THE FIRST PART OF THIS LONG POST IS BELOW this section, it is called "More Traveling"
As mentioned, waking up on Sunday morning was Amazingly restful.
we once again headed over to the Food court on the 2nd floor of the Train station.. this time with a bit more confidence of finding it. Sadly when we ordered it took FOREVER for all of us to get our food. I had been to the restaurant before and kinda new what to expect, and mine came right out, Sadly after... 20-30 minutes the next one came out.. then another 5-8 the next (So the first few of us were done by the time the last one got theirs.. ) So that Called for me to explore and find Coffee.. I walked up and was all ready to order in Chinese ( did well) then he asks me in perfect english ( obviously i stick out a bit) "what Size?"( KILLING IT MAN... I WAS TRYING). So i get myself coffee and Linda wanted tea as she was feeling a bit sick. I get back and find that Linda had gotten me a Cream puff ( So fresh.. so good... ) So I was on cloud 9.. Coffee... Cream-puff.. and 10+ hours of sleep.. ON A ROLL.
we thought a bus would make it out there but then we sent our "Southern Taiwanese" diplomat BIG G( 6' 5" dutch guy), to find out about the transportation. He found out that there was a Train and no Busses. ( Good with me, i like trains). So we jumped on the train ( by this time my coffee and creampuff were kicking in) and figured out what we were to do when we got there. Our first adventure was over to the "Fairy Caves".
==Temples==
We arrive at the cave temple and wander through. Not to say it was not impressive, but once you've seen 5 temples.. you seen enough. What was Fun about this temple in particular is that there was a offshoot of a small natural cave ( Small... I BEARLY FIT crouching and hopping through). making it down to the end of a cave was adventurous and i'm sure the other taiwanese visitors were laughing at us big Europeans and Americans fitting through the tunnels.
another interesting thing I saw at this temple is that there was what appeared to be a monk studying. Most other temples just has person to watch and make sure all teh candles are lit. I'll start to take note of which temples do and don't as some are Taoist and other Buddist... ( I'm proably missing some).
after surviving the cave, we walked up what seemed to be hundreds of stairs ( like 50-60 meters vertical.. -ish)and got some great pictures of the harbor. as this is the east coast right on the Pacific Ocean there are a lot of shipping and recieving at this port. But still nice area. At the top there was another temple ( go figure). This one seemed a bit run down but my favorite part of this was a few kids I was talking to. They were 6-8 maybe and i was able to speah a little with them, Tell them I'm american ( not that it's hard to tell I'm different) and that I speak only a little english)... then i motioned to get a picture with them and they were so cute as the just RAN AWAY.. when they came back.. they wanted to see my camera ( feeling they wanted to steal it so i tried to trick them into a picture or few... theives don't like pictures.. ) anyways, they were cute and I kept my camera away.
==to the island==
There is an island which one of the local buses takes you to. It is nice, but it is not obvious that there is a park when you get off the bus. have to walk about 3/4 km to get there. After arriving at the park area the sun was beginning to set and it really had some beautiful pictures of the mountains to the north of us and the ocean breaking against the rocks. ... And when i say breaking against the rocks it was BIG. there were probably about 5-8 foot waves ( probably from the typhoon that bearly missed the island).
This entire area was very beautiful as there were small areas to walk out on and caves into the rocks and such that had small temples in them. Luis ( my roomate) and I got the bright idea to walk off the other side of the small inlet off the ocean. To get to the other side there was a bath across the water( foot or 2 above water) but the real problem was the path starts about 8 feet into the shallow water. I pulled a log over and walked across it onto the path and my Luis followed. not so bad... kinda nice to see that we were going to make it across. we get some pictures then realize that the waves coming in were actually raising the water... soo.. some of the waves would go over the path wer were on.
The path went quite a ways and wrapped around the bend to a different cool area ( with little cubby hole hidouts and such.) while walking over there( in my usual leisurely way) the waives started to pick up and pants got QUITE wet.. "If i'm going to get wet... i'm gonna get a video of it". well.. after the water hit we started running...
While we were wet we climbed up some rocks and got some Marvelous pictures of the area. I need to grab some of them from Luis but it was definately one of the mroe beautiful places I've seen in my life. ( and NO ONE WAS THERE).
Pictures, pictures, pictures.. then we decided to go back and join the others so they don't worry to much about us... sadly the waves had continued to get bigger. Luis takes the caution and puts on his jacket ( over his camera and phone)... I'm pretty reckless and get my camera out to video it again..
the way back we now are able to recognize when the waves are coming in.. and tried to beat it... fortunately I made it without too much water (minus my feet)... Luis wasn't so lucky.. the wave was huge and covered him completely. "here it COMES... wow, made it " i said, then luis in the background " OHHH NOOOO" in his Panamanian accent. he was Soaked. soo, sadly we made it back and got some more pictures but we both were quite wet the rest of the day. My shoes didn't take the wetness so well and really started to smell. the best part of it all is the story of survival and when the rest of the group sees us " oh.. their sweating... a lot.. WAIT.. did you go swimming in the ocean?".
the "sidewalk" into the ocean
==Dinner and travels==
.. made it back to town... smellily ( word?) and tired and grabbed dinner at a night market. some interesting food. Shrimp filled fried bread, Sushi, .. I had a corn dog because it smelled really good and I have no regets ( though Linda was pretty ashamed to know me). It was a really good corn dog whose breading was sweeter than in the US... besides that just travled back to taipei to grab a bus back to school.
==
all in all it was a fantastic weekend with a lot of fun group moments ( lots of random song quotes and singing)... the arrive at home followed by the stripping of wet clothes may have been the perfect end.
No comments:
Post a Comment