Catholic Churches & Sand Sculptures

The monsoon season is not slowing us down.  We have learned in our one year in Taiwan to ignore the weather forecasts and do what you want.  Well, except if there is a typhoon.  One must take those seriously. The forecast for last weekend called for rain but we kept our outdoor plans anyway.

We caught a train in Hsinchu at 6am on Saturday morning.  To our surprise, the friend we invited for our day hike arrived at the train station promptly at 5:50am with another friend of his.  We met this friend, Joel, at church.  He is from Honduras.  He is a student at Chaio Tung University.  His friend is an exchange student from the Czech Republic.  I could never pronounce his name, so I just called him Yeti Spaghetti.

We arrived to a town on the northeast coast of Taiwan at 9am called Jiaoxi.  Thankfully, Joel speaks fluent Chinese so he became our tour guide for the day.  On our bus ride to the hike, a young Taiwanese man named Sam seemed to enjoy our company.  He hiked with us for most of the day and took a lot of pictures. Sam is between jobs and decided to use his time off to travel around Taiwan.  He has a large facebook following for his trip and is actually being "sponsored" by a couple of companies.  He was wearing a red shirt with his picture on the front and the company sponsors on the back.  I think James and I need to find a company sponsor for our travels, too!

Our first hike (of course from our trusty hiking book) included a hike up a mountain to a Catholic Church! We did not see a single temple on this hike.  A group of hikers climbed this mountain many years ago.  On their descent, bad weather came quickly.  They prayed to the Virgin Mary for safety.  They believed to have seen the Virgin Mary in a tree while descending.  They all made it back safely so they decided to build a Catholic Church on the mountain.  They named the trail "Saint Mary."

The Catholic Church

A small Nativity Scene

The recent rains made the waterfalls awesome!

The most bizarre worm I have ever seen.  Ugh!

A statue of the Virgin Mary and a Catholic missionary in Taiwan. 

Stations of the Cross plaques lead up to the peak. 

We had a good view of the mountains to the west of the peak.  However, a large cloud covered the view of the ocean to the east. 

A cross marks the peak. 

We had time to do an additional trail next to the trail-head of the Saint Mary hike.  Part 1 of this hike involved a lot of large waterfalls and stairs.  Random thought...James' mother asked us if the lush jungles smell fresh.  Yes, they do.  They smell deliciously clean and green!

I had to make sure James the photographer was in at least one picture.

Our hiking group

Part 2 of the waterfall hike was wild and not manicured.  We had to take off our shoes and embrace river tracing.  I was thankful to have my flip-flops with me.  My feet are too soft and sensitive to handle stepping on the rocks without shoes.  After wading through water and climbing over rocks, we arrived at a HUGE waterfall.  The wind was so powerful coming off this waterfall that it could blow your hat off!  It was a really neat and unique experience.  

River tracing to the wild waterfall

James and I getting soaked from the powerful wind coming off the waterfall.  It was exhilarating!

Although the rain started again by the end of our hike, James and I stuck to our original plans to stay the night at Fulong Beach (about a one hour train ride north of the hikes in Jiaoxi).  Our handwritten list of "Things to do in Taiwan" that hangs on our refrigerator includes the "Sand Sculpture Festival" on Fulong Beach.  Every summer, sand sculpture artists from around the world come to Fulong Beach.  They build large detailed sand sculptures.  The festival started last weekend.  The longer the sand sculptures are exposed the more they wear out, so we wanted to go to the festival asap.

We awoke on Sunday morning to blue skies and sunshine!!!!  We literally had not seen the sunshine in over a week and we are solar powered people.  We smeared on some sunscreen and headed to the festival before they opened the doors at 8:30am.  I was so excited to cross the bridge over to the beach.  I felt like I was going to Disney World.  Entrance to the festival only cost $3USD. 

The sand sculptures were even more impressive than I imagined.  The details were incredible!!!!  Each sculpture told a story or represented something.  Luckily for us, the descriptions for the sculptures were also in English.  I believe there were thirty sculptures total.  I think my Aunt Theresa would be a great sand sculptor - she is an amazing artist who loves the beach and sunshine!

