Waterfalls

Well, spring break is now complete. I’m sitting in the gate for my flight from Singapore to Sydney. While sitting and doing nothing is fun, I’d figure I’d share the rest of my time in Taiwan.

One point I forgot to mention in my previous post: Taiwan has Costco. Now, I know that being in a foreign country, one should indulge in the culture and experiment with food. Personally, I feel like that is bullocks sometimes. There is no reason to not make yourself feel at home while overseas. So Sarah and I went to Costco for dinner on Tuesday night. I had a hot dog and a slice of Hawaiian pizza. Delicious. With that out of the way, it is time to continue on my adventure.

On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, Sarah had to work. That meant I was stuck by myself for up to eight hours at a time. Instead of going out into the town of Sijhih, I stayed in for those three days, getting some Uni work done. Fine by me. If I had my way, I would have travelled around the whole island. But since I was there for a person and not the destination, I was content with planning out a few papers and essays that I need to start writing.

Friday night, I picked up Sarah from work, and we headed towards Shilin night market. We caught the bus near to place of employment, caught the MRT, and went searching around for the market. Since most of Taiwan is sweltering during the day, most markets are conducted during the night time. This makes enough sense. We cruised around, trying to find a bite to eat. We finally found a place that was making some kind of meat-doughy-dumpling type food. Not bad. I ordered myself a Pearl Milk Tea, which I had read somewhere was well known in Taiwan. Boy was I wrong. There was some weird food inside of it (the pearls I guess) that made the entire drinking experience bizarre. I neglected to drink the whole cup. Couldn’t force myself to do it. Just about the weirdest drink I’ve had.

The food aside, there was nothing spectacular about the market. Just a lot of people in one place looking to either peddle a trade or purchase clothes, foods, or other trinkets. So we caught the MRT back to her place and went to bed.

The next day Sarah was given the day off, so we decided to explore another part of the country: Wulai. A small mountain town about an hour and a half from Taipei, Wulai is most well known for having one of the largest waterfalls in all of Taiwan. Pretty neat, but consider that Taiwan isn’t all that big to begin with. So after a long ride on the MRT, plus another bus ride, we were at the small town.

It was a pretty neat scene. The whole town consisted of a one lane road running through a series of shops and vendors. A river ran parallel to the side of the town we were on, so we had to cross a bridge to continue walking through Wulai. We wanted to make our way to the waterfall, so we searched through the town. Neither of us were certain of how to get there; we were lucky to stumble upon signs in English indicating some kind of small train located above the road. We ascended the steps and walked up to investigate.

The sight that greeted us was fairly comical. The “train” was nothing more that four small cars linked together. They could hold two people per seat, so pretty much like a roller coaster. It was about a 10 minute ride to the falls, and it provided a nice, scenic view of the river.

We arrived at the makeshift station and walked towards the best view of the falls. This was directly across the river, on an overlook that was no more than 30 feet from the river and the falls. It was a nice view. After checking that outlook, we walked up the mountain, as there were different paths constructed taking you up. It was both fun and exhausting; because of the humidity we were both left soaked in sweat. Definitely worth the effort, as we got to see a pretty unique view of the whole valley and the falls. Once we were done there, we caught the next “train” back to the main part of Wulai. There we bought dumplings at a 7-eleven and drank iced coffee at a café.

After finishing off the coffees, we decided to head back. Walking to the bus station was not fun; the mosquitos were feasting on my legs and it wouldn’t stop raining. I can’t imagine living in the country; it rained so much. But I’ll touch on that later. We took the bus back to the MRT station, and went to our next stop: Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall.

Exiting the MRT station at the memorial, we were accosted with people handing out different pamphlets written in Chinese. As I had no idea what they were saying, we walked by them without taking any. Bizarre to think they would give it to us. Couldn’t even begin to understand it. Anyways, I have no idea who Chiang Kai Shek was and why he is famous. The memorial to him is in a very nice place. It is in a large open space; quite unusual for Taipei. Facing the memorial, on your left and your right are two buildings of similar oriental design: one is a performing arts center and the other a museum. I don’t have internet right now, otherwise I would do a bit of research and not sound like a complete ignorant fool. We didn’t linger at the memorial for very long. After leaving, we headed towards Taipei Main Station, grabbed a bite to eat at an Italianish restaurant and called it a night.

Sunday was to be my last full day in Taiwan. We had decided to check out the hot springs near Beitou; again, another stop on the MRT line. We wondered around for a long time, looking for Hell Valley, a lake that was the source of the hot springs in the area. The temperature of the lake is 70 degrees Celsius. However, after a frustrating search, we ended up deciding to go to the hot springs, since were going to try and have a nice meal out on our last night. That didn’t work out either, as the hot spring closed for 45 minutes through out the day for cleaning. As a result, we walked back near the MRT station and enjoyed a meal at a Japanese fast food place. Not bad.

After lunch, it was time to finally make it to the hot spring. It was quite the experience. The water is streamed directly from the source of the lake; this creates quite a hot experience. We met a Taiwanese man who said he went to the springs 4 or 5 times a week. He was retired and looked in good health for a 74 year old. He explained each of the temperatures to us: the hot spring had four different pools on the far side of the area; these were the hot baths. As you went down a level, the temperature was cooler. The hottest pool was 42 C, the next 40 C, the next 35 C, and the last 33 C. On the other side were two “cool down” pools. They were set up to give you a time to cool down after spending a long time in the hot spring. We made sure to spend at least a minute in each pool. Even working our way up to the hottest. 42 degree water is hot! Yikes.

Once we were done at the hot spring, it was time to head back. We caught the MRT and bus back to Sarah’s apartment, changed, and went into Taipei for a last meal together. We ended up at one of the nicest restaurants I’ve ever eaten at. It was a five course meal. I ate escargot (delicious), French onion soup, Caesar salad, NY strip steak, and a delicious chocolate cake for dessert. While the restaurant was very American, the portions were much smaller than normal. It was both satisfying and delicious.

So as I write this latest entry, I’m sitting in the airport in Singapore. I’m getting tired of typing, so I’m going to try and post this and share my final thoughts on Taiwan in another day or so. We’ll see.