A full lap of Taiwan in March 2017 - Page 2

Near the bus stop is this building under construction. Chinese people appreciate the spectacle of a giant windowless orb wedged into the side of a building.

There is my mountain, the main peak is in the middle of the two peaks, on a clear day it forms the character of mountain.

The rivers run red with lava. Actually there is a lava panic on currently, as someone has declared that Taipei is sitting on a giant bubble of lava and it could consume the city anytime now. A bit like the whole yellowstone conspiracy that comes back every couple of years.

Before the final ascent, you can appreciate the fine museum, all to yourself. Or perhaps its the Taiwanese parliament, I cant be sure.

The path up is steps, all the way, no let up!

Such a great view of cloud, I was starting to get damp at this point.

My final goal is around to the left in the cloud, really getting wet now.

And so it was finally time to put on my coat! Feel the awesome.

Behold, the summit. I stood in the wind and rain enjoying my relative dryness.

Challenge accepted. Pose in the rain with my coat on. My camera got wet, all photos have water marks on them now. Actual marks made by water.

I had the whole summit to myself, no one was around to appreciate my coat.

The path down the other way was a sea of bamboo.

Kind of below the cloud, a bit of a view opened up.

It was sometimes hard to tell what was cloud and what was deadly volcanic gas. I breathed in both.

Nearly down now, probably the best photo from today, other than those of me with my coat on.

Bonus volcano. I stood in this exact spot a few years ago.

A bit more gas and I am done.

To celebrate, me and my coat returned to the hotel via a grandma on the corner selling pies and pasties. The pie is 'meat' the pasty is leek and tofu. Both were delciously oily.

If you dont get enough land for a big temple, just go vertical.

Random street crossing, turned out well for hand held moving photography in the dark.

Antiporno, coming soon! I am guessing its Japanese due to the sailor moon girl who has been disembowled and has teddy bears and kittens coming out of her.

Virtual Reality is big in Taiwan. I have seen several places. They look a bit more industrial and violent compared to the one in QV basement in Melbourne.
However you can watch a video of the game you can play, which seemed to be shooting basketballs from a moving car into a basket on a moving truck whilst half naked girls jump off motorbikes to try and block your shot.

More random steet corner.

Blow torch beef is back! Its small cubes now in a box, not as good as the time I saw a whole steak get blow torched and shoved in a paper bag.

These girls are protesting something with song. Their signs depict diamonds, hand bags, lipstick, and the King of Thailand? I cant read the traditional Chinese writing.

Falun Gong posters are very artistic in Taiwan, which is a very lucrative Falun Gong territory.

This temple has LED scrolling screens, as many do, an ATM, as many do, and a new addition, god like warriors that shoot lasers from their eyes.

Shop cat, in the Adidas store.

My dinner was ramen, the thing on the right is an egg. It was good, 'black' ramen whatever that is, noodles were very good texture but the whole thing needed more chashu, and black fungus would work in black ramen.

The large and impressive looking Taipei main station.

Underneath the station I found another huge mall thing. This one is a bit upmarket, so has no people.

My train wasnt until lunch time, so I had time to walk down to the river that runs through Taipei which is a long linear park.
Nice mountain. I was up it yesterday.
I saw a lot more of this park from the new airport train when I arrived on Sunday, parts of it looked very new, shiny and impressive, this part in the middle of the city, not so much.

However I did manage to time a photo to simultaneously catch a jogger, cyclists, and old folks playing croquet. That takes a lot of skill, you should appreciate this.

Heres my train to Hualien. No, not really, its an old tram that an old man lives next to.

I had a morning tea snack of mochi made by an old lady. I love their flavourless chewy texture.

Heres my train to Hualien. No, not really, its an old steam train out the front of the station. I could not see an old man living next to it.

OK, now for the inside of the station, I previously mentioned I had never been in there before. I am now sure it must have been closed for rennovations when last I was here, cause the upper levels are awesome.
There is a Tokyu Hands.

A Muji.

4 flash looking food courts.

At least 50 restaurants, including Ippudo, Korean, Vietnamese, 3 curry houses. I will be back here to eat at the end of my trip.

As I had already had morning tea I could not eat a full restaurant meal for lunch, as much as I wanted to. The smallest thing I could find was a toasted sandwich, which was actually enormous. Excellent coffee from here also.

Heres my train to Hualien. Yes, really. There were old men on it.

The ocean appeared.

There was a lot of rice near the ocean.

And after 2 hours I was at Hualien station, which is being completely rebuilt. It was very busy inside the temporary station.
Thats a nice looking mountain.

I was concerned Hualien might be a rural village. No, its very busy, heres a random street, nice looking different mountain.

Heres the main street near my hotel. Very busy, goes for about 10 miles.
So now I am confused, only 100k people live here, and yet when I went to Nagano, Shimonoseki etc in Japan that had many more people, the streets were virtually abandoned.

There is a temple next door to my hotel, which is important, in case I need to find an ATM.

My hotel room is enormous, very modern, bed large enough for a family of 6. No seriously its wider than a king size bed. I have never seen such a thing before. I plan to make a trip to all 4 corners of its vastness later this evening.

Huge brand new looking bathroom too.

Footpath challenge number 1, plant wall.

Footpath challenge number 2, scooter wall. Certainly not the worst of the scooter walls, but the most well lit.

Footpath challenge number 3, truck wall. It is impossible to walk behind it, and the gap in front is too small, had to back track and go around the car.

