Day 3: into the mountains

Today we stopped the town of Chi-Chi in Nantou county which was the epicenter of the September 21, 1999 earthquake that measured 7.3 on the Richter scale. The town has been pieced back together, but this temple has been left untouched as a monument to those who lost their lives in the earthquake.








We bought a few things at the market next to the temple, and the Taiwanese American family in our group bought bananas to share. The bananas are smaller and creamier than the bananas we buy at the grocery at home. We have several photos from this stop at the temple.




We drove up, up, up into the mountains. The scenery reminded me of our trip to the Alps in Germany and Austria, except that the little villages nestled in the valleys looked like Chinatown. In the valleys there were palm and banana leaf trees, but higher in the mountains there were some cedar trees. In the valley we stopped and bought some grapes at a roadside stand. These grapes are the best grapes I've ever had in my life. They have the flavor of grape jelly... just not so sugary sweet... but so juicy. I liked them so much I had a whole bunch, snacking on them all day in the van as we drove through the mountains. We also stopped at a "plum factory" where we bought plum candies and took a few photos of some plum trees and a few early plum blossoms.


best grapes I've ever had


plum blossom




We headed to YuShan (Jade Mountain) National Park (click for link). The Jade Mountain peak is the highest point in Taiwan. In the mountains we saw a few fiery red maples in the lush green forests. There were also huge poinsettia bushes growling along the roadside. We also saw monkeys along the road and fed them some bananas. I have video of this... and will try to upload this later. I'm posting a few of my favorite photos, and then there's the slideshow with the whole set.




Here's our tour group. Our guide is the man in the lower left.


This is Kevin looking cool infront of a tree that is over a thousand years old.


My favorite photo Kevin took of this tree in black and white.



Next our tour guide drove us to AliShan National Scenic Area (click for link) for more breathtaking views of the mountains. We walked through a cedar forest and were amazed at some of the giant trunks. We ate lunch in the AliShan, and were told that the foods were "wild," such as made from wild pigs. One of the dishes contained little spicy shrimps, and the shrimp were to be eaten whole with the shell on. Kevin ate several, while I had half of one just to say I tried it. There's something about eating shrimp whole that just doesn't settle right with me while trying to swallow. Sorry. I think the group enjoyed watching my face as I tried to swallow it down.

Our last stop of the day was at a place where you can taste test and purchase AliShan tea. We had a tea demonstration where we tried three kinds of tea, select tea, oolong tea, and high mountain oolong from the highest peaks. They said it was their very finest tea, and special as it could only be harvested two times per year.

We got back into Taipei really late, talked to family via web cam, and went to bed. Zzzzzz.