TW cousins drove the whole lot of us which is 15 total; 7 cousins including me and 8 aunts & uncles to 太武山 (Taiwu Moutain) for a morning exercise. My goodness, I think most of the older folks there do this very often because you can see them brisk walking up steep slopes like it’s so easy~!!

And there we were, the Young Ones, panting and wheezing our lives away.

Starting point

 
Mid way

Not yet the peak and it’s already extremely high up

I kid you not, at this point I genuinely feel like crying not just because my feet ached like nuts that are kicked by metal-toe boots but the view is just so breathtaking.

I’m not sure if "spectacular" is enough to describe the magnitude of awesomeness but really, you could sit there and think how wonderful God’s creation is. Hey, you may be with the Evolutionary Theory but I’m all for the Creation Theory; men may make things but it is still God who provides him with the materials.

We’re still not at the highest point though, that was just a pit stop.

Now we’ve arrived!! There’s actually a freaking temple nestled between mountains at the peak of Taiwu Mountain… cool shit! Restrooms are even available for people like us, heh. And we’re wondering which toilet cleaner would like to take up this difficult job – getting to work is already a feat on it’s own.

First ones down!!

In total we took about an hour plus just to climb up and down I think it’s considered very slow by the Kinmen people standards. Next stop was to the a cave located in a military camp that was dug (read: DUG!!) during war time.

It was actually quite intimidating when we our van had to go through about 2-3 rounds of security check. But still, I found the soldier’s camo suit very amusing because it’s thick and padded – suitable for the cold winds

I was suppose to be "holding" the words

SG and TW relatives

Times like this I wished my mandarin was better because I didn’t understand half the things the tour lady was telling us about this cave – the only thing I understood was that it is now an auditorium cum movie room for the army guys there. OR SOMETHING ALONG THAT LINE.

Time for lunch! The food in Kinmen is superb not only because their food is fresh (they slaughter poultry and catch seafood only a few hours before cooking them) but everything’s so delish

I am truly a happy and contented girl.

We also had soup, braised pork etc but didn’t manage to get pictures of it. The fried noodles which looks a whole lot like maggie mee is really really good by the way, we even had 2 plates of it.

Oh and not forgetting…

Kaoliang Liquor

3 red faces

Kenna target again. Hahahahaha.

The first night we were still in Kaoliang Crash Course, learning how to drink it (best doused with water or any other drink immediately to avoid getting your throat burnt by the high alchohol content). The second day we got better (or at least I did, the rest are by default good drinkers) and realized that gulping hurts the throat lesser than sipping.

But gulping = cup empties faster

And there’s no such thing as an empty Kaoliang shot glass because our TW cousins/guest will fill them up immediately. And when that happens, you end up drinking more. After lunch, I looked like a complete clown after downing about 4 shots. Which is nothing as compared to the rest who drank like 10 glasses?

Siao!

Over there they’d encourage you to drink more because Kaoliang keeps you warm (warm is an understatement, my body was burning hot!), supposedly also benefits your health and body, gives good complexion and doesn’t hit you with a hangover. It could be true, or it could be just a lousy ploy to make us drink more :

But anyways, Kaoliang is a very famous product in Kinmen (probably their main source of income as well) so I guess it’s something you gotta have if you wanna live a day in their shoes.

Headed back to rest a bit before leaving again to visit our Ancestral Hall. There are 7 of em’ but I’ll just show you some lest it bores you out. Lol.

Grandpa is the one sitting down on the left.
I think beside him is his dad and standing are his brothers?

The picture above is AWESOME I tell you. The guy in the middle is my great grandfather, left is my great grand uncle and the one on the right is my great great grand father. I’ve always thought seeing your ancestors only happens in olden day China, who would’ve thought I finally get the chance to!!

Grandma’s on the left.
Olden day tai tai, lol.

They even kept a collage of a couple of pictures on the walls of the hall, it’s beautiful… I think ultimately, print photos are still better then digital ones. The feeling you get when you hold on tight to the photos and trace the faces of loved ones is something that cannot be replaced by technology.

Mummy said this was a family picture taken in grandpa’s noodle factory (unfortunately when Ah Gong died, I heard my mum saying that my uncles only wanted fast cash and didn’t want to run Tai Ann Noodles anymore so they sold it off to outsiders greedy pigs; but this brand of noodles is still selling in Singapore only under a different management)

Another one of it

Family name on lanterns – super old skool

I think one of my aunts mentioned that the Tsai (Tsai = Chua) Ancestral Hall is actually regarded as a historical monument in Kinmen!! Cool beans.

To be very honest, prior to this I’ve sometimes envied my friends who came from a rather unique heritage like Peranakan, Dutch or even Spanish. I wonder why mine had to be from Taiwan which technically is in China. It’s like nothing special, nothing "mixed". It’s just Chinese.

But after this trip, it totally changed my perspective. My heritage may not be anything fancy, but the way it’s still being preserved (we have a mega huge family tree that dates wayyy back which they still continue to update by the way) and how I learn a little bit more of it each day makes it special to me in it’s own way.

And how when they address us as the 第三代华侨 that made me realize, wow. It actually feels kindda cool!

Other random temples we went to

I’m not sure how this is being read but apparently these are the names of donors and the one my aunt is pointing at is my granpa’s name. I don’t see any names though…?

This doggie we saw on the road is so cute my goodness. The black car was approaching and when it got closer, the dog just stood up, took one step to the left and sat down. The car took a gentle swerve to avoid it so no harm done

Headed home for dinner

Kaoliang = red face
(-.-)

We were given 3 rooms to split among the 7 of us but we decided to all snuggle up together (with the exception of my cousin and his wife). Guess who decided to come by?

My little TW niece Xin Chen (or we call her Chen Chen). She’s super cute and pretty and honestly the pictures don’t do her justice at all. I’ll post more of her pictures in the next post

Anyways, the weather gets worse as it progresses into the night and there was once the heater stopped working (I think there were too many of us showering at one time) and it spewed out icy cold water! If it was normal room temperature cool water I can still accept, but it was ICE COLD.

A complete torture especially when I was not done yet and I had soap all over

I swear for a moment there and then I thought I might collapse from hypothermia, definintely very unpleasant! Thankfully we only had to suffer this for a night and subsequently, we learnt that only one one person can shower at any one time, else, the heater would be grouchy again!!

We all had a good sleep huddling together, despite the creepy howls of forceful winds. Next post, visit to Kaoliang Liquor Factory!