Jade / R.C. Helicopters / Foraging For Food

The readers of this blog might suspect a noncommittal attitude on the part of its writer. As if he finds alternative methods of entertainment preferable to his obligatory story-telling work. I plead the readers remain vigilant through this lull. Pressing matters involving the concretion of our Philippines agenda, attempting to help solidify the China agenda, and writing on various other projects has created a precedence of missed deadlines. Couple this with sporadic weather inhibiting extreme adventures and the reader might understand the situation surrounding this lull. Not suggesting that our days have been uneventful though. We recently met the former mayor of Hualien, river-traced one of the rivers blogged about -- only to have it end abruptly with sheer, impassable, obstacles -- met a hunter with rifle on the trail (and didn't take a picture!! I am still kicking myself for this gross negligence), ate a wonderful meal as, per custom before Chinese New Year, treated by Dacota's awesome employer, and so much more. No; life hasn't been boring yet nothing noteworthy, nothing to cause a shocked reaction from the reader, has taken place. Sunday though, offered an enjoyable experience, one that this limited audience might enjoy reading. So enough excuses already; onward to story-time!

Already mentioned earlier in this "procession of stories" is our incessant search for the best breakfast spot in town. Yes, food, food, food; perhaps the blog should be relabeled as, “My Adventure Towards Obesity”. Some might wonder how this obsession began; why our search for a lunch or dinner restaurant hasn't begun. Well, truth of the matter is, it ended before its inception. My first meal in Hualien happened to be just right; and, after a week of exploration, verified it was the best meal one can find within this fine city. No other place compared to this spot and so we returned, and continue returning although we make dinner or eat other places once in a while so we don't burn out, a probable irrational fear but one doesn't risk such a folly.

When a person frequents an establishment, connection are born. The two cooks are most notable: a young man we nicknamed “RC” because he mentioned that he flew remote controlled helicopters, and “Sifu” because he is a former Buddhist monk and his ever ready smile indicated he is, quite possibly, enlightened. These characters accentuate the experience, combining good company and healthy, delicious, meals. The power structure of the restaurant was unknown to us and we hoped RC never received reprimands from "Powers That Be" for talking with us. Then, one shocking revelation took place during some query about the age of the restaurant. It turns out, RC owns this establishment and our anxiety about conversing instantly dissolved.

During our meals, RC occasionally joins us until business called him away. Last week, plans were hatched to go out hiking together, and, this past Sunday, the hike commenced. Meeting at the restaurant a little after nine, we set out in his car -- a much warmer and more relaxing method of transportation. Since the majority of the breakfast shops were closed, we'd only been able to obtain fan tuan for breakfast; but not to worry, RC headed into the restaurant and returned within a few minutes with a bag contain raw vegetables and uncooked noodles. And we were off... Three quarters of an hour later and we arrived at an established parking lot, trail-head leading upriver.

This semi-protected river offers a watershed for spawning fish but is recreated for one major reason, jade, and the ability for visitors to claim a trophy if they search hard enough. As we ate our breakfast, we searched the river for a minute and a local man came over and chatted with Dacota and RC. As per usual, I busied myself with other tasks. The old man gifted me two small slivers of jade and directed us towards the path we'd wanted to follow.

The well established path

As we hiked along, we asked RC's help in identifying local edible plants. Our conversations with various aboriginals gave us some information about these readily found plants and RC helped solidify this knowledge, while adding considerably more. He talked about a soup made from five plants, and also gave cooking instructions for the curled fronds of the fern trees. His skills proved accurate and are much appreciated. The path ended at a fish ladder (of which I forgot to photograph) and one needed to walk along the concrete retaining wall of the fish ladder to continue further upstream. Our jade search, thus far, yielded sparse results, and we continued forth.

I see a waskly RC wabbit

Although originally scheduled as a hike, this turned into a trace and we headed along the stream, the algae covered rocks being "fun" to travel along.

Side Paths

As with any trace, one should expect short cuts along the way. Very little land is left untouched by the aboriginals, land used for hunting, farming, or foraging, so these frequent side trips decrease travel time.

A shady alcove 

Compared to some of the other rivers we've traced, very few large obstacles hampered our progress. The search for jade became increasingly more fruitful the further upriver we traveled. Some very large jade pieces, one weighing roughly thirty pounds, sat upon various rocks, obviously discovered and waiting to be trekked out to be sold. Leaving these displayed treasures for their rightful owners, our success in jade collecting stopped only because of weight and time restrictions.

A small waterfall that ended our days progress

This rushing waterfall would have been quite an obstacle if rope infrastructure didn't circumvent it, allowing one to climb the steep embankment to continue. But we decided to end our forward push for the day; demanding Dacota and I return to discover where the trace could lead.

It seems these posts often end part way; but one must remember, we are hiking up a river. After a few miles of tracing, remote destinations can be accessed without resulting in an end. There is always the possibility of tracing further, going out longer, but the river could cascade down around impassable boulders (as what happened a few days prior) or it could lead for a marathon worth of distance until the final source can be found. Usually a steady stream running down an imposing mountain-side is found at the end, the accumulated waters from the surrounding mountain ranges composing the volume found at the start.

Success! We made it out with treasure.

During the hike, Dacota continually collected a delicious fern-type vegetable called San Su, which grows wild. As we hiked back, food plans were discussed and we agreed to harvest some local plants to finalize the soup noodles. Packs filled with veggies, we left the watershed and relocated to a close park with tables and benches.

Chef RC making the soup noodles out of wild-harvested plants

Would it surprise the reader to be informed that the soup was delicious? Well then... it was awesome.

