Up early again! Emma and Mike went out for an early morning walk through the markets. Fish, guts, and bits and pieces! They also went to SunMerry and grabbed a bunch of breads for the rest of the group…though how many of them made it back to the apartment is up for debate. We then headed back to the Temple where we met WenHo and Lorene and Mac (our trusty translator) and our JinLong Bus. We headed out of town to Shifen Waterfall. It was a fun little walk through the deep jungle. We played on horses (Tang Dynasty Stone Ones), saw papaya trees, swung on garden swings (Madeline fell off of one into the mud), and ate octopus balls and drank from a coconut that we then dutifully recycled. The waterfall was pretty cool, but the crazy big plants and ferns and tropical scenery really stole the show. We then headed into Shifen old street where there are lots of food vendors and little kitcy stores. We ate lunch and then headed out and set off a giant sky lantern with our hopes and dreams for the years to come. We did a multi colored balloon with red representing health, yellow – wealth, pink – happiness, and blue – promotion / career. We’ll see how the next year shakes out for us, we stood on the train tracks and our balloon made it out of old street and into the distance. On our way out, we saw a guy making cotton candy art, and our luck already worked out with him giving Sara a free cotton candy bouquet. It was pretty cool looking, until we devoured it. From Shifen, we headed to Jiufen, which is over by the ocean. We hiked around an old gold mining facility (the views were amazing and the ice-cream was ridiculous) and then drove by the ocean, which was very ominous and then back into Taipei. We were all pretty pooped from our big day, so we headed out from the Temple back to our apartment. On the way, we stopped at Gusto Pizza which is a little tiny pizza place run by a British guy. It was awesome! He had toys for Madeline, tasty pizza, and the dessert: Nutella Calzone….delicious! Definitely a welcome bit of Western food after a long day out in Taiwan. After that, it was back to the apartment for some sleep.
SHIFEN WATERFALL
SHIFEN OLD TOWN STREET
JIUFEN
