Taroko National Park

So now it is Monday the 28th. I am again on a train. This time Yi-Chen and I are heading from Hualien to Taipei. I will be returning to the hotel I stayed in on the first two nights for the remainder of my time in Taipei.

I had a great day today. We spent the majority of our time in Taroko National Park. This place is truly something that cannot be put into words. You all will have to see the pictures to truly appreciate the beauty of God’s work. The canyons in this place are unreal. I hope that my pictures will be able to do it some justice but I fear that they may not because it is extremely difficult to capture the massive changes in elevation.

Yi-Chen just told me for the 1000 time on this trip that her dog is cute. It is the screen saver on her phone and every time she opens it, which is often, she tells me this. I have met this dog and it has a severe case of “shortman” syndrome. I would not call it cute but I digress.

We had some fun looking for basketball hoops today. I am little disappointed that our chauffeur didn’t have the adventurous spirit of Ron Tyree. There was one GREAT hoop with a factory behind it but it was on the factory’s property. It looked to me like we could have taken a road down to it but Yi-Chen refused to push the point for me and I couldn’t get it across myself. Oh well, I have a few others that are pretty cool and hope to get more.

I am sure that there is more to be said but my brain isn’t interested in cooperating. I will have however give you a short list of things that I already miss from the US.

1. No surprise here… Western toilets.
2. Men (and women for that matter) that pluck and or shave their mole hair. I kid you not that I have seen at least 5 guys with mole hairs exceeding 6 inches.
3. ICE. People seem to not use ice here. This is hard to understand because it is like a billion degrees outside.
4. Water pressure… I believe that I have clogged at least 10 toilets because I can’t seem to remember that you are not supposed to flush the toilet paper. Try to remember this sometime… it’s impossible.
5. Mexican and Italian food, Egg Beaters and real dessert. I have seen a single Mexican restaurant. The one piece of pizza I saw had corn as a topping. You can’t find skim milk, so there is no way in hell that you can find Egg Beaters. Yesterday Yi-Chen took me to have “the best Chinese Ice Cream”. I told her to order me her favorite. She brought me back something with kidney beans… seriously.
6. Towels that are bigger than wash clothes. Two nights ago that was the only type of towel the hotel provided. This is exponentially more annoying than having a small towel at home because you can’t get dry with the humidity as it is.
7. The THURSDAY NIGHT CREW! Nough said…

That last point reminds me… I want everyone (hope this is okay mom) to come over on Thursday the 7th for Taiwan night. I am bringing home all kinds of goodies for you to try. Hopefully mom will cook up some Asian food (pot stickers, fried egg rice, teriyaki chicken and cabbage maybe). D-Nelly you of course have to approve of this idea because it is your birthday week. If you want to wait to the next week for Taiwan night we can but I am afraid much of my food will go bad.


Katy