Yuhliu Geopark

Greetings!

Although the city has offered us some great sights, there is a great handful of natural sights to be seen here as well. With our trusty tour guides, Byron and Cassie, we ventured 1.5 hours east of Taipei to visit the coast of the island to a place known as…

…Yehliu Geopark

Yehliu Geopark is a pretty neat place. It’s off a peninsula off the Northeast coast of Taiwan. Here are a few maps to get a sense of where it is located:

This park is famous for it’s limestone marine erosion, washed away in layers by ocean waves over thousands of years, making it look almost Mars-like. I can’t really describe it in its fullest detail, so here’s what it looks like:

This all at one point used to be under water but has risen to make these natural “mushroom” like shapes. Here are a few pics up close:

 Heroes in a halfshell

This is me spying on that hut over there

This one was my favourite:

 I think its a leopard...

...or a lion

The main attraction here is what's knows as the "Queen's Head" and unless you want to stand in line all day, it's impossible to get a clear shot of her... this is what happened...

Gotcha!

After all that fun and excitement we decided to walk all the way to the end of the peninsula and looked out onto the sea.

...oh how sweet it is!

- RS=T

If I had $100

Thank you Janina. Thank you my darling sister for the $100 you gave me for Christmas. It was the most you’ve ever attempted to give me and I am blessed. Unfortunately, the teller at TD didn’t quite understand the sentiment.

What Janina MEANT to do was give me $100 Canadian dollars in Taiwanese currency (NT). The teller on the other hand thought my sister wanted $100 NT, which is equal to about $3.70 Canadian.

Taiwan is a cash economy (only Western stores and major purchases are done via credit or debit cards [and even those are usually handled in cash]). I have cherished that $100 bill with my life, not spending in on something small. The great thing about Taiwan is that $100 can actually go pretty far here, if you spend it wisely.

The question is… where to spend it? Let’s look at my options…

...7-11

7-11 has EVERYTHING. You can buy your basic 7-11 stuff, but you can also find full blown meals, internet plans, and lots of crazy looking drinks. 

You can also pay for things using your EasyCard, which is their transit card.

...MRT

Speaking of which, here are some cool things to know about their transit system called the MRT:

-       You pay per distance and it’s cheap. Riding on the subway for about 30 minutes will cost you ~$30 NT (less than $1 CAD). Busses are even cheaper.

-       It’s super clean. We just learned the other night that you will get fined if you eat, drink, or chew gum on the subway. Other passengers can report you to the authorities and get a “bounty” for doing so.

-       There are more than 3 lines.

But no, I didn’t spend it on transit or at 7-11. Lets see what else I could buy with $100 NT:

cheap haircut? 

Benenenenenenene Betman! (85NT)

This delicious pulled pork, peanut, cilantro sandwich? (50NT)

These hotpot meals? (100NT each)

We decided to give my $100 bill to this guy...

One night in Taipei we were walking though the streets with a bag of food and stumbled across this man creating paintings using only spray paint. Look at these things! Check THIS out:

Each of his paintings are $200NT so I had to use a second bill to purchase it, but it was definitely the right place to spend Janina's. Sharon also got one.

We hope all is well at home.

- RS=T

Hello!

Preface

I'm not one to document travels but this trip feels like it will be too interesting not to share. At the same time, I don't want the mass of voyeurs on the Facebook to piggyback on this train. This trip is an experience that I (and for all intensive purposes in these posts probably means Sharon as well) want to share personally with you. Feel free to pass any of this onward to people you know and care about if you feel they would enjoy/benefit from it.

Sooooooo to those whom we have shared this with and to those you choose to share this with:

Hello! We are in Taiwan!

Just so you know, we're here for 5 reasons: eat food, teach english, see cool things, and eat food (in that order).

So today lets discuss...

... Food

Food = Good. "Hen how che" = "That was very good". That ended up being my first strung together phrase because I'm using it quite often. Some things are OK and something are an absolute slam dunk. Half the fun of eating here is looking at all of your options as you walk down the street. Sharon and I are one subway stop away from the main subway station (it would be like living at Bathurst to Spadina), so there is a ton going on near our place.

Ximen Station area

Just outside our current place down small side streets and back alleys are all sorts of fun street foods to explore. I've been caught getting my nose awkwardly close to the stands only to get starred at. I know I'm getting too close when Sharon stares at me along with the locals. Here's a quick vid:

Presentation from the street is a necessity for places to eat here in Taipei. If it's not coming from an actual street vender, restaurants will commonly cook their food out in the open right at the front door:

...more on this place next time...

Here's a place that is not exactly "Taiwanese" cuisine, but its presentation certainly caught our attention:

Sharon: "I want to know how much that is" ...we never found out...

Sometimes ordering food is a bit of a guessing game but is always exciting. Food is fairly cheap here so you can never be too afraid to order blindly. Today for example, we ordered breakfast with a total of 3 eggs, 3 sausages, 2 hashbrowns, 1 coffee, and 6 pieces of toast (oops!), which came up to a total of... *drum roll*..... $220! That would be a major buzzkill in Canadian dollars but here that works out to be approximately $8.25 Canadian. Not bad considering we ordered too much toast and was our most expensive breakfast to date. Oh, and no tip.

So in the spirit of breakfast, this is a picture of a neckless that cracked me up. 

- RS=T