Tamsui

Tamsui is a small city to the northeast of Taipei, located along the Tamsui River. The scenery is beautiful, surrounded by mountains and water.

After taking in the view by the MRT station, we started the walk along the river towards the Fisherman's Wharf. 

There's a ferry that can take you to the Fisherman's Wharf, but we decided to walk!

The stroll took us all along the coast. 

Back in the 19th century this was the center of shipping and commerce in northern Taiwan. 

But now it's just a great place to escape the city and be by the coast!

We saw this amazing guy start and finish a painting of a girl in the time it took for one song to finish playing.

Then the path took us away from the water

We passed a couple pigs on the street...

and a driving school.

Then, we finally made it to the boardwalk. 

"Lover's Bridge" is said to have the best view of the sunset in all of Taiwan. 

We made it just in time!

The walk back was still beautiful, even when it was  getting dark.

On our way back we stopped off to get some of the famous shrimp rolls. 

It was a beautiful day!

You can check out more pictures here.

<3

Lantern Festival

The Lantern Festival marks the end of Chinese New Year. So, we (along with the rest of Taiwan) went to Taipei's Lantern Festival. I don't think I've ever seen that many people in one space in all my life.

Once we got in and past the main crowd we were greeted with the traditional red lanterns that were all over the city.

Traditionally, there are riddles on each lantern for children to solve.

The trees were decorated with colorful lights and there was a big stage, right when you walked in, with lots of musical performances.

And of course, there was the monk with an iPad. That's right, a monk with an iPad.

In the back of the festival there was another stage where there was supposed to be a big show. At least, that's what was advertised, that this show happened two times an hour. It sounded like something we couldn't miss! A lot of other people felt the same way.

It was insane how orderly they were, everyone just sat down on their own and waited quietly for the show to start.

Year of the snake!

The light show wasn't anything special, but I'm used to Disney and the 4th of July at the lake, so I'm hard to impress!

 I did like the other lanterns that were all around. 

After the light show a singer came on the stage.

And that's when we decided to be on our way. 

We walked into a convention center type place and were literally chased by some organizers. They asked about what we were doing there and how we were liking it. Then, we were introduced to the organizer of the whole thing, or the "big boss" as the man translating called him. Then they asked if they could take a picture with us for a magazine. Um, sure?

The "big boss" gave us each a metal stamp that he made himself, and then they sent us on our way. We walked through the rest of the center and on our way out a lady came up to me and said "Sarah?!? You're so young!" I'm sure I looked at her like she was crazy wondering how this woman knew my name. She then explained she was with the other organizers. They were back, this time with a camera crew. They asked us if we could talk about recycling on camera. She explained (while filming us) how the whole festival was made of recycled items. Meanwhile, there was a crowd of people forming outside looking at us through the window. Weirdest moment of my life!

Interesting night...

You can check out more pictures here. 

<3

MaoKong Mountain

I'm already getting bad at this, so will have to play catchup for a bit.

A few weeks ago, Adam and I went on a hiking adventure up the Maokong Mountain. The plan was to ride the gondola up, enjoy some of the tea they're famous for, and hike down the mountain.

It was a rainy day so it wasn't too crowded. We only had to wait a little while for a glass bottom gondola.

It was cool, but you're so busy looking at the view I think I'll take the regular one next time.  It freaked me out a little since I'm not great with heights (especially when it's so windy the whole gondola is swaying back and forth!)

As you can tell, I was a little scared

So was Adam...

But then, I started looking out instead of down and took in the amazing views.

The MaoKong area is known for their tea and tea houses. Here's a tea field we saw on the way up.

When we made it to the top we were greeted by a small village. There weren't many things going on, just a couple stalls. The further we walked the more tea houses we found. 

But the views were amazing. 

It was so beautiful and peaceful. 

After wandering around for a bit, we came across the Tea Museum. When we walked in we were given a cup of free tea, then watched a movie about how tea is made and why the area is so great for growing tea. 

 Then we walked in on a tea demonstration.

These men were the owners of a famous tea farm and let us try a few of their teas.

This man insisted we stay and drink the tea, then took us around to explain the tea making process to us.

After sampling some great tea we were ready for the hike down! There were thousands of steps; wet, slippery, and full of moss...

beautiful views...

a couple temples...

and more stairs!

But it all paid off. We made it to the top right at sunset. 

This is my favorite picture, because even though it didn't come out great you can see how far we went. We started well before that building in the top left, went all the way down and all the way up again. 

After taking it all in, we took the gondola back down the rest of the mountain...

and went to bed!

You can check out more pictures here.

<3