Taipei Take 2. Mt. Zhongzheng kicks our butts

Nov 23 – Yangmingshan National Park

I’ll start this post by saying that nearly all of our suggestions for things to do in the Taipei area were given to us by Lisa, Mike’s lovely sister-in-law.  Her note said Yangmingshan National Park was a good place to go to hike and to get away from the city.  We loved that idea.  So, we got train directions to the park which happened to be just up a different street than the hot springs at Xinbeitou.  We didn’t find a map or really any information about the park since the gentleman at the information desk at Beitou station told us we could catch the train to Xinbeitou and find all of that out at the park’s visitor center.

 

We arrived at Xinbeitou and followed the signs for the park and the Mt. Zhongzheng Hiking Trail.  A quick stop at a 7 Eleven provided us with water, flax crackers (with real New Zealand butter in them we found out later.  Oops.), rain ponchos, and some nuts for what we believed was a 4 mile hike.  A sign at the base of the trail showed a large loop heading up to an overlook and back around.  Simple, right?  Right? 

The trail was a set of stone steps going up the side of the mountain through neighborhoods and temples.  We lost track of it several times as it would simply disappear.  We were supposed to follow the road in these places.  About a mile into our adventure, my Vibram Five Fingers, the toe shoes I wear for hiking and running, started rubbing a sore into the arch of my foot.  This didn’t bode well for the hike.  These shoes were an old pair and had been glued back together after a first thrashing.  Don’t think all of these shoes are bad on the feet.  I digress.   Mike suggested we either go back or go barefoot.  I was not about to wimp out on a 4 mile hike.  The shoes came off.

We walked up and up and up, stopping at a cool temple with gorgeous dragon reliefs on the front and a family shrine next door while we hunted for the trail.  Finally when it seemed that there was no way we weren’t to the mid-point of the trail, we reached what we thought was the lookout.  It was super windy.  Two golden era couples were lunching in one pavilion.  We took the other and ate our snacks. 

We continued across the parking area to the trailhead.  This was another entry point it turned out, not the mid-point at all.  The sign showed only the upper part of the trail with the view point partway up.  Any reservations I might have had about that were completely put out of my mind by the large warning sign at the trail head.  “Beware of Poisonous Snakes and Wasps.”  If you don’t know, I hate snakes.  They’re creepy and scary and slithery and soulless.  My feet were still bare and I hated the idea of stepping on one.  Mike plowed ahead and I followed apprehensively, watching both trees and ground for any serpentine creature. 

Soon we made it to the overlook which was a tower of sorts with an amazing view of the city and surrounding mountains.  It had posters of wildlife we might find in the area as well as indicators of what peaks were around us.  Pretty neat.  We continued our trip finally starting to head downhill a ways later after a minor freakout we had missed the trail.  It seemed to go on forever and ever.  Finally we pulled the camera out and examined the topo map to see if we had taken a wrong turn.  Our water was gone, we had a few crackers left and a small bag of nuts.  We decided to keep going and finally came to a road with another trailhead.  Now all we had to do was complete the loop.  We crossed the street and started down the stone steps.

A short ways into the walk, the trail became increasingly narrower with debris scattered all over the steps.  The trail looked barely used.  We pressed on.  I saw a flesh colored skinny snake and did a creeped-out cha-cha, tiptoeing away from it.  Mike said it was pretty, weirdo.  At some points trees had fallen across the trail and we had to drop down into the woods to go around them.  It seemed like we had been walking forever.  I was totally over walking barefoot through the jungle on a foot-wide, slippery trail by this point.  Finally we made it to a temple.  Checking the map, it seemed we were getting close to civilization once again.

Unfortunately, it still took us another hour from that point winding through neighborhoods looking for the trail, but we made it back.  The hike was 5 hours and my guess is 7ish miles.  We caught the train back to the hostel and grabbed food in an alley full of cats and poorly-mannered patrons.  Mine was good, but Mike was less than impressed.  A quick trip to the giant grocery store cheered him up.  We bought delicious walnut bread, mango wine bread, and fresh fruit.

Nov-24- Stone Bouldering Gym

Our final day we decided to do something we definitely can’t get enough of: rock climbing.  We found a local bouldering gym.  It was a great size and layout, clean, interesting, with a slackline.  They didn’t have much for rentals, so my shoes were at least a size small.  The system of route setting was different than any I had ever seen using small numbered, color-coded plaques to mark each hold.  Usually same colored holds or colored tape are used.  This made routes very hard to follow. 

Suddenly the power went out.  The place was well-enough lit by the natural light coming through the huge garage door at the front that we could still see, so we climbed until the numbers were too hard to follow.  By this time there were over 50 people in the small gym.  It was time to head back to pick up our stuff and head to the airport, but I was glad for the bit of exercise anyway. 

The trip to the airport was a little confusing, though mostly uneventful.  Mike found yummy veggie steamed buns at the terminal.  We tried to stay awake as much as possible on the flight home to stave off jetlag since we were essentially going back in time.  Jeff and Lisa picked us up at Seatac and took us home with them for a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.  It was a perfect ending to an amazing adventure.

The end.

Note: staving off the jet lag only worked for Mike who was put immediately on night shift when he got back.  I spent 4 nights getting almost no sleep. Yuck.  Worst jet lag ever!

