Danshui, Fisherman's Wharf and O Canada!

I got up this morning with the intention of getting caught up with blogging, laundry and maybe a nap. I ended up, with about 20 minutes notice, on a 12 hour trip to the north end of Taipei with the other UWM students and a few CYCU students that offered to take us there. Maggie and Alan met us at school, and we took a taxi to the train station, and from there boarded the local train to Taipei Main station where we were greeted with this:

A girl, with a chicken head and a rather "deep" poem, mostly spelled correctly

and then on to the MRT train to Danshui. Upon arriving, we saw what I now know is the famous shopping street in Danshui

There is no such thing as a quiet shopping street in Taiwan.

where we proceeded to, after over two hours of travel, buy food and see some food I will never buy

Fresh cake filled with red bean paste!

Um....yeah...

I didn't get video, but they were still crawling in the bowl.

Maggie and Alan, our saviors!

Tangyuen. Sugar, shaved ice, condensed milk and whatever they make the bubbles in bubble tea out of. Cold and delicious.

 

Lunch?

The view was quite nice, off the street:

and we took a walk out towards the ocean where the boardwalk was. There was a lot to see out there, including some games and more food.

Ring toss for a bike!

We found out afterwards that Andrew was a Junior Olympics medalist in target shooting. He drew quite the crowd as he nailed all 30 balloons in 31 shots. He won an inflatable guitar.

Now, I do have to state that I was the victim of racial profiling while in Taiwan. There was an ice cream stand that had one and two foot ice cream cones. 10NT for one foot, 20NT for two. I stood in line with all the Taiwanese (and the other Americans), and when my turn came, I asked for a Number 1 (chocolate) and held up my 10NT. She nodded, gave me a two foot cone and charged me 20NT. It was already melting in the 95 degree heat, and she pretended not to understand my "No, SMALL!".

Yeah, I ate it.

We walked the length of the boardwalk to get to an old Spanish fort, Fort of San Domingo. Along the way, we passed a rather interesting looking steak house. 35 oz steak for 980NT ($35US) and...

Carnivorous rabbits? Didn't see those mentioned in The Lonely Planet..

The fort was pretty cool. They had the displays separated by occupation :) but really, it was just neat to see them not shy away from their history and not demonize the colonizers. It was pretty evenhanded and informational.

View from below

The long climb up. Perfect place for a fort. Only one way up.

The British Consulate sitting room

Why they have a Canadian Circus display I still don't know....

O Canada, our home and native....wait...

Don't mess with the bumblebee!

After the fort, we took a ferry to Bali. No, really. The area across the bay is called Bali :) There we saw, oddly enough, more of the same:

Haven't we been here before?

I had to stop and take a video of this. A girl, no more than 8 or 9, helping the family business!

At Maggie and Alan's suggestion, we rented three tandem bicycles and took an adventurous ride up to the Taiwan Archaeology Museum. The bike path was exactly like the streets of JhongLi. Utterly chaotic. BreeAnn and I didn't really even ride until about 1/4 mile. After that, we were dodging other bikes, mini-motorcycles, four-wheel pedaling contraptions and the plethora of people out walking. No one seemed to pay any attention to anyone else, except the very nervous Americans, but no accidents, and we made it safely to the museum.

Now THIS is low tide. It fluctuates some 100 feet or more.

What would you call this? I called it a roadblock...

Alan and Maggie leading the way

The museum was free, had very cool architecture and had some interesting exhibits, but the lighting and, frankly the exhibits, were not conducive to good picture taking, except for some wonderful signs and a diorama that made us all do a double take.

Um...what?

It was a glass floor...

After the return bicycle trip, we took the ferry back and then boarded another ferry to Fisherman's Wharf for some dinner.

Bost Respect Less Attack

Famous bridge. Looks better in sunlight.

Noodles and pork! Looks like spaghetti, tastes like....noodles and pork!

Merry Christmas! In July! Actually the dorm we are staying in also has their Xmas decorations up...

After another exhausting day of walking around, we boarded a bus, an MRT train and this time treated Maggie and Alan to a High Speed Rail ride for being such great tour guides today. It was their first time on the High Speed Rail

Trains in Taiwan are ALWAYS this crowded, it seems. And loud. But very clean and nice.

We stumbled home by about 10:30 (in time for curfew!) Just enough time to get some sleep before labs tomorrow!