Say hello to Audrey!

We were joined on the biowalk by Christine, a graduating senior. (Hmm… I’ve just realized I still haven’t sent her the photos yet. Gah.) Getting to our area of the mountains involved taking a taxi to a hospital. We had to leave through the back entrance in order to get to our path. Interesting, eh?

It was a warm day as usual, and I could tell already that I’d be sweating beads by the time we reached the top. As we started up the steps, you could see that we were already pretty high above the rest of Taipei.

A good part of the particular hill/mountain we were on was made up pale yellow sandstone, worn smooth over the years by rainfall. As we were climbing the steps to the top, you could see large piles of the worn down sand lying to the sides. Many people had climbed the mountain before, as many had scratched their mark into the mountain surface.

On the way back down, parts of the path became very veggified. A machete would have done wonders.

We reached a road, where we had a long downhill descent. I felt an eerie urge to duck into a ball and roll down the road all the way down. I prolly would have died, but it would have been glorious.

Returned to the school, and waved farewell to Christine and Mr. Olsen. Apparently today was the last day of class for seniors. We went to a local 7-Eleven to get some refreshments.

Orange walls! wai!

We each got a cold bottle of Pocari Sweat. Pocari Sweat, for those who have not had it before, is not sweat. It’s a Japanese sports drink, that’s supposed to act like gatorade. The taste is pretty unique from American drinks, but I’d say it’s closest comparison would be Squirt without the fizz. Now the real question is, do you know what Squirt is?

Bid Kevu farewell, returned home, enjoyed a cool shower, and ate dinner with Daphu.

count: 53

Technorati Tags: Taiwan, Taipei, yangmingshan, pocari, sweat

There was still a good amount of vertical climbing, but most of the path wasn’t as steep as our previous trip.

The view from this area was a lot different from the biowalk. The vegatation was a lot milder, so you could actually look across the surrounding hills. Greeeeeeen. The blue sky was painted with large fluffy clouds which brought the entire landscape together. It was an impressive sight.

I put together a panorama of the landscape for you to enjoy. Click for full view. (By the way, you can click any photo for a larger version.) Warning: This pano is pretty large.

Somewhere on one of the hills, there was a small visitor center with museum-ish exhibits in glass cases. Various farm tools used in the area, along with information about the surrounding area made up most of the exhibits.

Around lunchtime, we were taken to a restaurant that was also located up in these hills. Although I should have been used to it by now, we were dazzled again when presented with quite a feast.

We filled our tummies with a grand meal, comprising of ten or eleven different dishes. (You can’t see ‘em all, ‘cuz they won’t fit!) Many of the dishes were made with local produce, which added to the whole mountain trek experience. Not only did we climb the hills, but we ate them too. And they were delicious. Unfortunately even if I wanted to go back, I know not the name nor the exact location of this place, so the best I could do would be to stab a finger in the general direction of the mountains.

After eating a little too well, we went to the Yangmingshan National Park center which was nestled up in these hills.

Flower clock!

There were some statues about, a Koi pool, a large visitors’ center, and a fancy fountain. The food was making me lazy and killed my enthusiasm a bit, so there wasn’t anything particularly interesting that drew my eye. I appreciated the benches quite a bit.

We left the mountain, gained a Kevu, and set off again for Danshui. We walked over a nifty bridge called the “Lover’s bridge.” mmm… いいね。

Admired the scenery for a while, then decided to grab some refreshments. We entered a small cafe where I ordered an Oreo smoothie. It was $140 NT (about $4.25 US) which is pretty darn expensive for Taiwan. In fact, it was the most expensive drink I’ve ordered during the whole trip.

While waiting for our drinks to appear, I took a moment to look over Taiwanese receipts. Notice anything?

You should see that there’s a red circle on top, with a number on it. In Taiwan, most establishments utilize a standard receipt system. Now the cool part about all this is that monthly lottery drawings are held using the numbers on top. Winners are pretty common, but the payouts are rather small, typically around ~150NT (~$4.50 US). Kevu’s family once won 300NT from what I remember. It’s a cool way to get an occasional rebate on your purchases.