Two of RC's Remote Controlled Helicopters

As we drove back to town, conversation points spurred us to visit RC's father's home in the country, where he keeps his helicopters. Up to this point, I'd only assumed that these rumored helicopters were play toys and he was a mere hobbyist.  Although in the past he'd mentioned that he competed, I guess I never understood the particulars, and so not only was I impressed by the following experience but educated as well.

These helicopters are professional beauties, weighing very little, without the battery pack, and are constructed out of carbon fiber. Intricate motor and gyroscopic control systems allows for precise control of the flying copter while the pilot, standing on the ground, uses a radio controller to send it zooming around. As long as the helicopter remains in visual sight, the pilot could continue manipulation the bird over half a mile away.

Not a hobbyist at all, RC is a sponsored pilot, having won dozens of awards, and has recently departed from competition to allow others a chance to win. Now a days, his corporate sponsor provides prototype models and prototype control systems for him to test out. The red copter is "perfect", and was used successfully in many competitions. The blue copter is a prototype, yet the both flew amazingly complicated sets.

The "perfect" raptor mid-air

The picture doesn't really do the copter  justice; these birds are five feet in length with four foot wingspan. As they fly, an incredibly loud hum is issued. Imagine a very large humming bird. In fact, it moves like one and can stop or take off on a dime, no hesitation, no lag. Like some prehistoric bird, this machine commands the sky.

But how does one compete in this exclusive sport? Are mini-guns attached to the hull and, in-air, dog-fights take place? ... Not quite. It turns out that the most readily understood comparison would be figure-skating. Music accompanies the flight, the pilot "dances" the copter in-sync with the beat, complex routines and maneuvers judged for accuracy and originality. Imagine flying this big bird, a hundred feet in the air and needing to make figure eights around a common focal point, copter changing orientation in the interim. We watched RC perform this move with ease. Rocketing hundreds of feet in the air and slamming back towards the earth to stop a foot off the ground, and zoom off again. Although the flight-time is limited to three minutes, the intense experience would have caused sensory overload if longer duration could be sustained. I'll never again scoff at people's interested in remote controlled vehicles.

To be honest, never in my life did I anticipate writing about remote controlled helicopters in such detail. Taiwan is full of new experiences!

If RC is reading this... Thank you for a wonderful day!

----- Addendum ---

We re-traced this river and below are additional photographs of that trip. I wanted to produce an updated document while still preserving the original mystery, thus I did not change the original document but let it remain "in limbo" until making the time to complete this small update.

Fish Ladder

Making up for my poor documenting skills I photographed the fish ladder one must walk along to begin the trace.

- And so we begin -

After a heavy rainfall the previous two days, the river we found today was much swifter than before. With a goal of distance instead of immediate-vicinity exploration, we set off and made tracks, reaching the climax point (the waterfall) in roughly half an hour. This first waterfall turned out to be the actual starting point for a cool trace, with small waterfalls around every bend, steep moss covered walls, dripping with moisture, creating beautiful walls, the increase in size and frequency of jade, and more.

A trinity of pathways

The most adorable little San Su ever!

Although I did not mention this before, Areca Palms covered the hills to the south, obviously cultivated. As no roads were seen, and a few paths lead up to the fields, RC assumed ( a reasonable assumption) that people collected the nuts from the field and trekked them down river. As an hour continued by, we found another one of these paths leading up into a field and, on a whim, decided to check it out. As we hiked up, a widening path through the trees, and remnants of tire marks, indicated that there was indeed a road leading up to this field. Spurred on to discover the source of these tracks, we continued to hike through the field until we came across a decaying dirt road. With this higher vantage, we could faintly see the road on distant mountains to the east. The muddy and sparsely traveled road would be currently impossible to travel by scooter or motorcycle and a 4x4 rig would find the sinking, slippery road treacherous. Because the road continued upstream, albeit a hundred feet above the river, we decided to take this short cut and hiked about three quarters of a mile until we came upon a gate with signs declaring, "No Entry."

The Gate

This isn't the first time we've reached this dilemma, to enter the restricted area or call it a day. The green sign indicates construction (this far from town probably meant the dynamiting and the destruction of another mountain) and we decided to duck under the fence and see what was really going on.

As we continued to hike, the river, once far below, raised in elevation to meet us along side the road. If a human confrontation were to occur, we could claim that we traced the river until reaching the road and decided to take the easier path. Farmed fields ended at the gate. A rusted, but looking functional, backhoe stood like a dinosaur and we passed by it ever expecting to see people. Yet, none were found. After a mile or two along the road, we reach the end of the operation. From small side detours, some kind of destructive mining was taking place but I couldn't quite figure out which stone was sought. Perhaps veins of jade made this operation worth it, but we never found any indication that this venture was successful. he river continued onward but the site abruptly ended, giving little indication what was harvested or why they stopped.

Camera Facing East, I'm standing next to the river

So what should we have done? Call it a day and head back? No! Continue the trace, obviously. Fallen trees provided excellent homes for shelf mushrooms and we observed four distinct varieties, none of which we'd previously observed. We spent an hour hiking up this remote river before the first drops of rain began. Far beyond any point where people would consider looking for us, we decided it best to return, on the off chance the sprinkling rain became a downpour.

The view as we turned around

At this point, I can, fairly, confidently claim that no infrastructure existed upriver and that this trace would (continue to) deliver wild, sub-tropic jungle wonderland. At this point, I question whether or not to return to this spot. On the one hand, we trekked out fifty pounds worth of jade and on the other, it would take illegal actions to gain access to the pristine portion of the river. Knowing a mining operation is above stream somehow diminishes the value of the lower trace. So there you have it folks, a double-part story based off a river possibly never to be mentioned again.