Ershui

Ershui is a town my roomate discovered you can go and see monkeys at various times of the day. Erin, Brandon, and I decided to head up there one morning, and this is what we found!!
There were monkeys everywhere! We headed up a path, and on every side there were more. The road wound up into another mountain, with stairs of course. We headed up, looking for the temple we heard was at the top.
The path was pretty crowded, which we thought was a little weird considering how few people we had seen before then. At the top we discovered some kind of festival going on. The next thing we knew there was a procession lined up, complete with these super cool costumes of people twice as tall as normal! It was crazy. Only something you would see in Taiwan, that's for sure. The drums and interesting displays made for quite the adventure. We followed for a few minutes to see where they were going, and to our surprise there was a whole city behind the temple! I am constantly amazed at the use of space here.
After hanging out on the streets and grabbing a few snacks from various vendors, we headed back down the path to head to the train station. It was fun to see a few more monkeys:)
Thanks to Erin for showing me such a fun place!

Day 5

Our last day of vacation was bittersweet. I actually missed my new home base, but at the same time loved exploring the island. Before heading out on our 430 train we took one last little trip to Carp Lake.
It was amazing, even in the rain! Thank you to my good friend Fenny for sharing her umbrella with me for our walk around the lake!
I am so glad I was able to hang out with all of these awesome people I am able to teach and live with for six months. Believe me, I got very lucky! We had a blast on our trip, and everyday it gets better and better:)

There was beautiful scenery all the way around the little lake, but of course when we saw the paddle boats we knew we had to try it! It made it even more fun that it was raining!
Me, Susan, and Whitney on our paddle boat- I will be sure to tell you all about them in the near future!

Day 4

Day four started out a little rainy, so we headed out for some famous hot springs- they were actually built for Japanese princes! It was really nice to just relax and read a book.
Later on we headed out for what had quickly become our favorite meal- dumplings and bautza. The second picture is of the line to get our food- it was totally crazy whenever we went there, and believe me it was quite often:)

Our desert was Mochi, a famous gelatin pastry type of food that Haulien is famous for. Good times!!

Day Three

Day three of our vacation started out with us going back to the gorge planning on going on a morning hike and meeting others of us for lunch. We walked up a path next to a gorgeous river, and planned on making a loop back to the visitor center. We had heard good things about the Shakadang trail, and were pretty excited about it.
After climbing up the mountain consistently for awhile and counting down the kilometers we had left, we slowly realized the path hadn't been counting down to the entrance. Instead we were on top of the mountain, still in the clouds. It was beautiful of course, but our planned hour and a half hike ended up turning into a five hour hike. Blame it on not knowing what the locals were saying as they motioned up the mountain!!
The plus side is that we were able to enjoy all of the scenery, including and aboriginal village situated in the mountain top. It was a lot of stairs, as is very common in Taiwan, coming to the end of the trail was a straight shot down the mountain, and that meant hundreds and hundreds of stairs. I was pretty dizzy by the end!!


We weren't too worn out from our hike to stay in from the night life of Haulien. We found a local college with students who put on a traditional dancing show! It was super fun, and we got a picture with them at the end:)

Day 2

Our second day of vacation started out with us getting a little bit lost on our scooters trying to find the church. Luckily we did find it, and it was beautiful! It was my first time attending church all in Chinese, but luckily we had a nice missionary to translate for us.
Right after church we stopped off at the hostel and headed out for one of Taiwan's must see places, Taroko Gorge. I'm stealing this quote from a friend's travel book, because it will describe it better than I can

"Taroko Gorge is simply a spectacular place, a wonderland of natural beauty that would leave even the most jaded visitor impressed. Its deep marble canyons, rushing white water, and towering cliffs put it in league with the world's best scenic attractions".

- National Geographic Traveler Taiwan page 134

We took a bus up through the park, and then stopped off to take a little hike over to some beautiful buildings. We had gone a ways up into the mountain hanging out in a bell tower when we heard some chanting coming from below. There was actually a monastery a little further down the trail, and we decided to go check it out.



To get to the monastery we had to cross this swinging suspension bridge, and by this time we were wondering if the chanting was a recording, because it sounded so surreal. When we made it up a few more flights of stairs we were lucky enough to see the monks worshiping, and the extravagantly decorated temple. I think my favorite park of the walk was the view from the bell tower, which you can see above.
I had to put up these pictures of some super nice friends we met at church. They ended up picking us up to do fireworks, and taking us to get some really good food at a night market. They even came to say goodbye on our last day in Haulien! More on the great memories of Taroko coming with day three:)

Chinese New Year Vacation Day One

Our Chinese New Year started out with the kids in our school putting on a super cute program. There was a lot of dancing, including a traditional dragon dance! It was a great way to say goodbye to the school for a few days to go and explore more of the island.

That night before packing for our early morning train ride, we had our own Chinese New Year feast! As you can see from the picture it was pretty amazing- and it tasted even better than it looked:)

After our almost five hour train ride up and around to the east coast of the island, we stowed our luggage at the hostel and took off to rent scooters. Going down the highway was one of the most gorgeous rides I have ever been on. I got pretty good at the scooter driving, and enjoyed a lot of beautiful scenery. We kept going until daylight was gone, and on the way back I was able to see the waves continue crashing onto the shore. Almost everywhere we went was deserted, and we fell in love with the quiet power of the ocean.

As we got closer to the town we came upon a Buddist Temple, very much decorated for the New Year. We pulled up to take a look, and the only person we saw was a Buddist Nun who invited us to join them for Chinese New Year dinner! It is crazy to me how willing everyone is to share here, the culture is a great example to me. Everyday I meet people who literally will drop all they are doing to serve others.
I have to admit that isn't the first time I have been offered food in a temple, even with the language barrier they find ways to give. This meal was huge of course, being the New Year dinner. Luckily Buddists are also vegetarians, and we didn't have to worry too much about what we were eating:)

One of the first couple of weeks we were here exploring the night life of Taiwan we decided to go see the movie everyone had been talking about. Here is a super fun video of our adventure in a four story theater.