Thursday, November 19, 2009

A Taroko Gorge Day

Enplane from Taipei to Hualian ... the adventure has begun (with a 5:15 am start time - ouch!)




























We were excited to already see some wonderful mountains as we disembarked from our plane. Soooo beautiful!















































This narrow hiking path is the road to a local village!



































































Jason's already trying to decide if he could do a backflip into the water below.

































Enjoying some delicious coffee made with nearby mountain spring water.


























































Due to the number of rocks that fall here each day we were all required to wear hard hats and walk close to the mountain in the hopes that any plummeting boulders would bounce out and away from the mountain allowing us to live :)


























































































We stopped for lunch at a lodge/restaurant serving traditional Taiwanese Aborigonal food which was actually quite tasty!






















































Eternal Springs Shrine - in memorial to the men who lost their lives making the road through Taroko Gorge.









































Largest hot water pot I've ever seen ... I hadn't even noticed what it was until I noticed a staff member filling up his tea pot from it!


































Final tour stop at Chi Hsing Beach ... it was a tad windy!























































Our final destination on our Taiwan adventure, Taipei's tallest building - and the world's second tallest building - Taipei 101. Not a great shot, but we were in fact there :) Sadly, we got their too late to get up to the observatory for the view...but with the rain, it might not have been great anyhow.

























Our final thrill was getting to travel at 430 kilometers (about 260 miles) per hour on China's magnetically levitated (Maglev) train from the airport to a subway line. Whew! It was fast!















1 comment:

Molly W. said...

you guys do such a great job at documenting your adventures for all of us. :) that train is crazy!