Taipei Taiwan 1/2

This is the first of two posts of our trip to Taiwan.  I wanted to keep it short, but it was it's own adventure and Mike and I loved it there. Pictures are at https://picasaweb.google.com/kjhansen24/.

Nov 20

The 5 hour flight was not a big deal at all.  It seemed to go by quickly. Immigration was a breeze and cost nothing.  We picked up some cash at the ATM after 10 minutes of confusing ourselves about the exchange rate and hopped a bus into Taipei City.  2 hours later we were searching for the hostel and found it with the aid of a nice gentleman walking his very fat Chihuahua at midnight on a Thursday.  The sign for the hostel was business card sized.  Turns out it’s illegal to have a big sign for a hostel.  Not sure what the issue is there.

Alex, the owner and night attendant, was not impressed at our late arrival, but took our apologies and gave us room keys.  Our room was clean and comfortable with bunk beds!  After a quick tour and explanation of the place, we crashed for the night.

Nov 21

The next morning Alex gave us directions and a note in Chinese for traditional Taiwanese breakfast.  This consisted of fried bread wrapped in a fried tortilla and a fried tortilla wrapped around a fried egg with soy milk.  It was pretty tasty (we skipped the egg), but our tummies hurt after from all the grease.

We headed immediately to Langshan Temple which is a big attraction apparently for both locals and tourists.  It’s a beautiful Buddhist temple in the traditional Chinese style with huge incense pots and carved pillars.  The back area had these columns with little cards all over them.  I think they were names of ancestors, but I’m unsure.  Many people were praying and making offerings of food, flowers and incense.

Afterward, we took a trip to the zoo.  The transit in Taipei is so similar to Tokyo, I was very impressed.  The metro took us almost anywhere we wanted to go.  We bought Easypasses which are just refillable transit cards that can also be used other places to pay for things such as the zoo and 7 Eleven (7 Elevens are EVERYWHERE here).  The metro dropped us off after just one transfer at the entrance to the zoo.  The zoo is a sprawling park with plenty of attractions.  Our favorites were the rhinos, zebras and chimps.  One feisty young chimpanzee had a stick he was using to terrorize the older chimps.  He would carry it in his mouth while he loped after someone then throw it when he was close enough and scamper off before he could be caught.  It was hilarious!  We watched for about 15 minutes and none of the other chimps managed to catch him.  What a little imp!

On our way out of the zoo, a woman and her mother stopped to talk to us in English.  They were very nice and friendly.  The mother said I have a nice physique and looked like a model.  Yay!! That made me smile.  They suggested we take a romantic ride up the gondola to the top of the mountain to see the sunset and city lights.  It would cost a little over $3USD each.  Done!  The ride was lovely.  We had a spectacular view of the sunset and the city once the dark overtook the day.  At the top, we walked to a tea house that served us greens and mushrooms with rice. YUM!  The ride back down landed us in a “crystal carriage” meaning it had a glass bottom.  Unfortunately, it was too dark to see much out of it.  We enjoyed the few minutes it looked like we were floating anyway.

Nov 22 – Shilin and Xinbeitou

This was museum day.  We hopped the metro with some bread from a street vendor and rode to Shilin to see the National Palace Museum.  The bus stop was right next to a fine art gallery with free admission so we opted to check that out first.  We really enjoyed the exhibit. 

Across the street was the National Palace Museum.  It’s a huge structure that I assume used to be the Emperor’s Palace in Taipei.  As we walked up, we found the Garden of Perfect Benevolence and decidedly couldn’t miss it.  We fed the koi and wandered around in the rain.  The garden was lovely, well-kept and perfectly benevolent. 

The museum was a zoo.  There were huge tour groups everywhere.  The people in them seemed to have no respect for anyone else.  A group of 35 people would come stampeding into an area I was marveling at a jade carving and crowd me out.  I dislike crowds anyway, but you add in pushiness and I’m done.  I probably missed some really cool stuff because of that.  It’s ok though.  I saw enough wine containers, cauldrons, jade carvings, snuff boxes and calligraphy to last me a good long while.

We took off back to the metro and rode to Xinbeitou to sit in the hot springs.  It’s a walk up a river to the public hot spring.  We found outdoor exercise equipment to play on for the amusement of the locals.  Since apparently we could only go in at a specific time, we had time to walk up to Thermal Valley, where a river of hot water floods the area with steam. Neat!! 

Back at the hot spring, I was amused to find that I was the only female in a bikini and the only one not in a bathing suit that looked like a short wetsuit.  Interesting… The hot springs were varying temperatures.  The hottest at the top was 45 degrees Celsius.  My toes were tingling the whole time we were in there.  I lasted only a few minutes.  Then we moved on trying out each temperature of pool.  We did everything wrong from trying to go into the hot spring too early to not knowing to bathe our feet between spas to not putting my hair up.  We did not last the whole 90 minutes we paid for.

On the way back to Mr. Lobster’s Secret Den, we stopped for dinner at a vegetarian restaurant we had seen in Shilin.  It was pretty good.  I like kimchi. Shilin is also the location of a major night market.  We wandered through the throngs looking at all the weird street meat and clothing.  We finally got to a fruit stand and paid probably way too much for some dragon fruit, pineapple, star fruit and an apple like fruit.  The pineapple was amazing!