Yehliu Geological Park
Trip Start
Sep 18, 2007
1
9
28
Trip End
Apr 17, 2009
Wanli,
Taiwan
Monday, September 24, 2007
Upon waking up...I was approached by Meghan and April about going on a day-trip to this Geological Park not very far. I was jet-lagged as hell...but was not going to pass up an opportunity to sight-see on just my first full day in Taiwan.
We took the bus to Taipei and from there we took another bus to Wanli. We were dropped off very close to Yehliu park and only walked for some 10 minutes to get there from the bus stop. While we were taking pictures this local Taiwanese girl (I think she was 19 or 20 or so) approached us and asked us if she could show us around. She had taken some English classes before and really wanted the opportunity to chat up some 'real-life' foreigners. LOL. We stopped by this seafood restaurant and took pictures of all the super fresh (as in...still alive) seafood they had on display.
We made our way into the park and just started marveling at the rock formations and the shapes that erosion had left behind. It was pretty impressive actually. While April, Meghan and 'Joanna' (our Taiwanese tour guide) took pictures in one corner...I walked over to another corner and encountered a Korean couple on vacation (I assumed). The woman was into her 50s I think and wearing enough make-up to shame ANY corpse at ANY funeral home. LOL. She was pretty funny though...and through gestures and many rounds of 'international charades' we managed to get some pictures of all parties involved.
It was stinkin' hot that day...but thankfully there was also a nice ocean breeze that kept us nice and cool. We spent some 2 hours exploring the park and just taking lots of pictures. On our way out of the park we had to pass through this tunnell of food. Mostly dried fish snacks of some sort. The smell (for me...a non-seafood person) was absolutely horrendous and I had to hold my breath whenever I moved in to take a picture. There were also dried squid snacks. BLEH! I guess the Taiwanese look at them as normal things cuz they were raised on them...but I could not see myself (nor a little 5 year old) just chewing away on a whole squid.
On our way back to Taoyuan we stopped off in Taipei. We went into this giant department store called SOGO and just checked out some shoes and Taiwanese fashion. Suprisingly very similar to things I have seen in both Canada and Brazil. We stopped off at this restaurant where I had beef noodles, April had French Toast (which came with peanut butter inside) and Meghan had some spicy shrimp dish (she doesn't eat meat...but eats fish). Exhausted...we took a bus back to Taoyuan. I was doubly exhausted...cuz I was still hella jet-lagged...but super happy that I had seen something pretty cool on my first day.
