After our five hour bike trip Saturday we scrapped our initial plan for Sunday, which was to go to the little island off the Kaohsiung coast called Shao Liuqiu. We've been there twice before and really enjoyed it but it takes some doing to get there - subway, taxi, ferry, renting bikes or scooters - and we were pretty spent after all the sun and heat the day before. Instead we went for a walk to refill the pantry with fruit - mango, pineapple, lychee, more mango, apples, bananas, cherry tomatoes, a couple more mango. By 11:00 we figured we really should get out of the apartment again and went back to Cijin to go for a swim.

The heat index was around 110 degrees but we were going to the beach. A place I normally associate with cooling off, but that's not really how it felt. The sand is black, so pity the poor soul who tries to walk across that with no shoes on. Fortunately my sandals didn't melt. The water was closed for swimming, a pretty common occurrence, but even the surfers were heeding the warning today. The waves were pretty big and the undertow was intense. Instead of swimming we just waded in. The water temperature felt only slightly lower than the air temperature but the breeze was nice.

I love any opportunity to get in the water so the trip was worthwhile but we didn't get to swim and we didn't cool off at all, but we did stop on the way home for mango ice, always a plus.

I may have to amend my post from a couple days ago. The air has been wonderfully clean but the temperature has gotten high and it just doesn't cool off. The morning I posted about enjoying the hot weather the a/c died at school and wasn't fixed until 9:00. By then the thermometer in my room was reading 86 degrees, which isn't bad when you're sitting on the beach with the breeze in your face. It's not so nice with just the fans going and a room full of middle schoolers. Okay, in my case it wasn't a room full - my classes are pretty small - but Lee's room was full and everyone was pretty miserable. This heat is tolerable when you've got a/c.

But the weekends are made for relaxing and you've got to do that outside, in my opinion. So Lee and I ignored the thermometer and went for a bike ride Saturday morning. We went to the end of Cijin Island then skirted the edge of the harbor and went south of downtown to the Dream Mall. We'd been meaning to take a ride on the ferris wheel on the roof and the weather was perfect for seeing the city. We arrived at the mall a little after 10 am, and discovered the stores don't open until 11:00. On a Saturday! Crazy. As it turned out, the security guards opened the doors at 10:30 so we didn't have to wait long to get into the cooled air inside, then promptly took the elevator up to the roof. The stores don't open until 11:00 but the ferris wheel was ready for passengers.

I swallowed my fear of heights and enjoyed the view. Fortunately the ride was slow and smooth. Here are the pix.

Last night was the KAS end of year party. The food was good and the beer was ice cold. I enjoyed hanging out with a few people - I'm not much of a mingler at these things - and the sunset was beautiful.

Another beautiful day is dawning. The air has been clean and the weather very pleasant, in my opinion. Mind you, I've gotten quite comfortable in this heat and humidity. At the moment, which is 5:30 and the sun is just beginning to poke up above the horizon, it's 83 degrees and the humidity is at 89%, which puts the heat index at 94. Once the sun starts shining it'll get really nice and toasty. Except toasty implies dry heat and this certainly is not dry. But, like I said, I've come to really like this weather. I don't remember the last time I wore long pants and I think I haven't worn socks more than once or twice in the last three months. Lee has to wear those things every day at work, poor thing, but us women have a more flexible dress code.

Lee found me a sleeping bag type coat that he thinks I'll need beginning in October when we're back in Connecticut. I do miss those crisp fall days of New England, but they may get pretty old by November. Then there's all those cold winter days before it gets warm again in April. Ah, seasons. I think I remember those.

We had a great ride to Cijin Island yesterday morning. All the rain from the day before really cleaned up the air so, even though it was hot and humid, the smog was gone.

We went with our friend Jen. She was the first person to take us to the island two years ago but we haven't been back with her since then. It was a nice change to have company and take the opportunity to stop for pictures and to admire the view.

The military ships in the harbor with all decked out with flags. We figured they were gussied up to celebrate the inauguration of the new president.

Lee found a very nice spot to relax along the beach.

He forgot his water bottle on the bench but it was still there when we came back an hour later.

Sometimes I have a lot to say but Lee doesn't always listen. It was good to have a helpful listening device. :)

We treated ourselves to mango ices at our favorite shop, the same one Jen took us to two years ago.

We did not have the mega-bowl of mixed fruit.

Instead, we had bowls of heaven.

We really need to figure out how to get these in Connecticut.

