Today some friends loaded their and our bikes plus the four of us into their cute little van and took us on a trip out of town. We drove about an hour north to a bike path that was built under the main highway in the area. Most of the major highways in southern Taiwan are elevated which lends itself to providing some really nice areas for biking.

That's Lee in the red shirt.

This path is about 20 km long and beautiful. Because it's under the highway it's wonderfully shady and the landscaping was very nicely done. There are playgrounds, basketball courts, picnic areas, sumo wrestling areas. (I don't know if that's what they really are but all the signs are in Chinese and there was no one to ask so that's what I will call them.) There's also a lot of artwork, mostly sculptures and tile work.

A lot of the plantings reminded me of houseplants I used to have back in Connecticut.

Most of the land around the bike path is farmland. One of the odd things I learned is that in the orchards the farmers put plastic bags around the fruit. They do that to protect it from insects. Here are some banana trees with blue plastic bags wrapped around the bananas.

We had a great trip and followed it with a delicious lunch at a restaurant near the mountains. The setting was beautiful and the coffee cup delightful.