Our drinks having arrived, I quickly took the straw to my lips. The first thing I noticed was that my Oreo smoothie was lacking in the Oreo department. The second thing I noticed was the taste of failure. It was lacking overall in the taste department; not enough flavoring for the amount of ice they put in. It wasn’t too bad, and I’d say it prolly was ok if I hadn’t paid so much for it.

Night fell quickly, and with our stomachs fussing, we head back to Daphu’s neighborhood to grab some dinner. We went to Futagoyama, a Japanese ramen shop.

I initially wanted to order some tonkatsu ramen, but they had run out of either rice or pork cutlets and it was unavailable. And so, I settled for some pork ramen. I think this was as close as I’ve been to experiencing authentic Japanese ramen, and I must say, it was muy tasty. (Authentic meaning, being from Japan, I guess.) The miso broth was good and the meat accompanying the noodles were tender and savory. I wasn’t expecting the bamboo shoots, but those were a welcome addition to the bowl as well. It was a fair sized serving, but disappeared rather quickly, which I blame on it’s tasty powers.

It was already pretty late when we started eating, so after dinner we rolled back home. Since I was denied my first ramen choice, I shook my fist in delicious disappointment and vowed to return another day.

count: 50

Technorati Tags: taipei, taiwan, food, yangmingshan, futagoyama, ramen, danshui

So, after having redeemed our movie tickets, our party walked over to Taipei American School, Daphu’s high school. I enjoyed their color scheme quite a bit, and was thoroughly pleased with the wide use of orange indoors. The way the Sun filled that orange lobby… glorious.

Nice track.

Being an “American” school, classes are taught in English, and students have similar offerings to schools in the States, like AP Physics. Kinda sucked knowing that everyone spoke English and better Chinese than I do. Envy.

We met up with a couple of Kevu’s and Daphu’s high school teachers. They took us up to Yangmingshan, a cluster of mountains on the North end of Taipei. We were going up for our first “Biowalk” through the mountains. After a short taxi ride up, we started climbing a set of steps which led up the mountain side.

After a good while, the angry steps went away and the biowalk finally started living up to it’s name. We passed by a lot of farms, and I wondered how much of a pain it would be going up and down the mountain all the time. As we kept walking along the path, we were eventually greeted by a locked gate. The gate wasn’t much of a problem, as it was the simple matter of swinging around the gate to the other side. However, as the path overlooked a pretty angry tumble down the side of the mountain, swinging around wasn’t quite as happy.

The Chinese written on the gate pretty much means, “Welcome, Please enter.” Ironic, eh?

We came across a shiny waterfall and took some obligatory pictures. The air was quite refreshing, and hearing the water splash while admiring the beautiful scenery was definitely a pleasure. We continued our walk and was greeted by another friendly gate.

We ran into a couple more “welcoming” gates before we hit height of our path. Around then, a group of wild monkeys were walking past us, and a couple came pretty darn close. Forgive me, the pictures were taken without any flash and it was pretty dark. (Didn’t want to startle the monkeys.)

Yay, monkeys. The trip downhill was much quicker, but the steps were spaced a bit too short, making the descent slower than it should have been. On the way down, we passed by this fellow here, who was going up the steps on his hands and feet. Backwards.

Hardcore.

We conquered a small portion of Yangmingshan, and were ready to head back home. We taxi’d back to TAS, waved farewell to the teachers and head over to Daphu’s place. Over at Daphu’s I started cooking dinner while the others showered. (I forgot to mention, but before (or after?) we bought our movie vouchers in the morning, we went grocery shopping over at Shidong market and Takashimaya.) After eating the dinner I prepared, we watched Pirates of the Carribean 3 at the theatre. I watched the 2nd one the previous day during the odd hours of the night. They were both… interesting. Wasn’t as happy as the first one, though.

All in all, quite an accomplished day.

count: 22

Technorati Tags: taiwan, taipei, yangmingshan