There's a children's book called Fortunately, Unfortunately that's a good summary of our day yesterday. We had great plans and none of them turned out as expected, although at the end of the day it was all good.

First was our hike up Monkey Mountain. The parking lot was packed with cars and scooters so we figured there would be a crowd with us on our hike. There were even a couple of monkeys hanging out on the roofs of some cars. As it turned out, those were the only monkeys we saw. We've never not seen any monkeys on the mountain, but that may have been because we were in a different section of the woods. We decided to follow the signs to the zoo since we've often talked about exploring there and had never gone.

The woods felt very jungle-like on this hike. The air was still and very humid and smelled how I expect a jungle to smell. We found patches of thick bamboo corralled into tunnels:

We also came across a little shrine tucked into the rocks near the zoo:

There was a cement wall that I thought marked the edge of the zoo (you can see it on the left in the photo above), but no. In fact, the zoo was a bit elusive. We found the entrance we've biked by many times:

When we walked up the drive from there we discovered that the zoo doesn't open until 9:00 and it was only 8:00, so not worth waiting around. We did see some animal statues, another, lovelier sign and some beautiful flowers.

Fortunately saw some monkeys in the parking lot, unfortunately never saw any on the mountain. Fortunately finally made it to the zoo, unfortunately it was closed, fortunately explored a new part of the mountain. You get the idea.

In the afternoon we had planned on going to the Dream Mall and the ferris wheel but it had started to rain at the end of our hike and continued for the rest of the day. Not the right weather for a roof-top ride. Instead, since the Dream Mall is pretty far from here we headed to the mall nearby to look for some kitchenware to bring home with us. We're still on the look-out for a nice set of chopsticks, bowls and spoons. It's what everyone eats with around here. Why has it been so hard to find? 

Unfortunately (see how this works?) we didn't find anything at the Hanshin Mall so we hopped onto the MRT and went into town to the Mega Mall. Everyone seemed to have the same idea on a rainy Saturday afternoon. The subway was packed.

Still no luck at the mall. But since we were downtown we figured we'd find some dinner. First we walked through the Liuhe night market. It was still busy, despite the rain.

There were plenty of choices for dinner, including squid on a stick for only 50NT, but we took a pass this evening.

Instead we ended up at a restaurant called The Beast where we were told they could squeeze us in if we promised to be done before 8:30. It being only 6:00 at the time we had no trouble getting in and out of there with time to spare. On our way back to the MRT we stopped in the night market and bought nougat to finish off our day. Fortunately, it was just a typical weekend in Kaohsiung.

Yesterday morning a friend was in a bike vs car accident. She was biking down the road when a car pulled out of an alley and she did a face plant on the trunk. At the time she thought she'd broken her jaw, wrist and a few ribs but it turns out she was just badly bruised. Some stitches on her chin and a handful of painkillers and they sent her home to recover. It gave me flashbacks.

One of the most bothersome things about my accident is that I don't remember it. I remember turning onto the road where it happened and I remember being in the ER but it's a blank in between. That continues to bother me. Lee says I was unresponsive for less than a minute and then carried on a conversation with him. It was the same conversation over and over again, but at least I was talking. I don't like that I can't recall that.

But enough of that. We're down to our last few weeks and it's time to do some last-time things.

Today we're going to hike up Monkey Mountain. Some friends went the other day and found themselves in a crowd of monkeys on a stair section of the trail that freaked them out. We've never found the monkeys to be menacing and I hope to keep it that way.

Also on the agenda today is a trip on the subway to the Dream Mall and a ride on the ferris wheel on the roof. It's pretty hazy today so the views may not be great but it's now or never. Then we'll head up to the Cultural Center and check out the arts and crafts table before having dinner at one of the in-city restaurants we rarely get down to. Busy day.

Lee and I got up and organized early this fine Thursday morning and were on our bikes before 5:30. We biked down to the harbor then turned back north towards school. In a bit less than an hour I was in the shower and here is it, about 6:45 and I'm at my desk, ready to start the school day. The first class doesn't start until 8:00 so I have time to finish any grading or planning that I've put off until now. With only 15 days left (but who's counting?) there's not much planning left to do and I'm actually all caught up on the grading, so I have time to write and putz around my room, organizing and cleaning up for my replacement.

Tomorrow is dumpling breakfast so there will probably not be an early morning bike ride, but it was nice to do today.