Fulong Beach Sand Sculpture Festival

The 12 Zodiac Sign Sculptures - I am a Gemini. 

Neil Armstrong 

A tale about a man who dreamed he explored many lands by riding a bird (this was one of my favorites). 

Marco Polo

The Silk Road used for trade in ancient times going from Greece to China. 

The Taiwanese love pandas!

A representation that money can not buy the most valuable things in life like love and happiness. 

The day was just too perfect to sit on a train ride home quite so early.  The area is popular for its 30k bike path loop along the coast. Since we mostly run and hike, we decided to change up the pace and rent some bikes. One of the many reasons Taiwan is awesome is because usually prices of food, etc are not higher in tourist areas.  We rented nice Giant brand bikes for $3USD for a full day right next to the train station.  How do they make any money?!

The bike path begins with a tunnel that goes through a mountain.  The tunnel is over 2k long.  The remainder of the bike path circles back around the coastline.  

Looking back at the tunnel

Beautiful mountain coastline

A bicycle parking lot at a scenic spot

James practicing his yoga poses. 

A little cyclist in training.  This little guy is speedy! He was trying to race James and I.  He left his parents in the dust. 

What a perfect day!!!!!!!

We hope to have a college update by the next blog.  We are patiently waiting to hear back about scholarships and admissions from the colleges.  No matter what, we should know all of the details by the end of May.  

Happy Mother's Day! I have a whole new respect for mothers after teaching for a year :) 

Full Body Thrashing - and lots of pics!

This was the title of our last weekend / mini-vacation.  We identified a few trails we wanted to hike, then planned to do them all back-to-back-to-back over four days.  It would be a difficult few days in the mountains of Taiwan - exactly what we like to do!

The basis for our adventure was the Zhuilu Old Trail in Taroko Gorge National Park.  I had already hiked this trail when I had a few friends visit over the New Year, but Rachel hadn't yet.  This trail is very popular and requires obtaining a permit in advance.  I kept an eye on the website to apply for the permit and, once available to apply, Thursday was the only day available.  So we planned our trip around a Thursday beginning in Taroko Gorge, near Hualien.

We needed to start / be on the trail by 9am per the parks regulations.  Rachel doesn't finish work on Wednesdays till 9pm, so it was going to be an early morning on Thursday.  I rented a car and picked it up on Wednesday evening, then eventually found a place to park it not far from our apartment.  Finding a parking spot around here is difficult!  We packed our clothes, food, and anything else we might need for the weekend late Wednesday night then went to bed for only a few short hours before leaving Thursday morning.  The 3:00am alarm came quick!  We were loaded and on the road  by 3:30.  The adventure had begun!

Rachel slept pretty much the entire drive to Taroko.  When we arrived, we needed to check in at the police station to obtain the mountain permits for all of our hikes as well.  After the police issued them, we changed clothes, ate some oatmeal (thanks to the hot water available at every 7-11 in Taiwan), and drove the last 30 minutes to the trail head.  The weather had been bad since leaving Hsinchu, raining on and off, but thankfully it stopped about 5 minutes before we started hiking.

the start of the trail

we saw lots of these mini-frogs at the beginning

not the best of weather, but the clouds added to the scenery

the trail is almost entirely on the edge of a cliff.  not for the faint of heart!

Rachel is not afraid of heights :-) 

the final bridge coming off the trail

Upon finishing the trail we looked at the bus schedule to take us back to our car - there were no buses due for at least 2 hours.  Rats!  And although there are many, many taxis in Taroko Gorge, they are all full of people getting tours of the park.  So we were out of luck for a ride back to our car.  No worries!  We were looking for a full body thrashing this weekend so we power hiked the 7 km on the road back to the start!  It was a solid 6 hour walk and a great introduction to the weekend.  We drove to the next town, just a few minutes away, and grabbed lunch.  After lunch we had about a 1 hour drive to our hostel.