Footpath challenge number 4, combo challenge! Plant, junk, and a sign stopping me from going around on the road!

Footpath challenge number 5, restaurant. Thats the footpath! It just ends and becomes a restaurant.

Final footpath challenge, Tyre wall! Please note, this is not even a tyre shop. There is just a wall of tyres between shops for no reason at all!

Christmas in March? Hualien petrol station says yes.

This is not a petrol station, I believe its a water station. You cannot drink the tap water in Taiwan. Sometimes I forget and do anyway. I dont know what that means for me.

Much like smaller Japanese cities, smaller Taiwanese cities love a giant chemist / beauty products shop. Always the biggest, nicest store in town. Open until midnight, zero customers.

This is the cultural area with warehouses full of artist studios selling beads and whatever.

Open until 10pm every night. I assume these old folks sit there until then trying to sell their junk, I mean, cultural art.

Its a big area, many buildings, quiet though. All full of the types of stores you would expect to find in a tourist town, lots selling honey related products, good for the healthy.

A bit further along the road is the old train track, now a funky mall with blue lights. Quiet though, people prefer the footpath drama of the main road.

There are also many food streets to enjoy things on sticks.

And a huge line for the dumpling shop, I joined the line, in the rain.

Lining up in the rain was totally worth it, because my $2 dinner was amazingly awesome.

This is my bus to the gorge. I was pleased to see the drivers having to blow into an alcohol testing machine before starting their shifts.

I stayed on the bus to the last station at the top of the tourist part of the gorge. They have a 7-eleven, which is great! I needed supplies.
The road continues well beyond here, to the other side of Taiwan, it takes many hours and there is only one bus per day.

Much of the road is like this, cut into the cliff and covered due to rock slides. Still it gets closed often, due to rock slides. Hence the need for helmets.

My first journey of the day is to a waterfall, through about 5 tunnels. Some were long, curved and so dark I walked with an outstretched arm.
At one point, I heard animals running towards me, it was pitch black, giant rats? They stopped and were messing about with my boots. I just stood still. Thankfully they ran off.
I turned around and there was still enough light to realise they were a pack of little white fluffy dogs, their owner nearly walked straight into me in the darkness.

There will be a lot of pictures of mountains extending into clouds. You cant easily climb any of them, the paths are closed off, and those that are open require special permits and guides.

Nice river.

This sort of thing also happens here.

Time for a swing bridge near a waterfall, good times.

View one from bridge.

View two from bridge, waterfall.

I crawled through a hole in the fence to check out the ventilation shaft of one of the tunnels.

The signs warning about rock fall were particularly severe between these two tunnels. Advising people to run between them. They should probably erect a shelter.

Picture for scale, look at those loaders / diggers. A helmet will be a great defence against those rocks.

Almost back to the bus stop, there are a few hotels at the top of the gorge such as this one. They are all kind of hidden from view. Apparently theres a petrol station somewhere too.

I had enough time before the bus to climb the stairs and see buddha.

And of course, the temple. Which is new. I suspect the old one was destroyed in the earthquake.

Now I am at stop number 2, half way back. It is called the swallows grotto, where swallows make nests that then get farmed to be boiled to make soup. Delicious birds nest soup.
Mainland tour groups were super excited.

The swallows make nests on the cliff face. I dont know how they farm the nests.

There is a cafe here, they sell coffee. Civet coffee. At least thats their claim, civet coffee is processed via the digestive system of monkeys. Delicious.

Its a river at the bottom. The cliffs are very steep and very high. It is really hard to photograph and give a sense of scale.

Some kids from Singapore following the rules with their helmets.

Redundant photo #1.

Redundant photo #2.

Now I am back at the bottom of the gorge. I went straight to the top and worked my way back. This is the area near the information centre. Nice view.

Keep out.

That, on the horizon, is the ocean.

I still had one more hike to walk / run. Which took me under this red bridge. This hike is called the molar (as in tooth) hike.

More view of gorges.

This was the path for much of this hike, very well maintained, no climbing, just ducking. I saw a 7 foot tall Chinese guy, in his national team track suit. He was not enjoying himself.

This path, as you will see, takes you to an aboriginal village. I got passed by a slightly more modern version of these things carrying aboriginal families. They barely go above walking speed.

And here is the end of the trail, the full trail is much longer but blocked off. I think there is a much bigger village further along the path but you currently cannot go there.
I highly recommend Taroko gorge.

Surprise carnival. They have machine guns that fire pellets, and real bow and arrows. A lot of the places are advertising themselves as aboriginal in some way.

There were many such plastic bomb shelter food seating areas - a good idea, one of the reasons I dont like food trucks is there is never anywhere to sit and eat your food. In Australia the average food truck meal is $30.

I was soaking up the carnival atmosphere. There is no rain, its bone dry, and yet many people still have their umbrellas up. Habit? Fear of sudden downpour? Use as a weapon? It should be illegal.

I was mildly offended by the Indian chief, I mean, Taiwanese aboriginal chief.

In amongst it all they have a heap of old planes, tanks, missiles, guns. This is the F-5 tiger, as seen in Apocolypse Now dropping napalm. No such action today.

A little bit away from the carnival is an aboriginal handicrafts market. If you want a polished rock, go here.

And finally, as always, my dinner. Exactly what I wanted, Japanese curry, in Taiwan. I chose the one with the most vegetables, and got to choose the level of heat, I chose the top level of course, and it was delicious.