So, for the past month I've been taking it pretty easy. When I first got my cold, my whole body just ached. I thought to myself, this might be the perfect time to check out the hot springs nearby. So, two weekends ago on Saturday afternoon, I took the MRT to Beitou hot springs. The hot springs in Beitou are the most popular in northern Taiwan. The area of Beitou both the facilities and manmade attraction were established during the Japanese occupation. Before heading into the outdoor public baths, I stopped to look at the hot spring museum right beside it. There were many tourist looking at the historical bathhouse as it's one of the largest Japanese-style wooden buildings in Taiwan. Looking at the Japanese style building and hot spring bath facilities in the museum, I was reminded of the ones I saw in Japan with my family. : ) It brought back the memories of when we went into the hot springs 'nude' in Japan.
The entrance fee to the hot springs was very cheap. It was 40 NT, which is less than $1.50! There were a total of 6 different soaking baths: 2 cold, 2 hot, and 2 extremely hot baths. I was very surprised when I first saw the baths. My first reaction was, it wasn't as beautiful as the ones I went to in Japan. After soaking in the water for awhile and talking to some of the people there, I began to really enjoy the hot baths. Sadly, an hour later, a whistle blows and everyone had to get out of the water and leave the baths to allow the next group to come in. The baths are organized in a time schedule. There are 2 1/2 hour incriminates of time allocated to each group. If you want to stay longer, you could pay an additional 20 NT, but you still had to get out for cleaning purposes. It's recommended not to stay longer than an hour, so I decided to leave and come back another time. It was very nice! For free you can check out the stream that also has the spring water. How many times do you feel a hot stream!
After, I walked a few minutes up the road to Thermal Valley, one of the sources supplying the area's hot springs. I read on a sign that thermal valley contains green sulfur; this type of water can be found in two places n the world, Taiwan @ Beitou and Japan! Many people were taking pictures and looking at the hot sulfur rising from the ground. The water temperature ranges from 80-100 Celsius. I'm glad I stopped to look, it was very cool!
Just this last Sunday, I invited Kristin to go on a day trip with me to Jinguashi and Jiufen. All week the forecast said, it was suppose to rain the whole day, but the night before I saw the forecast change to sunny day on Sunday. My plan was to visit the geological park in Jinguashi and climb tea pot mountain, but the weather prevented us from doing so as it rained the entire day! Thank you forecast for making a wrong predicting. The rain put a little damper on our trip, but we still managed to make the most out of the rainy day.
We took the local train from Taipei to Ruifang (about an hour) and from there took a bus to Jinguashi (about 25 minutes). The area of Jinguashi is amazing!!! You can see the sea and the mountains in one shot. It's absolutely stunning area. I would have to say this is my new favorite destination, and it's so close to where I live. Besides, the great view, the area of Jinguashi is famous for gold-mining. We spent the afternoon walking around the gold ecological park and looking at the numerous attractions including the gold refining building (originally a guesthouse when Taiwan was a Japanese colony), Crown Prince Chalet residence and the variety of exhibitions. We even took a special tour of Benshal No. 5 tunnel to get a closer look at gold mining in Jinguashi. After the tour, we climbed up a bit of stairs to see Jinguashi Shinto Shrine, as we were climbing up, we saw to the left of us tea pot mountain. It actually looked like a tea pot : ) I'm hoping to come back and climb it! On our way out of the park, we decided to stop and take a tour of the Japanese-style residence. It was once a dormitory for high level Japanese company employees and now is turned into a display area for visitors to see how they lived. The building is one of the few remaining in Taiwan and has become a popular location for filming movies as many people love the Japanese old style architecture. Kristin, is big into history and saw on the tourist map there was a POW memorial. We started walking towards it (actually we never made it there), but we came across Cyuanji temple that has the big bronze warrior statue. You can see this statue from far away, so it was cool seeing it up close. We took the bus back in the direction of Ruifang train station to Jiufen old street. The bus ride back wasn't as beautiful as the way there with the thick gray clouds and the heavy rain. Kristin and I enjoyed a nice dinner together in the cute old street of Jiufen that overlooked the sea and mountains. We walked along the old street looking at the shops until it was time to catch the train back to Taipei. It was a nice day and the views make me want to come back on a sunny day : )
It's been three months since I've moved to Taiwan, crazy to think it's already been that long. Just a few days ago, on my half day, I got my Taiwan bank account set up. It took a bit of time to open my account since I had to wait for my ARC to arrive. I feel so official now : ) After I opened up my account, I decided to climb a mountain near Yongning station. The hike was steeper than I expected. It was very well paved path and light poles alighted the way. I started the climb around 4 p.m., so by the time I came down the sun had already set. It was cool to see both the day and night view of the city from up above. I remember before coming to Taiwan I wanted to do a lot of hiking. So far, I haven't done as much as I wanted to, but I'm hoping to do more. It's so easy to get to the mountains as they are all around Taipei. When else will I get such easy access to so many great mountains : )
~I am thankful for.. my family, my few close friends, the countless people I have met who have helped shape me, my home in America, my health, food and water, my job in Taiwan, my co-teachers, all the great experiences and traveling I have been fortunate to have, my education, Bradley University, the few jobs I have had, and my computer that I spend hours on ;)
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