Sanyi Wood Sculpture Museum 三義木雕博物馆 and Lai Xin Kui 赖新魁面馆

From Nanzhuang, we made our way south towards Sanyi to visit the Sanyi Wood Sculpture Museum. Still within the Miaoli County, this museum is the only museum based on wood sculpture in Taiwan. All along the way, it was easy to tell that the town is big on wood, as there were many shops selling wood sculptures and carvings.

We bought our tickets (I managed to get mine at student price - uni student from Australia still a student, right?) and had to keep my camera upon entry. No photography allowed, which is understandable. We were too awe-struck to take photographs, anyway.

There are five levels of several collections of wood sculptures of sorts - amazing! There are nine collections that are grouped according to themes that include The Introduction of Wood Sculpture, The Styles of Each Chinese Dynasty, Austronesian Tribe Wood Sculpture, The Origins of Sanyi Wood Sculpture, Temple Deities, Architecture and Furniture, as well as Mix Media. We were especially impressed by the sculptures that were prize winners - I kept going round looking for them.

There is also a room where that functions as some sort of an education space. There was a man there showing visitors the tools used for carving and the types of different wood.

Since we could not take any photographs inside, we took photographs outside - with the huge elephant wood sculpture under the trees that surround the museum carpark. 

Just as I was walking towards the car, I noticed my parents and Allie walking in a different direction. They crossed the road and started walking on a path that led into the foliage. It was not a short walk and I was wondering where we were going since it was not included in our itinerary. "Allie said there is a tea plantation here and I thought well, why not visit it since we are here?" said Dad. Right...

And there really was a tea plantation up the hill! Apparently, this plantation is managed by Tzu Chi. There were some volunteers in the distinguishable dark blue and white Tzu Chi uniform and we heard them converse in Hakka. We became really excited and spoke a few sentences to them in Hakka, too, to see if they could understand our Malaysian Hakka, and they did!

They offered us some refreshing tea and we were off in search of lunch. We tracked back northwards to a noodle restaurant called Lai Xin Kui (赖新魁面馆). Apparently, it has been around for 60 years and judging from the crowd, they would be around for the next 60 years, I'd reckon.

At the entrance, there was a counter with many plates with what we term "small eats" (小吃), also known as side dishes.

They were all traditional Hakka dishes, like this mouth-watering plate of braised mixed ingredients (卤味拼盘)...

... braised cheeks (嘴边肉)...

... eggplant (茄子)...

... and their signature dish of ban tiao (粄条). Like what we had in Nanzhuang, the ban tiao is actually a really fat version of our kuay teow, which made it chewier. We tried a dry version with added pork and an original soup version. Not sure if I am one who is easily satisfied but I was a happy person after this meal!

As we were leaving, Mum walked up to this little stall selling traditional sweet cakes or kuih. We bought 10 because it was buy 5 free 1 and Mum is a huge supporter of cottage industries. Some tasted familiar, some not so but they were good to have in the car for the long journey ahead in the next few days.

It felt good to know that Hakka people around the world were similar in many ways although different at the same time. The restaurant does not have a website but if you copy and paste its name, there are many results on Google, including their location on Google Maps.

Nanzhuang 南庄

Hello Taiwan, I am back! Since my first trip here back in 2009, I have been wanting to make a return visit and this year, I finally had a chance to visit the island again. This time, I came with my parents.

I did not choose to join a Malaysian tour agency this time, unlike my previous trip. Instead, I found roundTAIWANround during one of my Google searches and chose to use their services due to three things:

1) My communication with them was entirely in English (well, you know, my Chinese is pretty limited)

2) They went along with my choices of accommodation and places to visit (I do not like how some other local Taiwanese tour groups insist on their choice of accommodation)

3) They were super accommodating and helpful in suggesting places that my parents and I may enjoy, and were very prompt in their replies

If you are like me (a partial or total banana), I totally recommend them so that you could enjoy your holiday in a language that you would understand. They may be a tad pricier than other tour agencies but I would rather pay to stay at places that I want to stay at and visit places that I want to visit.

My parents and I were greeted at the airport by our guide, Allie (阿立), a really friendly and chatty fella with an easy-going personality. Poor guy, our flight had a delayed landing due to the heavy traffic at the airport (we were flying in circles for quite a while), so he had to wait for a bit and was apologetic when informing us that our itinerary may have be be slightly rushed due to the time lost. He did not need apologise though, it was not his fault the airport had too many planes!

First place we stopped at was a place called Nanzhuang (南庄), a township situated in the county of Miaoli (苗栗). After about 1.5 hours of driving, Allie parked the car under a bridge, next to a stone river where locals were seen fishing.

The main reason I asked to make a stop here was because I wanted to try a local dessert called the iced sweet dumpling with osmanthus malt (桂花酿冰镇汤圆) I found out about a few years ago. Fingers crossed, I hoped we were not too late in arriving at Osmanthus Alley (桂花巷).

I saw the first two stalls open and thought, yes, we are in luck!

But once I walked up that little slope, I saw that most of the stalls had their shutters down. Oh no... we were too late.

But we can't come and not try any of their osmanthus produce, can we? I mean, we have come all the way! And so, the one stall that was still open very enthusiastically gave us samples of almost every product on display.

We did not dare buy too many, as it was after all, our first stop. After that, we checked out the place and was introduced to a historical public wash trough still in use today. According to Allie, the water flows in from a local spring.

We passed a temple...

... and the local post office (so adorable!).

We found the town to be peaceful and very much like Bentong, as it is also flanked by mountains and has a river flowing through.

Before making our way to our accommodation, we had dinner at a local restaurant called 客家庄小吃. We wanted to see the difference between the Hakka food here and the Hakka food we have back home.

It took me a while to order because of well, my limited reading ability and so I passed the job to Mum. We ordered the following and found the first three dishes very familiar to us. What we found new were the last two dishes, both which were recommended by Allie:

Braised beancurd 红烧豆腐

Stir-fry Areca flower 炒槟榔花

Hakka Stir Fry 客家小炒

Fried Hakka Ban Tiao 炒客家粄条

Hakka Glutinous Rice Balls 客家汤圆

The ban tiao (粄条) is like a wet char kway teow version of our ban meen. The glutinous rice balls left an impression because unlike the sweet ones that we are used to, these are savoury ones, which were like wow, I can have the entire bowl!

We left satisfied and feeling positive about the rest of our holiday. First meal in Taiwan - thumbs up!

Home-made abacus seed dinner

Our lovely Audrey invited us over to her place for dinner. She said she had something special for us. Something very Hakka. Hm, being Hakka myself, I was curious. What will we be served, I wondered...

Imagine my salivating awe when I saw the table set up...

... with these little babies!:

Yup, these are what we call abacus seeds, a traditional Hakka dish made from the main ingredient of yam.

I think it is rather obvious where the name derived from. Too bad I could not do much to the lighting, as it was a cool purple shade. Of course, no Chinese dinner is complete without soup!

Audrey also painstakingly made this:

It was funny how before she made it, she rang us up to ask us if we ate spring onion... haha...

Dessert was something we bought from the Korean grocers down the road, as we thought it would not be nice to turn up empty-handed. It is called geggi cake, which we were not intending to eat due to how stuffed we were but after having looked at the expiry date (the next day), we had no choice... haha!