Gacha Planet

Our Taiwan blog is incomplete without a discussion of Gachapons. You know those little vending machines you see at grocery stores and bowling alleys that sell tiny little toys in plastic capsules?  In Taiwan they are called Gachopons and although invented in Japan they reach a whole different level of obsession in Taiwan. They sell all sorts of weird little figurines and generally come in series of 5 or 6.  People collect them and try to get the whole series. When I say obsessed I mean it. Like beanie babies in the 1990's crazy obsessed. Sometimes you'll see 4 or 8 machines outside a store but more often you'll see a whole store in a mall filled with several hundred different machines with crowds of people buying from them.

We and the Millers fell in love with several series and became convinced we had to complete them before we left Taiwan. Margaret loved the Statues of Liberty in weird inappropriate poses. Jake loved the household snipers. Nick even found a series depicting minature gachapon machines, very meta. We all had to have the complete Kancho series. What is a kancho?  I really can't explain so here you go.  Kancho-Wikipedia  or Kancho is Messed Up.  Rori even made friends with one of the guys who empties the machines and he allowed us to root through them looking for the pieces we were missing instead of spending hundred of NTD hoping to get lucky and find the pink Kancho bear.

The Statue of Liberty series

Sleeping cats on household appliances series

Household Snipers series

The complete Kancho series proudly still on display in our house

The last weekend in Kaohsiung I saw an ad for something we had to go see. A whole pop up museum devoted to life sized displays of some of the most famous Gachopon series; fruitzombies, lantern jawed animals, Statue of Liberty in weird poses, Fat soldiers, and dessert(not desert) Moai. So our last activity in Kaohsiung before hitting the road again was a visit to Gacha Planet

Lantern jawed animal world

This might be a Statue of liberty Kancho

Fruit Zombie

Kenting and Jialeshui and Frisbee

This weekend ended up being very complicated. The plan was to drive down to Jialeshui and Kenting for Piper's birthday. First though the girls got invited to prom. Piper as the exotic blonde got invited by the BMOC. She agreed to go if they found a date for Syd. Syd wasn't so exotic in Taiwan(although I'm sure the situation would have been reversed if they were in Iceland) and she also towered over all her classmates but they found a freshman who agreed to invite her. So, we arranged for a taxi van to pick us up at home  late Thursday evening, drive us out to I-Shou to pick up the girls and then drive down to Jialeshui.  The girls looked amazing in their prom dresses and Piper's date was heartbroken that she had to leave(more on that later).  The drive to Jialeshui was in a huge rainstorm and Jake and I both thought we were all going to die. The driver was driving very fast in the dark on a two lane road and seemed to be having some problems with his wipers. His solution was to stop every so often and squirt dish soap on the windshield. Don't see how that helped. Nevertheless we made it to Jialeshui after midnight but alive where we stayed in a little B&B for surfers.

Jialeshui is a little village perched above a beach with a surf break. It was a bit cold and rainy and the beach was pretty much deserted. We spent the day playing on the beach while the Millers drove up and down the coast looking for good surfing.

Later that Friday Sydney and I had to leave and catch a ride all the way back to Kaohsiung as she was scheduled to play in an ultimate frisbee tournament the next day. Margaret, Nick, and the Millers stayed behind and visited some hot springs and the beaches with plans to meet us the next evening in Kenting. It was still very rainy but Syd and I made it back to Kaohsiung and to the tournament the next day. She only got to play in a few games because the rest of the tournament was wiped out by the rain. You can play ultimate in the rain but in the end this was more like playing while standing under a fire hose. Too bad because I think they could have won the tournament. Her team had some players from the national team and having a 5'10" girl to catch the disk in the end zone helps. One unique thing about Taiwanese ultimate, at the end of the game the teams line up and bow to each other.

Saturday afternoon we went back to the ultimate tournament but once it was clear it was rained out we headed back to Kenting. We met back up in Kenting with Margaret, Nick, and the Millers at Smokey Joe's, a Kenting institution. It was pouring rain this time in Kenting but the full spring break vibe was in effect. The roads were packed with people and there were stands selling food and alcohol all along the road. We even ran into Piper's prom date who had apparently made the trip to Kenting with his friends in hopes of seeing her once again. We spent the rest of Sunday and Monday wandering around Kenting although very little beach time due to the rain.

Taroko

This weekend we took the slow train from Kaohsiung all the way around to Hualien and from there a bus to the top of Taroko gorge. The train ride was beautiful and there are really no words of mine that can do justice to Taroko. Its a deep narrow canyon with blue green rivers in the bottom and walls made of marble!  At the top of the canyon we stayed at the Youth Activity center. We have stayed in these in multiple national parks in Taiwan and they are usually very well located and inexpensive. They are somewhere between a youth hostel and a one or two star hotel. This one seemed half deserted and a bit more run down than others.

The park was very easy to visit as there are buses running all up and down the canyon so you can hop  on and off whenever you want. If you miss the last bus you could probably also find a taxi to run you back up to the top of the canyon.  We got off multiple places to do short hikes into side canyons or other scenic areas.

I do want to say something about this monkey. At the top of the canyon is a 7-11 or Family Mart and like all such stores in Taiwan they serve an amazing variety of food. This monkey would hang out by the door and watch for women leaving with food. He ignored men and anyone who didn't have food but if you were a woman leaving with food he would jump on your back as you left the store. Inevitably this would result in a scream and dropped food. Then he would pick up the food and run away. Not sure why he avoided men as I certainly would have screamed and dropped my food. Over the course of two days we saw him do this multiple times.

Beware of this monkey!

Kenting

We used this weekend to travel as a family to Kenting at the southern end of Taiwan. Kenting is a big national park with hot springs, mountains, and beautiful beaches that looks like Hawaii.  It was pretty deserted for us on this weekend but I guess a little later in the season it starts to look like spring break in Ft. Lauderdale with music festivals and lots of drinking. We stayed at the Caesar Park hotel which was right across the street from one of the smaller, less busy beaches.  Weather and beach were great and the water and coral were amazing considering how close it was to a major tourist center.