Danger Zone Hiking!

As the end of our teaching contract draws near (11 more weeks but who's counting...), we thankfully received a national holiday last Friday.  More than ever, I understand why school teachers have a summer break.  The holiday actually covered two holidays that are only a couple of days apart: Children's Day and Tomb Sweeping Day.  In my mind, I find it ironic that these two holidays are so close to one another as they are complete opposites.  One holiday, you celebrate children and the other you visit the graves of your past ancestors.  

As always, we took full advantage of the holiday and hopped on a train early Friday morning.  After visiting the Pingxi area with my friend Michelle for her visit, we knew we would be returning to the area asap.  The Pingxi train line is considered the most scenic train line in Taiwan.  The area is most popular for the lantern festival, waterfalls and hikes on unique pointy crags.  The area is located just east of Taipei.  I find it amazing that mountainous areas like these are located right outside of major world cities!  

We arrived in Pingxi mid-day on Friday.  Immediately upon exiting the train, James got to enjoy one of his favorite Taiwanese snacks (pictured below).  It's a rice tortilla filled with fruit sorbet, peanut brittle shavings and fresh cilantro.  I promised James for his 80th birthday I will buy him a block of peanut brittle as big as the one in the picture below.  

Right after dropping our extra bag at the home stay, we started on a hike listed in our "Taipei Escapes" book.  The hike was very nice and we were able to finish before dark.  Unfortunately, we saw several lanterns (like the one we made with our friend Michelle) in the woods.  

Are we falling off the mountain?!

Sad...

The next day we met up with a Taipei Hikers group.  The group has a facebook page which is led by the author of our "Taipei Escapes" book, Richard Saunders.  We were quite excited to find they were planning a "Moderately Strenuous" hike in the Pingxi area.  We met up with the group off a stop on the Pingxi train line, Sandiaoling, on Saturday morning. Sandiaoling translates to San Diego.  It was nothing like the San Diego in California though!  We started the hike by doing the same waterfall hike we did with Michelle.  However, we did not see our dog friend, Gimpo.  

She's going to fall off the edge! 

After the waterfall hike, we started the main part of the adventure.  We were hiking the famous crags!!!!! 

The group was a TON of fun!  We were all laughing and joking the entire time.  We also got to meet the famous author of the books, Richard.  He is a goofy fun-spirited 50 year old British man.  We should have brought our books for the hike so he could sign them :) 

I actually think the pictures of hiking up the crags really show the danger/strenuous level/fear in anyone's mind who has even the slightest fear of hikes, etc.  I was surprised how well myself and the rest of the group did climbing these THREE crags!  We were encouraging to one another.  The ropes and ladders give a false sense of safety that I appreciated.  When you reach the top of each crag, you feel like you truly accomplished something big.  Richard calls the crags' area an "adult playground."

We went to the peak of that crag!

Just slowly making our way up...

At one of the peaks. 

A rope bridge on the backside of one of the crags. 

Heading back down.

Richard!

Group photo at the peak of one of the crags. 

Ladders, ropes and chains. 

We enjoyed a Sunday morning run/hike as our last adventure in Pingxi before heading home.  We did an out-and-back hike listed in the book (of course) that ended at a farm.  As we were approaching the farm, we saw large tracks in the mud that were bigger than James' hand.  We were trying to determine if they were horse tracks, but from the split toe and lack of a horse shoe we decided that they must belong to a hog.  A really really humongous hog for that matter.  When we arrived at the farm we saw several chickens.  The chickens were surrounding two ENORMOUS hogs that were sleeping.  These hogs were the size of hippos! We quietly turned around and started heading back as fast as possible!  We did not want to be around when those hogs woke up.  Sorry there's no picture but we needed to scoot on out. Good thing we had on our running shoes!

The weekend was awesome!  I can't imagine a nicer way to spend a holiday spring weekend in Taiwan.  We hope to do more hikes with that group again in the near future.  

The weekend before last my school had their performance.  Mine was quite different from James' show from the fact I was up on stage three times.  I was a judge for a contest.  I also had to tell a few facts about myself (along with all of the other English teachers).  When I announced the winners of the contest, I got to pull out their names from a envelope (which I thought was fun and exciting for the students).  My students did great in their performance of the "YMCA" and "We Will Rock You"!  Overall it was a fun day and I have good memories from the show (and I am not too bitter about having to work from 8-12 on a Saturday morning).  

Giving out prizes on stage

My students singing and dancing to the YMCA.  

One of my expat friends in Taiwan posted this article titled "26 Words that have a Totally Different Meaning in Taiwan."  James and I found it hilarious.  Our readers probably won't understand it quite as well as us, but you may find some truth and humor in it from reading our blog for the past 10 months. 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/juniperbug/b26-words-that-have-a-totally-different-meaning-f59x

Happy Easter to everyone!  What an amazing holiday that deserves celebration! By the way, we have not seen any Easter candy here yet.  I think James has lost all hopes and dreams of waking up Easter morning to a basket full of chocolate bunnies and jellybeans.