So much catching up to do!

I know, I know, I've been a bad bad boy for not updating my blog. Now I could fill an entire paragraph with reasons and excuses, and promises for the future. But instead I will get right to it and get to the good stuff.

Since my last update I have been on a few weekend trips. Actually, I went on trips every weekend since then. The first one was actually just a day-trip to Jiufen and Jinguashi, two mining towns about an hour away from Taipei. Jiufen is especially famous for being the setting for the animated film 'Spirited Away'. Below are some pictures from Jiufen.

Temple Silhouette

The famous Jiufen lanterns

The second weekend trip was to Taichung during the National Holiday weekend. The first day, the national holiday itself was on a Friday. We went to the bus station in Taipei to get tickets to Taichung, we went upstairs to the busterminal and when we got there it looked like we had gotten to freaking Disneyland or something. Rows and rows of people lined up, and of course all of them had to get onto the same bus as us. Luckily the buses came about every ten minutes, so an hour later we were able to get on a bus. The drive to Taichung was supposed be somewhere around 2 to to 2,5 hours depending, but because of the national holiday all the freeways were jam-packed and traffic was crazy. We ended up being on that bus for four hours before we finally arrived in Taichung.

Now I won't go into detail about our experiences from that point onwards to when we finally go to the hotel because the story would become very complicated and boring. Instead, let it suffice to say that we did not see very much of the city as we wanted to see the fireworks on the outskirts of town. By the time we FINALLY get there, the fireworks are as good as over and the buses to get back to town are being swamped by all the people that were coming from the festival terrain. I'm telling you, I have probably never seen more people all trying to get into buses at the same time. We decided to walk back towards town and look for a taxi to take us to the hotel. We ended up walking for two hours before eventually finding a taxi that could take us to the hotel, an hour's driving away from the city because by the time we booked our hotel everything was already fully booked because of the national holiday.

However, even though the first day wasn't all that successful in the sense that we didn't see much of the actual city or the fireworks it did get us the two taxi drivers that drove us home that night and offered to take us around the next day on our trip to Sun Moon Lake. And because of them we managed to see and do a lot of things on the second day of our trip, to make up for that lost first day. Like we say in Dutch, "Ieder nadeel heeft zijn voordeel". Some pics of the trip are below.

Sun Moon Lake

Sunset at Sun Moon Lake

Our little group of adventurers

The third weekend since my last update I went on two day trips. The first one was to the Pingxi Rail Branch Line, which is basically an old mining rail track that connects a couple quaint mining towns in the mountains. Our first stop was a tiny cat village where they had a very big population of stray cats walking around, which was an odd sight and led to a big scare when we were having lunch at this noodle place. Something brushed against someone's leg which scared her and she scared me resulting in both of us screaming like little girls...

Stray cats

Just chillin'

The next stop on the line was Sandiaoling, from where the Sandiaoling waterfall trail started. When the train stopped at this station nobody got off the train and when I looked outside there was only a tiny tiny station right next to a cliff, so I was a little unsure whether we were actually supposed to get off the train here. But I decided to take a leap of faith and trust my Lonely Planet guide. Thankfully my guide was correct and we were indeed at Sandiaoling, and there was indeed a trail leading up to two very pretty waterfalls. This hike reminded me of why I came to Taiwan. To see something completely unlike anything I had ever seen before. And there were very few others on the trail so it felt like we were just walking through the actual jungle.

Waterfall #1

The Sandiaoling Waterfall trail

Waterfall #2

We ended our day trip in a town called Shifen, famous for the train tracks that run right through the town only a few metres away from the buildings along the main street. Another characteristic of the town is that many people go there to do wish lanterns. And like real tourists, we felt we had to make one of our own. Good thing we were with the four of us and one lantern has four different sides so we could each use a side to write down our wish on. The whole thing was actually a really fun experience and I wrote my wish in Dutch since I felt like it was something that you had to do in your native tongue. 

Sunset near Shifen

Our lantern

The second day trip that weekend was cycling to Tamsui, an oceanside town north of Taipei. We decided that instead of taking our own bikes and going through the hassle of having to take them back with us on the always crowded MRT, we would get YouBikes. YouBike is a bike system that has stations everywhere in the city and after you sign up you can just get one at one place and drop it off at another. The first 30 minutes are free, and afterwards you get charged a small fee. In the end we found out that we couldn't cycle all the way to Tamsui because there were no YouBike stations there, but we got pretty far up north cycling along the riverside paths. We cycled for around three hours before arriving in Beitou, the most northern YouBike station and took the MRT to Tamsui from there. Once we got there we took a little tour of the town and went to Fisherman's Wharf to see the sunset.

Our YouBikes

Our sporty group of pro cyclists

Super crowded bus... No fun

Fisherman's Wharf

Sunset at Fisherman's Wharf

Now you are all up to date up until this weekend. This weekend I went to Kenting in the very south of Taiwan, but that trip is worth a blogpost on its own. Which I will hopefully write in the coming week (I WILL!).