favorite in Lukang, a woman practices a traditional instrument.

Sticks of incense dry outside a factory.

Machining furniture.

An older street, with that cramped feel of authenticity.

Drew and I left Lukang about 10 and then headed up the coast to the Taichung port area. Along the way we drove under 61, the West Coast Highway, through some fascinatingly desolute terrain, dirty, wet, muddy, unpopulated, and jammed with fish ponds, chicken farms and miniature fishing ports, and other things that stank, even a cattle farm. After lunching by the port, we headed back up over Tatu Mountain and into Taichung, grabbed a beer, and then went back home, after putting in 110 kilometers for the day. If only every day could be this good.
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Daily Links

• Weapons are necessary to maintain stability so Ma can bargain with China.
• Johnny Neihu on the ECFA comics.
• Ma save us! South Korean economy expands 2% QoQ. Wait...they haven't moved closer to China, and their economy is growing faster than Taiwan's. What's wrong with this picture?
• Tourist factories are the latest big attraction in Taiwan.
• ECFA is like an unstoppable train, says J Michael Cole.
• Parris Chang's excellent analysis of why Ma broke his 2007 promise and is taking over the KMT Chairmanship. More tomorrow.
• Expat in Taiwan visits Muslim restaurant, does the Chung.
  

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