Taiwan Day 39 - Beer
Once again running tight on time so I'm going to make this a quick one. I'm almost a full day behind so I need to give the brief details. This morning I was tired, no surprise, hit snooze 3 times, and woke up. I learned from my mistake and "acquired" a bun for breakfast, so I didn't have to eat power bars and cookies for breakfast. Hit the road with the idea to do 3 hours of random river trail exploring.
I shot straight down 106 to the river and managed to get there in about 22 minutes, which is a record time for me. I went up the river and learned how to cut off the duck's head, which I'm sure you've forgotten the meaning of. Then I turned left even though in the back of my head I was supposed to turn right. When I realized it, I was a bit too deep to go back so I took this small extension which brought me to the south side of Yangmingshan. I decided to just go up, this is what I saw:
The thing up there was a temple, and when I got to the top I had 2 options, right and left. I started with the right and there was a small temple more or less carved into the crevice of the mountain. Have to say it was very moving, very cool. I took some incense and did the traditional motions and put them into the urn where many thousands of people have done the same. It's the first time I've actually done this. I'm not entirely sure what that all means.
I went back down then hiked up the other side, which was steps to get to the top. As I was walking up with my bike over my shoulder an old woman was slowly getting herself up, and gave me the thumbs up and a smile. As clear as the mountain had looked, the view down into Taipei looked more like Pittsburgh from the early 1900s:
Coming back home I decided to once again take breakfast matters into my own hands and I swung by the breakfast stand and grabbed 2 rice milks and 2 rice balls. I have to say I feel empowered when I'm able to go out and do this stuff. And the looks I got from people was totally priceless. Aside from the white man in an entirely non-white residential area, me being in full spandex standing in line with a bunch of salty old Taiwanese men is extremely rich. The woman at the stand didn't miss a beat though. I guess she gets all kinds.
Calvin, Julia, Nat, and I later tried to go to the temple for some stuff of theirs but it was too crowded and we turned around, basically making a 7-11 run. We then headed down the hill to go to a German restaurant for lunch. On the way we saw a solid betel nut girl who smiled when we rolled down the window and waved back when I waved to her. I missed a good shot though:
Then I went to have beer, and German food which was quite good:
The kids could care less though, and just wanted to play games:
Back to the apartment, the Family Mart, the apartment, and the playground. We had grabbed some fireworks a few days ago and we lit them off while we were there. As soon as we did people started coming out of the woodwork to see what the fuss was about. It's great, as there are constantly people lighting fireworks here. So there must be people who run at any sound like this.
Here is one of the people who came out, a woman who is not dressed for the 80 degree day we had. I guess she was expecting snow:
Headed into Taipei for some food shopping and to hit up a much nicer mall than we hit the other day. Julia vomited, which is pretty good as she's been pretty vomit-free this trip. Then we did some shopping and I forget if we bought anything of note. We had some vegetarian fare as well as sushi which came on a conveyor past your table:
And I finally said screw it and splurged on the $4 beer:
Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.
I shot straight down 106 to the river and managed to get there in about 22 minutes, which is a record time for me. I went up the river and learned how to cut off the duck's head, which I'm sure you've forgotten the meaning of. Then I turned left even though in the back of my head I was supposed to turn right. When I realized it, I was a bit too deep to go back so I took this small extension which brought me to the south side of Yangmingshan. I decided to just go up, this is what I saw:
The thing up there was a temple, and when I got to the top I had 2 options, right and left. I started with the right and there was a small temple more or less carved into the crevice of the mountain. Have to say it was very moving, very cool. I took some incense and did the traditional motions and put them into the urn where many thousands of people have done the same. It's the first time I've actually done this. I'm not entirely sure what that all means.
I went back down then hiked up the other side, which was steps to get to the top. As I was walking up with my bike over my shoulder an old woman was slowly getting herself up, and gave me the thumbs up and a smile. As clear as the mountain had looked, the view down into Taipei looked more like Pittsburgh from the early 1900s:
Coming back home I decided to once again take breakfast matters into my own hands and I swung by the breakfast stand and grabbed 2 rice milks and 2 rice balls. I have to say I feel empowered when I'm able to go out and do this stuff. And the looks I got from people was totally priceless. Aside from the white man in an entirely non-white residential area, me being in full spandex standing in line with a bunch of salty old Taiwanese men is extremely rich. The woman at the stand didn't miss a beat though. I guess she gets all kinds.
Calvin, Julia, Nat, and I later tried to go to the temple for some stuff of theirs but it was too crowded and we turned around, basically making a 7-11 run. We then headed down the hill to go to a German restaurant for lunch. On the way we saw a solid betel nut girl who smiled when we rolled down the window and waved back when I waved to her. I missed a good shot though:
Then I went to have beer, and German food which was quite good:
The kids could care less though, and just wanted to play games:
Back to the apartment, the Family Mart, the apartment, and the playground. We had grabbed some fireworks a few days ago and we lit them off while we were there. As soon as we did people started coming out of the woodwork to see what the fuss was about. It's great, as there are constantly people lighting fireworks here. So there must be people who run at any sound like this.
Here is one of the people who came out, a woman who is not dressed for the 80 degree day we had. I guess she was expecting snow:
Headed into Taipei for some food shopping and to hit up a much nicer mall than we hit the other day. Julia vomited, which is pretty good as she's been pretty vomit-free this trip. Then we did some shopping and I forget if we bought anything of note. We had some vegetarian fare as well as sushi which came on a conveyor past your table:
And I finally said screw it and splurged on the $4 beer:
Full picture set of the day here: Flickr set or slideshow.
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