Road Trip

Last week we took a little road trip to Hualien to spend a few nights in the Taroko Gorge.

On the way we stopped and showed Jude the Pacific Ocean (my thumb managed to ruin his first photo with the ocean).

After our 6-hour drive we arrived at the hotel and promptly made our way to the pool.

It was Luke’s first time swimming with Jude and he was pretty excited.

Jude is totally relaxed in the water – he’s going to be a natural swimmer.

We lounged around after our swim,

and took photos upon photos of our little fish.

The next day we were up bright and early (the perks of traveling with a baby) and went for a walk outside.

We’ve been here a few times before but it never gets old.

The views inside the gorge are simply spectacular.

We walked around the Monastery while Jude napped away in the Ergo.

Back at the hotel it was time to hit the pool again.  This time we went to the indoor pool which has a baby pool with about a million rubber duckies.

It’s pretty awesome.

As usual Jude made a few new girlfriends,

and they kindly took a family photo of us.

We had one more night in the Gorge and then hit the road. We decided to drive back home the long way so headed South.

Stopping once again at the Pacific.

This time we got out and played in the sand

and the surf.

We stopped for a bathroom break at the Tropic of Cancer,

And a burger in Dulan.

We were going to try to drive all the way back to Taipei but a typhoon hit and so we had to spend another night in a random city before finishing our drive the following morning.

After the Typhoon

Typhoon Saola came and went. It left behind a lot of mess and a lot of these guys:

Everything shut down on Thursday as a result of the Typhoon so we had a day at home studying. Despite being inside things still got a bit destructive.

This wasn’t caused by the Typhoon but by my own stupidity.

Friday things were back to normal. We had classes in the morning then Korean for lunch.

And to kick off our Friday night we headed to Gongguan Night Market (公館夜市) located a short bike ride away from us to eat more good food.

We saw this stand with a super long line at this stall and were immediately intrigued.

Whenever you see a long line in Taiwan, you can bet your money whatever is at the other end of the line is worth the wait.

So Luke lined up and 15 minuted later he has this in his hands:

He was stoked with it. There was one big delicious mess of goodness inside there. If you ever come visit us in Taiwan you will have to try one of these!

The next long line we spotted was at this stall:

So we lined up again and again it was worth the wait. It was a delicious bready omlety thing. I could imagine having one for breakfast.

To polish our day of good food off we hit up our local shaved ice place for dessert.

We spent the rest of the night in a total food coma. Saturday night we took a drive to Maokong, a tea growing spot just outside of Taipei.

We went to YaoYue as we heard it was pretty tops.

It was very atmospheric set amongst the tea fields.

We sat outside and had tea.

And a few snacks to go with it.

It was a nice escape from the city and I foresee many many more trips to Maokong in our future.

We were lucky the Typhoon passed just in time for the weekend or else none of this would have been possible!

Cockroaches and a Stink Egg

This week started with a cockroach.

These sneaky things come in through the drains from time to time. Thankfully our cats, being Taiwanese, are expert cockroach hunters. Poor thing didn’t stand a chance. It really tired them both out as the rest of the day they spent like this:

We were also quite tired Monday morning as Saturday night we decided to take the car for a mini road trip. We drove an hour out of Taipei to Wulai.

The drive to Wulai is very scenic. It amazed me how quickly the city ended and the country hills began. Our car handled the twisting and turning road really well making for a comfortable ride.

We got to Wulai around 6.30pm and headed down to the natural hot pools just as the sun was setting. I took these photos of us swimming in the river just before we made our way to the hot pools (which are incredibly hot). You can spot Luke in there.

After we dried off we made our way over to the lights which turned out to be a little night market. It was slightly more touristy than the ones near us in Taipei city but we were hungry and were able to find a few tasty things to nibble on.

We tried some of the rice cooked inside bamboo from this stand.

And a preserved egg from this stand:

I couldn’t bring myself to try one of these gnarly looking things that Taiwan is well-known for. Luke did though. You’ll see from the photos that he probably won’t be eating any more.

Stink egg.

I hope you all have a good week. We’ve got Typhoon Saola on it’s way and things are getting wet and windy around here…