Trip to TaiTung...

On the weekend, the Doctor and I travelled to the eastern town of Taiwan called TaiTung (literally means Taiwan East). This city faces the Pacific Ocean and is one of the least populated out of the major centres.

After organising our transportation and checking into our hotel room, we travelled out of town and came across a place where "water travels uphill". This is meant literally. How could this be possible? I really don't know. Have a look at the photo and see if you can tell? I swear that the where I took the photo was near the bottom of the small canal and the water travelled up to the people in the distance. And just in case your are wondering, there is no motor or propeller pushing the water up either... A marvel of nature...

The next place we visited was a small bridge in the mountains that was home to many small monkeys. In Kaohsiung, there mountain need the beach and it is home to many monkeys also. However, unlike their Kaohsiung cousins, the monkeys that the Doctor and visited were friendly. The monkeys that you can see in the photos seem more interested in amusing themselves than anyone who had no food to offer them.

However, when people did show up with food, it was quite a different story. One of the tourists that had stopped decided not to follow the regulations and feed the monkeys.

By judging from this photo, the monkeys did not appear that aggressive - lucky for the young lady.

When we made our way back to our scooter, another family stopped and decided to feed the monkeys all this processed food. One thing was leek cooked inside a pancake batter type thing. The monkeys quickly tore the pancake batter apart looking for the leeks but decided it wasn't that nice. The monkeys seemed more interested in the grapes or food that hasn't been processed.

After being amused by the monkeys and their tricks to find food, the Doctor and I headed back to central TaiTung. Along the way we stopped at a marine biological park. The Doctor said that wading into the water was permitted and found that there were many fish swimming around his feet. As you can see by the picture, he tried to catch a fish or two by hand but unfortunately (or maybe not for the fish) he didn't catch any.

Some other people that you can see in the background did manage to catch a fish or two. However, they had worked out a trick. Put a bit of food between their toes and the fish wouldn't swim away.

On the next day (which was Saturday), and the Doctor and I went to Dairy Farm. One of the attractions was figure cows similar to what is shown in the picture. Before I tried to jump on the cow's back, there has been a school girl try but failed. I thought I could do this and after a few attempts I managed to get up there. The Doctor had taken so many unflattering photos that I dare not post, but as you can see, I did make it successfully up there.







Apart from having many cow things to look at, they also had a live horse and carriage; however I didn't see it being used. But I think the Doctor has found another friend...

After visiting the Cow Ranch, we visited a Botanical Garden centre that had many native and interesting plants. One of the surprising plants was the Dandelion. In New Zealand and I think for Australia, this plant would be considered a weed because of fairy type flower that spreads the seeds. Funny how Taiwan think it is a plant to be kept in their Botanical Gardens.

On Saturday night, it started to rain, and rain quite heavily. The Doctor and I headed to the local convenience store for our dinner rather than drive in the rain. While we sat and ate our dinner, we saw outside someone else eating his dinner too. Outside in the rain there were many white ant flies or something of a bug type variety and many of them ended up weighed down by the water. They become easy targets for the local who lived in the greenery. I only managed to photograph one of them but he had a friend who was also hopping around too.

On the last day (that being Sunday), it pretty much rained all day. We had planned to go White Water rafting but decided against it because the rain can be heavy and come quickly in Taiwan. The last thing I wanted was to be literally washed down a raging river... So we took shelter in a book shop in central TaiTung until we caught our train back home again.

TaiTung is a beautiful town and the Doctor and I hope to travel back there soon and see more of their attractions. But until then, I'll have to settle for Kaohsiung.

Till next time, haveagoodone...