Picture from Sakatong trail, way too easy for 3 energetic bunnies.
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My new year vacation in Taipei started with a 2 day hike in Taroko notional park in Taiwan with my cousins, Sandy and Jennifer. I first went to Taichung to kidnap those 2 from Auntie Feng (the price I had to pay is to play valley ball for the whole afternoon wearing Auntie Feng's running shoes).
We determined to do it in the cheapo grad student style, driving Sandy's temperamental second-hand car (she likes to take a rest when starting up, the cure is to pop up the engine hook and bang heavily on the engine, if it is not too hot. After a couple minutes, she will miraculously resurrect). Since the only route to HuaLian is the windy, narrow, truck-filled seaside road, we abandoned the idea of driving to our hike, but taking the train. After arriving in HuaLian, we took the local bus to Taroko park, started our first hike and planned for our trip tomorrow.
The local bus took almost an hour to cover the 30 minute taxi ride (we knew, because we took the taxi back later). Meanwhile, grandmom came up with grocery shoppings and so on. It was really too painful. We hiked the nice and easy 10K route the first day, walking along the small stream, which was filled by huge marble stones in different colour and carved by the water stream in various shapes. The weather wasn't great but still enjoyable. We finished the hike and went back to HuaLian for nice beer and small dishes in a local beer garden (taxi driver's recommandation). It was so nice to see my cousin Jen again, she has grown into a serious scentist. Sandy is the more street-smart one, I think she is surviving well in Taiwan after a year though her Chinese is still not very fluent.
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