Taroko!!!

On Thursday November 4th, Meg and I taught our morning classes, packed our bags, and said goodbye to the school for 4 days!  We had a wonderful mini-vacation in Hualien and Taroko Gorge on the East Coast of the island.  We took a 5 hour train ride to the city and spent our extended weekend exploring and enjoying the mountains, the beach, the scooter, and the chance to take a break :-)  Taroko Gorge may be the most beautiful place I've ever been...rivaled only by the island of Capri off the coast of Italy, and my own dear Cache Valley.  Again, the pictures don't begin to show the true beauty we experienced, but here's another little taste of Taiwan!

Sick.  I'm only posting this because it makes me laugh that of all the beautiful things we saw this weekend, this was the first picture we took!

Welcome to TAROKO GORGE!

Apparently this is the photo-opp that proves you were in Taroko.  Our taxi driver made sure we didn't miss it!

Yeah, the water is really that gorgeous...this is not a joke.

Our taxi driver :-)  He was our own personal tour guide and photographer all day...perfect!

Why yes I did drink water from the Eternal Spring...jealous?

 

Is that a waterfall I see cascading down the mountainside?  I believe it is!

Ha!  Ok, hilarious:  there's been some rock slides recently, so one of the hot tourist spots was all roped off.  They had workers there handing out hard hats if you wanted to go in.  So we did...but they only let us walk, no joke, like half a block along the trail before we had to turn back.  It took longer to get the hats on than to see the tiny portion of the trail!

Hey Kristi, wanna cross the gorge on this sweet bouncing bridge?  Heck yes I do!

"Magical Butterfly Trail"...ok, so I gave it that name, but it's very fitting, promise!

And we saw a monkey!  This little guy jumped out right in front of us...good thing I had my camera out.

Yes we climbed to the top...

Now imagine 360 degrees of this... :-)

And back down...

The OCEAN!

This beach is apparently famous for all the rocks...they are all very smooth and round, and lots of different colors.  I filled my pockets! 

One of my favorite parts of scootin' it up...you can squeeze through these gaps in traffic, no problem!

 This was the start of an epic 6 hour scooter ride.  Majestic mountains on one side of the road, and the ocean on the other...incredible.

 Highway 11...greatest road EVER!

  

 Confession: I was extremely nervous to drive the scooter...I'd only done it twice before: the first time was disastrous, the second time wasn't long enough to count.  Other than starting and stopping, it grew on me quite quickly :-)

 Taiwanese Snowman for Jon!

 I love the scooter lane!

This is how Meg really feels about me driving... 

 I'm sad because my face is FILTHY!

 Sunset behind the mountains!

 Still driving...

 Haha, not the wisest moment of the day...but great picture, right?  Don't worry Mom, we could here the cars zooming through the tunnels, so we had time to dash back to the side of the road!

 We stayed at the most adorable hostel in Hualien.  Sunny, on the far right with her daughter, was so kind and helpful.  We put our names on the map behind us.

 Time to go home :-(

The perfect end to a magical weekend: a rainbow framed in our window on the train ride home!