Our hostel was surprisingly awesome.  It was a perfect Rock and Ray accommodation!  $500NT for a bed (shared rooms) and you can eat dinner for another $200NT.  So $700NT total per person (about $23 US) for a clean place to sleep, clean & hot showers, breakfast and dinner (vegetarian on request).  Perfecto!  And it was full of cycling groups and hiking groups.  All active people exploring Taiwan.

this is apparently 'Japanese Style' with just a simple
mattress / pad on the floor.  Fine for us!  

the place was full of bicycles from all the groups
touring the mountains.  

The next morning we drove about 30 minutes to the Yangtou Mountain trail head.  This was our first big-mountain hike, being over 3000m tall and requiring permits.  Kind of intimidating!  The weather was not great so we didn't get any good views, but it proved to be a very tough climb and descent.  It was a grueling 3 hour climb to the summit, than a just-as-grueling 3 hour descent to the car.  We were whooped!  

stray dog we met at the beginning.  we named
him Sunny because of his personality :-) 

lots of climbing...

nonstop climbing... 

hey!  a flat spot!

a change of clothes is necessary when you near the peak at 3,000m +

yeah!  

big tree growing out of the side
of a cliff.  kinda spooky lookin

sign on the road warning of deer, I mean monkey crossings

Friday evening was back at the hostel for more vegan food and all the rice you could handle.  We were in bed by 8pm (everybody went to bed super early here because everybody was getting up super early to do something awesome) because we needed to be out the door by 5am.  Saturday's hike was going to be a long one!  

We made it out the door Saturday morning on time and drove the 15 minutes to the Bilu Mountain trail head.   Doing this hike in one day was estimated to take between 10-12 hours.  Yowza!  The time estimates are typically pretty good here in Taiwan and we are usually on the early side of them.  The beginning of the hike required a 9 km walk down an ancient road (now basically a trail) but it was very flat.  Only a few old landslide sections to negotiate.  At the end of the 9km was a campsite (for people doing it over 2 days) and a pretty waterfall.  And, this marks the start of the climb to the summit.  It was only another 2 km to climb to the summit, but it takes at least as long as the 9km walk in.  Another brutal climb!  The weather unfortunately wasn't nice (again) but it wasn't raining so we were happy.  It did finally start raining about 30 minutes before we made the peak, but we were well prepared for it.  The last 30 minutes of climbing was probably the toughest hiking Rachel or I have ever done.  Another hiker that we had been playing leap-frog with caught back up with us and we continued to the summit together.  We made it!  But, the summit is only the halfway point as we have to go all the way back down.  It continued raining on us all the way back to the car, and all through the night, and the next day.  I think the rainy season has arrived!  We finally made it back to the car after 9 hours of straight hiking.  We were wet, cold, and tired, but felt accomplished in our adventure.  

saw this pheasant on the walk in

old motorcycle found on the trail.  why not try to ride it? 

one of the couple old landslide sections

this was a very difficult wall to climb

we made it!  

this picture is from another hikers blog.  this is what it would look like from
the summit if the weather was clear.  oh well, maybe we will go back
on a nicer day!  

Sunday morning we had planned to do one last hike - a much shorter and easier hike but to another high mountain.  The weather was still horrid, all of our rain gear was still wet, and we really had no desire to go for another rainy walk.  So we got on the road and headed back to Hsinchu.  Once we got down to a lower elevation, the weather was fantastic!  Warm, sunny, and much more pleasant than we had just come from.  So we stopped off in Puli to walk a short, well established trail to a few waterfalls.  

not me in the picture...

We arrived back to Hsinchu around 12:00 noon on Sunday.  It was now time to get our lives back in order!  We took advantage of still having the rental car and ran a bunch of errands and stocked up on harder to transport on a scooter items - boxes of coconut water, a few large watermelons, lots of fruit and frozen veggies, etc.  After 8 hours of cleaning and laundry and shopping and chores, we could finally sit down and relax for an hour before going to bed and starting a new week of work.  Whew!  

It was a true Rockwell style vacation...a full body thrashing!