The best way to hike – in water.
11 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
Jessica’s been wanting to river trace, which is just hiking or tracing the route of a river, for a while now and yesterday we finally did it after a lengthy departure in which I was in a bad bad mood and seemed to exist to frustrate Jessica. But she weathered the Josh storm and we went and bought special river tracing shoes (kind of like scuba diving booties but with felt bottoms which help to grip the rocks) and I’m glad we did because they were awesome. I could jump onto slippery rocks and not slip. A couple of times I almost fell but never did. I felt like an amphibian. I don’t know why but I love jumping around on rocks in the water. When I was a kid my parents went to look at some property where they have their house now and I just naturally gravitated down toward the little creek and jumped in and played in the mud for a while. River tracing made me feel kind of at home.
We had to find this village called Cheng gong not to far south of Taipei on the way to Wulai. I thought it might be hard to find so I voted for us to just take a taxi out there thinking the taxi driver would know exactly what we were talking about. Well, he didn’t of course. I think it’s the only time we haven’t been able to somehow communicate or destination to a taxi driver. He spoke no English so we used our limited Chinese which was kind of fun and kind of ineffective. We ended up driving around Xindian for about 15 minutes because he thought we were looking for a street name cheng gong there. When he realized that was not the case we went back the MRT station and long story (calls to tourist information centers) short we just got out paid him 130 nt for not taking us anywhere and took the bus. The bus was crowded and we couldn’t understand the stop names very well. We’d thought we missed it and were just going to get out and randomly intersect the river and just hike around when the bus driver immediately called “Cheng Gong.” It was easy from there, a little rainy but these nice guys getting drunk at the bus stop gave us an umbrella. They said, “bye bye” to us when we came back about four hours later to go back to town too. River tracing was great. We just took our time walking around, stopped a few times to swim in some of the deeper pools and at one point I found a 15 or so foot ledge to jump off of into the water.
Today we went back up the tianmu trail which is right near our apartment for a hike and we saw these macaques. It was a happy moment because we’ve been hoping to see some kind of primate in the wild since we’ve been in Taiwan and in all of the places we’ve hiked we haven’t seen any sign of them. I was thinking we probably just wouldn’t see any and it was a real bummer but now we have and it is anit-bummer. It is awesome.
Bai sha wan (White Sand Beach)
04 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
We’ve a little over a month left in Taiwan so Jessica and I have been ramping up our excursions in both intensity and distance in our attempts to suck the marrow out of the isle Formosa. Last weekend we went to Kenting a great little town and park/coastline at the southern tip of Taiwan. I’ve been there once before with my scuba diving class but it was the first time for Jessica and I together. It was great. We bought snacks and beer at 7-11, got a taxi to the beach and there we stayed with our sun screen and our sunglasses and our rented beach umbrella for hours. Occasionally we would pop in the water and have fun fighting the massive waves until too much salt got in our eyes and forced us back out to take naps under our umbrella and to drink a few beers.
We didn’t know where to camp so we asked the umbrella salesman and she just pointed all around us. She was a determined lady. I think she asked us 5 or 6 times before we said yes. 300 nt and so worth it. The sun was brutal. We did see a sign that said no camping on the beach later. My plan was to wait and watch what other people did as there were probably hundreds of people on the beach at one point. Some of them must be camping somewhere. But they all cleared out almost instinctually around dusk. We were left pretty much alone and set up camp right at the tree line, still in the sand. It was incredibly hot and cramped in our little tent, precisely why the people sold it who sold it to us. Around three in the morning a few people were lighting off fireworks and wooping which woke us up and I felt a sweaty mess and climbed out and laid on the sand. Sleeping right on the sand of a clear skied beach is something everyone should do. Sand is the best mattress. I didn’t feel stiff at all in the morning at all and I felt this satisfaction at waking up to the ocean waves. I woke up next to the ocean for god’s sakes.
The best part about Bai sha beach is the beach bar which was only a few hundred feet from where we put our tent. We went there for some more beer and maybe a little food. The beer was cheap, 50nt per can, and this electronic music played while some kind of Asian music awards were playing on T.V. We shared a veggie noodle dish It was all open and outside, with an open air bar and picnic tables. People were grilling and a bunch of guys were drinking liquor behind us and playing drinking games. They eventually had the waitress give us a couple beers. When we looked back at them they were looking at us with their thumbs up, saying, “Meiguoren! Pijou!,” which means, Americans! Beer!, Just a great time. I kept thinking about state park beaches in the U.S. and if they had bars on them how awesome it would be. Maybe there are a lot of beach bars in the U.S. in Florida or California but in Michigan, on the great lakes, I can’t think of any I’ve ever seen. Maybe that’s my calling in life. Jessica and I have been fantasizing about opening a bookstore/bar on Lake Michigan. We’re confident it will happen.
While we were away there was a large protest in Taipei over the ECFA (economic cooperation framework agreement) and how it might change the economics and therefore politics between China and Taiwan. The DPP (democratic progressive party) claims that it will give China an advantage:
from The Taipei Times-
“An ECFA will limit us to China’s market and we will be unable to compete there because of their lower labor costs,” Chou said. “We want to sell made-in-Taiwan products around the whole world, not just in China.”
While The Kuomintang party is in favor of the deal. I’m not very knowledgeable about Taiwan’s politics but I do know that a lot of people here see economics as the latest attempt by China to exert control over Taiwan.
We’re gearing up to move to China in about 6 weeks or so. A lot of people have been wondering why we’re doing it because as one Israeli guy, who we bought a mattress from and who then gave us a free sushi roller, named Amir said, “Taiwan’s better, no.” And yes, Taiwan is great. It’s amazing. Everything is convenient and comfortable here. But then again I was pretty comfortable back in Grand Rapids, Michigan too. So, I guess, I just want to see what mainland China is like and maybe gain a better understanding of the world. Rick Steves can sum it up best. There is no google there though, so anyone who wants to e-mail me it will have to be at:
penniesforfree@yahoo.com
Hopefully this blog won’t be blocked. Perhaps I should shut my yapper about Mainland/Taiwan relations and it will be. And hopefully China will let’s its currency increase in value the second we arrive making us rich.
Zai jian,
Josh
Check out Jessica’s blog or my facebook to see a few picks of the wuliao jian trail/rock climb we hiked this past weekend. We had to scale vertical rock cliffs with ropes throughout almost the entire 4 hour hike. It was insanity. Plus we saw a huge snake. As I was climbing down I looked left and a fat gray scaly head was looking back at me only about three feet away. It was about six feet long and as thick as my arm. I instinctually scrambled back up the mountain cliff I was climbing down, of course it had to be on one of the more vertical parts of the trail that I encounter a jungle predator, and thank god it was leery of me and slithered back they way it came. Jessica and I then watched it slither down the trail in the direction we had to go for about 15 minutes. Cautiously we followed and didn’t see anymore sign of it. In trying to identify it later, I’m fairy sure it wasn’t poisonous but it was still scary.