We took our last fling to Kenting on the weekend. I say the last, although we still have a few weekends left and who knows what we may do. Well, there's the packing, closing the bank account, paying last bills, but we may find we have some time on our hands and find a way to get to the beach again. We'll see.

Anyway, here was our weekend.

We left straight from school and shared a taxi with another couple from KAS. A friend had organized the weekend and in all 17 people headed down. We were the first to arrive. The taxi driver was fast enough to get us there ahead of the Friday rush but slow enough to not be terrifying.

Kenting is a quintessential tourist town. Lots of surfers and beach bums, plus families from the city (it's about two hours from Kaohsiung). There are also big tour buses that drop their passengers at the beaches where they stand at the water's edge and take pictures of themselves holding scarves in the wind and occasionally falling in the surf. We chose to spend the morning hiking in the Kenting National Park. But first, scooters. I fell in love with my little panda rental. Cute, right? The scooters were electric, so very quiet, and small but zippy. If we had gotten scooters when we arrived in Taiwan I would have done a lot less biking.

Scooters make it so much easier to get to just-out-of-reach places. I'm not sure I would have tried biking up to the national park. It was a very long hill and didn't take long to get high enough for some pretty spectacular views.

Since visiting this place requires walking, there weren't many people. (That seems to be a universal truth. The further you walk from a parking lot, the less people you see.) As always in Taiwan, we found some really incredible trees. This one was hollow inside and looked like it was straight out of Tolkien's Fangorn Forest.

We found some amusing signs as well. This one says "oops."

The hills around Kenting are old. uplifted coral reefs, so the rocks are craggy and and holey. We were delighted to find a cave that was well lit and beautiful. Another plus, there was no one else there so it wasn't claustrophobic to walk through. This stalactite sparkled and glowed.

At the top of the hike there was a tower with a 360 degree view of the southern tip of Taiwan. It was also a cafe so we got to drink some tea while we enjoyed the view.

After our hike we scootered down to the beach. We passed a cemetery along the way. Burial plots are located based on feng shui and dot the hills all around the countryside. Being on a hill, especially facing the water, is very auspicious.

The beach was wonderful, as expected. Not many people actually go in the water, but we had plenty of company under the umbrellas that lined the beach. Sun, surf, a nice breeze. And plenty of sunscreen so you're not too red at the end of the day. Being this close to the equator certainly makes it easy to burn.

Being the tourist town that it is, Kenting rolls out a busy night market along the main street. Fortunately, the police station and its resident zebra sculpture are nearby to keep everyone in line. We ate corndogs and ice cream and jostled along with the crowd. There were even fireworks.

Saturday morning we hopped onto the high speed rail and travelled north to Taichung, the third largest city after Kaohsiung and Taipei. It's in the center of Taiwan, which is what the "chung" part means. Taipei is in the north, "pei" = north; Tainan is in the south, "nan" = south; and Taitung is in the west, "tung" = west. This is a very organized country.

Even the agriculture is organized, or at least that's how the rice patties looked out the window.

After the train we took an hour bus trip up into the mountains to Sun Moon Lake.

What a wonderful way to spend one of our last weekends here in Taiwan. This place is beautiful. The color of the lake is an unusual greenish blue, it's nestled in the western edge of the central mountains and not hard to get to, either from Kaohsiung or Taipei. It's as touristy as one can imagine and caters to the busloads of tourists from the big cities and mainland China. But if you stay away from the cruise boats and bars you can have the biking and hiking trails pretty much to yourself.

We stayed in this cute little hotel perched on the side of the lake at the edge of town.

 The view from the room was spectacular.

 This was the early morning mist on Sunday from our hotel room window.

After we arrived on Saturday we rented a couple of bikes and headed out on the bike trail that skirts around about a third of the lake. It was relatively busy for the first part but thinned out quite a bit after a few kilometers.

There was also a walking path along the lake's edge in town that we visited before dinner.

We had dinner at one of the many restaurants along the lake. On the menu: tea and jellys (think bubble tea pearls and jello jigglers), hot pot and a mango smoothie for dessert.

On Sunday morning we found a hiking trail up Maolan Mountain to a tea research center. Although it was hazy with the morning humidity the views were still pretty nice and we felt like we had hiked to the top of the world.

I'm glad we finally made it to this lovely place. There are other areas we will not make it to - the Alishan Mountain region, Green and Orchids Islands off the east coast, the Penghu Islands to the west. I'm not sure if I'll ever make it back to Taiwan once we leave, but I've got places I'd like to visit if I do return.