We stayed an extra day in Taipei after Pelle's meetings were finished so that we could get out and explore a bit of the surrounding countryside. Happily, we were armed with a good itinerary from a coworker of Pelle's, so off we went in a taxi hired for the day.
We drove through surprisingly mountainous terrain covered in trees and shrubs to reach the coast. It was so hilly, the highway almost never touched the ground as we wound around and through rocky hillsides. But it was beautiful.
It was practically pouring rain by the time we arrived at the
Yehliu Geopark, on the north eastern coast of Taiwan. With the steady wind, the waves of the East China Sea were crashing wildly against the rugged coastline. The photos don't do justice to the water, which was a beautiful cornflower blue.
The geopark itself is a ridge of hard stone that juts about a kilometer and a half into the sea. We were soaked by the the time we reached the end, but the views and paths in and around the eroded rock formations was worth the effort. At left, Pelle stands next to
The Queen's Head formation, the most in the park.
Back in the taxi, we warmed up and dried off a bit as our driver wound his way to
Jiufen, an old gold & silver mining town that literally cleaves to a mountainside. Driving up the winding roads, we couldn't fathom how the big tour buses in front of us weren't smashing into the cliffs or flying off the edges of the wet road. Ducking off the main road, we wandered down zigzagging lanes lined with tourist shops, food stalls, stinky tofu carts and hordes of tour groups. We stopped for lunch in a little cafe set at a busy intersection of lanes. Snagging a window seat, we sipped jasmine tea and enjoyed a few spicy Taiwanese soup dishes as we watched the pedestrian traffic.
As we sat at lunch, the tall, fuzzy, bright orange figure at left took up a post next to the front door of the cafe. His sidekick with a bullhorn must have been proclaiming something very exciting, as this character was the most photographed feature of the town. So of course, Denise joined in the action. (Note her obviously-not-weather-appropriate-or-warm-enough outfit at (far) left.)
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