Weekend Road Trips

Now that I've started subbing full time I have been really busy with work but I have been having a lot of fun and the teaching schedule isn't so bad because I never have to work on the weekends.  The weekend before last the four of us went to Guanziling.  It's a town a few hours north of Kaohsiung in the mountains known for it's muddy hot springs.  It happens to be one of the most famous hot spring sites in Taiwan because it releases methane, which has been burning consistently for about three centuries.  The ride up there was beautiful and we stayed in a hot spring hotel where our bath water came directly from the spring. We stopped to check out some temples as well and ate in Tainan on the way back to Kaohsiung.  I pretty much love eating at the markets in every country and Taiwan is no exception!

A popular ice dessert - it was delicious!

Last weekend Danielle and I took the train to  Hualien, and then went on to Toroko National Park.  Anthony and Ryan took the week off of work and rode their bikes across the central cross-island highway to get there.  It ended up raining all weekend, and we were camping but Toroko was so beautiful I didnt even care :)

Wearing our safety helmets: (falling rocks actually hit us)

Here we are walking in a section of the old road called the Tunnel of Nine Turns.  The road through the park (part of the central cross island highway) is insane.  It was the first roadway connecting the west and east coast of the island, finished in 1960.  It was made completely by hand (with only pick axes) and surprisingly only a few hundred people died during the construction (I would have guessed many more!).  Many of the men working on the road were former soldiers and they refer the construction as a war they were fighting because it was such a demanding job.   Pictures do not to the park justice!

Last week we had Wednesday off for Dragon Boat Festival.  The holiday celebrates the life of the famous Chinese scholar Qu Yuan and is celebrated in many parts of Asia.  We watched the dragon boat races and walked around the Love River area.  It was nice to have a day off in the middle of the week :D

I'll  be uploading the majority of my pictures to a picasa album before I leave and will post a link when it's finished.  I have about two more weeks of subbing and then Kathyrn comes and we'll start traveling.  Im ridiculously excited to travel again!  We'll fly into Malaysia and will work our way north to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam from there.  After she leaves I'll have another two weeks and plan on checking out Singapore as well :)  Then it's back to the states for Christa's wedding in Colorado!