Weekend 5: Saturday (Part I)

Yehliu GeoPark (Woot!) a.k.a. the day I burned myself to a crisp

I'll admit it. I was the mastermind behind this whole scheme.
The one who had the bright idea of the potentially suicidal mission of a near-complete loop along north coast, starting at Taipei Main Station and ending in Danshui.
All of this in ONE DAY.

I don't know what I was thinking. And I don't know what my friends were thinking when they agreed to this.

By the way, all the travel is done by public transportation (ie bus.) Half the group almost missed the bus at Taipei Main Station (the bus was literally pulling out of the lot when they came running after it.) Anyways, here goes.

First stop: Yehliu Geopark
Of all the places we could have skipped, we could not skip this one. Of course, it also meant it was jammed pack with tourists and their giant tour buses.

The park is basically a peninsula. The constant erosion by the sea has created some very very cool looking rock formations.

Doesn't the one on the left look like a giant brain?
 And the one on the right looks like the profile of a face?

With the influx of tourists, the park had to paint a really awful-looking red line that stretched along the entire coast. It was really hard taking a picture completely free of that red line. And anytime you went too close to the line or touched a piece of the rock formation, a guard blows his whistle at you. Very annoying.

 

Look how clear the water was! It was really fun dipping my feet in the water and trying to catch all the fish swimming about. 

Fossils!

Queen's Head. The star attraction of the entire park. The line to take a photo was pretty long, but well worth the wait. It's smaller than the pictures. I'm guessing it probably won't last another decade.

Onward and forward. We decided to try to make it as far as we could towards the end of the peninsula not knowing what lies ahead, dragging the rest of the group with us.









And of course we completely ignored the caution tape.

What a view! Completely redline-free.

Simply beautiful. So worth the trek all the way up here.

Oh look. Mystery steps. Let's follow them and see where they lead to.

A patch of pristine coast untouched by the ugly red line. Woot!

Climbing back up is going to be a barrel of laughs...

 Wicked!

Look at what one of the fishermen caught. A pufferfish/blowfish. It was just swimming in the bucket, about the size of my fist. One of the kids poked at it. It puffed up and proceeded to roll over in the bucket. A pretty funny sight. Let's hope they released it back into the ocean afterwards.

Lunch at Jinshan Old Street. We had to bring the dishes we want from the serving area across the street to the dining area. I wish I had a picture. Very cool experience, carrying a plate of duck in a crowd of people. It's the honour system all the way since theoretically you can just run off without paying for your meal.  

Shimen Stone Arch (石門洞)

A really interesting land formation caused by the continuous erosion by the ocean.

Gah! So this is what happens to your skin when you expose it to Taiwan sun for eight straight hours without sunscreen (It is now five weeks later and the stripe is still there. If anything, the colour difference has gotten more noticeable. My feet look like a zebra, a source of much amusement to my dormmates.)