Yini and I both felt a need for a mini vacation, so this weekend we took Friday off and headed to Taidong on the south east coast. This is about as far away as you can go in Taiwan while still staying on land. If you are taking public transport you can either get a high speed train south along the west side, change to a normal train and cross the southern tip then go north again along the east coast, a process that takes around six or seven hours. Or, you could get on the normal train right from the start, go atound the top of the island then down the east coast to Taidong, which also takes around six or seven hours. If you are not bound by public transport you might be tempted to drive the most direct route, south along the west side to about half way, cut straight across the island then finish off going the last bit south along the east coast. The central part of the island however, is so mountainous and the roads so broken that this would actually take around 10 or even 12 hours.
Anyhow, Yini and I woke up fairly late so we took the high speed rail to reach here in decent time. Unfortunately we arrived pretty late and only got an hour of daylight left, so we rented a scooter at the trainstation then went directly to our hotel to relax on our in-rooom hot spring. A very relaxing way to start a strip.
Today we got up a bit earlier and had a much better chance to explore our surroundings.
We started with a small but nice waterfall
We went to a large grassland on a high plateau, usually intended for hot air balloon flights, and tried some grass skiing which was awesome.
We went to a nice road in the middle of some rice fields and stopped by a tree famous for having a handsome guy sit under it and drink tea.
Close to the road in the rice fields were some interesting sculptures. Both of us took a chance to play part of the artwork.
By that time it was starting to get late, so we headed into Taidong city and to our hotel. We had a slow but tasty dinner at a small restaurant and finished off with a soak in the hotel spa. All in all a pretty nice day, the definit favourite being the grass skiing.
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