Ishigaki and Taketomi

I wish I had photos for this little side trip but at the very end of the trip I left my camera in a taxi in Keelung and never saw it again so we have no pictures of this trip. When I realized that a few of the Ryuku islands were less than 100 miles from Taiwan I really wanted to find a way to see them. There are some flights from Taipei and maybe a few boats but over all it seemed more difficult and expensive then I was hoping for. Then I found a cheap 2 night/3 day cruise that goes from Keelung out to Ishigaki where you get about 4 or 5 hours of shore time and then back to Keelung. So we took the high speed train to Taipei and then local trains to Keelung. In Keelung we weren't scheduled to leave until late evening so we had time to go to the night market. Keelung Night market had tons of incredible sea food.

The cruise itself wasn't really my thing. Most people seemed to be there either for the gambling or the all you could eat meals. Margaret and I actually sat in one of the lounges and were the only audience for multiple singing and music acts. When we arrived the next morning in Ishigaki it took forever to process everyone off the ship and into Japan. As soon we got onshore we took a ferry over to Taketomi. Taketomi is very rural with bicycles, buffalo carts, and almost no cars. We rented bikes and rode around the island stopping at several beaches. One of the beaches is famous for having star shaped pieces of sand  mixed into the regular sand. The star sands are apparently the skeleton of some sort of plankton. The only star pieces I found were in the little plastic key chains being sold on the beach. Then it was back to Ishigaki for a quick dinner before we had to get back on the ship. We found a little restaurant serving a tasting menu of Ishigaki beef which is apparently famous in Asia. We had 4 or 5 courses of beef. It was really good but much fattier then is typical in America. Beef heavily marbled with fat is prized here though.

When we got back to Keelung we took a taxi to Jiufen for a quick walking tour before we had to head back to Kaohsiung. Jiufen is an old mining town built on a mountain. The narrow streets and staircases twist down the mountain and are full of picturesque buildings. It is claimed that Jiufen was the inspiration for the town in the anime movie Spirited Away although there are plenty of claims that this is not true. It is though a very popular tourist spot. We wanted to get dropped by the taxi at the top, wander down, and then head to the train station from the bottom. The parking lot at the top was tiny and packed and the taxi driver rushed us out as he had no where to stop. In the rush I left the little camera I had brought for this little trip in the back of the cab and it was gone. 😞

Taipei Cup Tournament

Nick and I travelled up to Taipei for the Taipei cup this weekend. This a youth hockey tournament open only to residents of Taiwan and is essentially the national championship of youth hockey. Nick and Piper had to produce student ID's in order to prove they were going to school in Taiwan in order to be allowed to play. The tournament was really intense. There are only about half a dozen youth hockey organizations in the whole country and there aren't really enough kids to go around. Plus, with the exception of our team most of the coaches full time job is running their organization. Fewer kids means less income and fewer wins makes recruiting difficult. So, the coaches are constantly poaching players from each other and there seems to be a lot of bad blood between certain coaches. They really, really want to beat each other. As visitors only here for a semester we were outside most of the drama but you could tell how some coaches felt about each other.  In the end Nick and Piper's team won the tournament with a win against one of the teams most heated rivals. It was a pretty awesome end to our asian ice hockey experience

Nick in front of Taipei Arena

Pregame talk from our Canadian coach

Hong Kong Mega Ice hockey 5's tournament

The end of April marked the halfway point of our time in Kaohsiung and also the time of the Hong Kong Mega Ice Hockey 5's tournament. This is I guess the biggest tournament in Asia. It's all held at a giant mall in Hong Kong called MegaBox in an ice rink just slightly smaller than NHL sized. The rink is on the 10th floor with views out over the Hong Kong harbor. The whole rink is surrounded by a big food court. The tournament has kids as young as 4 or 5 competing in the U6 division and kids as old as 13-15 competing in U15. At many levels they have an A and B division as well. With all of that happening on one rink they run games from 6AM until midnight for 5 straight days. Since our kids were in the U15 division we had games usually after the mall closed at 10pm. We had one game per evening on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  Then the semifinals on Friday and finals on Saturday. Nick and Piper's team was one of the ones sponsored by the International North Stars organization from Taipei. It's composed of a mix of expat kids and Taiwanese kids along with expat kids who used to play with them and are now scattered all over the world. They had so many kids coming back to play with them in Hong Kong that they fielded 3 U15 teams, 1 A team and 2 B teams. Nick and Piper's team had a win, a loss, and tie in the opening round of the tournament which meant they ended up playing their sister U15 team in the semifinals. The game was tied at the end of regulation which meant it went to a shoot out. The other team won the shoot out and that was the end of the tournament for our kids. Still we had a lot of fun. The kids could run around the mall with their teammates between games. At one point they actually had the whole team playing hide and seek in Ikea. It was also fun to meet hockey players from all over the world. Nick and Piper's team had kids from China, Phillippines, Canada, America, Taiwan, Japan, and I'm not sure where else. The tournament had teams from Canada, China, Hong Kong, Australia, USA, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and I'm not sure where else.

Nick on offense

Nice portrait of Piper by Syd

Piper attacking the goal

Piper about to drop gloves during heated semifinal with our sister team. Fortunately for the other kid, little Nico, number 98, jumped in to defend Piper and she didn't have to thump him. Check out HK skyline in background.

figure 8 ferris wheel at Studio City Casino

Huge ad in HK subway station

With all the time off during the day we were able to tour around HK some.  We've been to HK before but my mom hasn't. She had a chance to see the harbor lights and we went over from Kowloon where we were staying to HK proper. Took mom on a tour of the midlands escalators and some of the malls. We also had a chance to go to Macua which we've never done before.  Macau is a weird mix. On the one hand it has giant new casinos even bigger than the ones in Vegas.  They are totally self contained with hotels, malls, food courts, amusement parks, even a scale model of the Eiffel tower.  On the other hand Macau is this incredibly old city with narrow winding walks, little markets, 500 year old churches and forts.  Over the course of two visits to Macau we saw some of each side of Macau.

Ruins of St. Pauls first built in 16th century and burned multiple times 

Grand Lisboa Casino from Fortaleza do Monte

Margaret's cafe in Macua.
famous for egg tarts

Architectural detail in old Macua house-Thanks Syd

Syd and Nick at the fort

Grand Lisboa behind St. Paul's

Family photo in front of Grand Lisboa

Kite surfing at night on southern tip of Macau. Hard to believe this is one of the most populated islands on earth.