Where are we?!?

The island of Taiwan

By Perrin

         People have sent emails and letters to us saying, “How is China?” “Are you having fun in Japan?” “ Thailand must be great!” so I am going to tell you where we really are. We are in Taiwan. Taiwan is an island off the southeastern coast of China. It is a little bit bigger than the state of Maryland but, unlike Maryland, Taiwan has lots of mountains. In fact, 70% of Taiwan is covered by mountains. If you were looking at if from above, Taiwan looks similar to a very fat banana, except wider, with its tips pointing north and south.  Taipei, the capital and the city we are living in, is in the north, in a geographic basin, long ago a lake. Mountains surround Taipei and continue down the middle of Taiwan and the east coast. The highest mountain in Taiwan is called Jade Mountain. At a height of 12,966 feet, it is famous for being the 4^th tallest mountain on an island anywhere in the world.

The west coast of Taiwan is where most of the farming takes place because it is relatively flat and has fertile soil, but you’d be surprised at how many people cultivate tiny parcels of land on the steep mountainsides as well. The southwest of Taiwan is where the swimming beaches are, including the southern most beach town of Kending.

The Pacific Ocean is on the east coast, whose beaches are not safe to swim in due to the immediate drop off of the ocean floor which causes huge waves and a big undertow. The west coast is home to the Taiwan straight. The west coast’s beaches are so beautiful it almost seems like you could be in Mexico,

Taiwan’s climate is slit into two parts by the tropic of cancer. In the north it is a subtropical monsoon climate and the south is a tropical monsoon climate. The tropic of cancer goes through Taiwan a little south of its center, so it never snows in Taiwan except for in the high mountains. The forests, with vines and roots hanging everywhere, have the feeling of a jungle. Also, hot springs are abundant in Taiwan because Taiwan is located in the intersection of two tectonic plates. Some examples are the Beitou hot springs north of Taipei, and the Lisong hot springs deep in the mountain forests of the southeast, near Taidong. The road and trails to this extremely remote hot spring were originally made by the Japanese when they were in control of Taiwan from 1895 to 1945. The Japanese played a big role in Taiwanese history by modernizing Taiwan as a whole. They added lots of mountain roads and trails to the most remote places in Taiwan and made transportation easier. Although the original reason for the roads being built was to allow the Japanese to control the aboriginal tribes, it ended up benefiting Taiwan’s development.

After the Japanese had been here for 50 years, they were forced to give it to China at the end of WWII.  Later, after Chiang Kai Shek and his Nationalist party had lost a civil war to Mao and the communists, the nationalists fled from China to Taiwan along with lots of precious ancient Chinese art that would have been destroyed by Mao and the communist party if it had not been brought to Taiwan.

Taiwan has had a long bloody history and has fascinating geography, so if you are interested I recommend reading more about it! Taiwan was also called Formosa by the Dutch which means beautiful island, and I agree with that name, because Taiwan is truly a beautiful and wonderful island.

A Laughing Bike Ride

By Carly

Screeeeeeech! My bike jolted to a stop.  I jumped off and walked over to the damp wall and leaned my bike up against it. My mom, sister Perrin and my cousin Johanna walked in behind me. We all pulled off our helmets and hung them on our handlebars. We walked over to the side of the road and waited. Two minutes had passed when we herd a scraping noise. As they came into sight, we realized that my dad was dragging his feet on the ground, a bewildered cousin Daniel riding behind him. Daniel stopped when he got to us, but my dad was heading strait towards my mom. SCHHHHHCSSHH!!!! My dad was trying to slow himself down by scraping his feet on the road. My mom ran forward and caught his handle-bars so he wouldn’t crash into her. “Why didn’t you use your breaks?” asked Johanna. “They’re completely busted,” My dad grumbled. All of a sudden, everybody else burst out laughing. “What?” he questioned. “Before we started biking you asked everyone to check if their breaks were working,” I chuckled. Everyone’s did when they tried, but you didn’t even try, and you were the one who needed it the most!! We all fell over laughing again. He tried to hold it in, but my dad started laughing too.  

Shelling in Kending

by Perrin

The bubbles that were streaming from my nose and mouth engulfed me as I ran out of breath. I grabbed the shell that I had had my eye on and burst to the surface, gulping for air. We were in Kending, at the end of Johanna and Danny’s time in Taiwan, and were spending it relaxing and playing on the beaches of the southwestern coast. We stayed at a comfortable, tropical hotel called The Red Garden that resembled a B&B. It overlooked a decent swimming beach and was about 5 minutes by car to the center of Kending. At night, the main street of Kending was turned into a huge night market lined with little restaurants and stalls that sold almost everything; including deep fried Oreos that we have yet to try.

            

  One of my favorite things to do is to go shelling, so at every beach we went to I was the first one in the water with my goggles on, diving down to find shells on the sandy ocean floor. On Monday, we had driven to a beach about 20 minutes away from our B&B. I had been here before but Jojo and Danny hadn’t. This beach appeared to have no shells at all, but when you went under water, and looked carefully and hard enough, you could find the beautiful treasures of the sea. We stayed there for about three hours and Johanna and I didn’t stop shell searching once.

            Tuesday was our cousins’ last day here. We wanted to go shelling again so we slathered some sunscreen on and walked down the road to the beach nearest to us. At first, we didn’t find any shells worth keeping, but then, when we moved to the other end of the beach, we found so many that we almost always came up from diving with a few exquisite ones that we would show everyone before diving back down. We were in a fairly shallow area, about 5 feet deep, but to find the tiny shells, you had to swim down so your face was inches from the bottom.

            

I love shelling because you work hard and use up all your breath, and then you get a reward. I also love the silence, muffled noises, and sound of crashing waves that you hear when you are under water. You feel like anything is possible when you are floating there, occasionally finding the beautiful homes of animals, long forgotten.

            When people ask me if I like the mountains or the ocean better I usually say the mountains, but actually, I probably like the beach just as much as the mountains, just in a different way. I love Kending, especially when I am with my cousins, and I love the beach, especially with shells. I hope to go to Kending again in the future! 

The Epic Hike

By Carly

"Ok everyone out!" my mom half-shouted excitedly. We were about to hike the Li Song hike that ended at some hot springs and we had absolutely NO idea what was ahead of us. My mom, dad, uncle E-Pi, my sister Perrin and my cousins Johanna and Daniel hopped out of our rental car and walked toward the trail entrance. We stopped and peered down the trail. As far as we could see, it was all almost vertical downhill. We happily started down the mountain thinking that the trail would level out sometime soon.  We were wrong.  Instead we were occasionally tripping on the roots and vines that coated the mountain. We kept our hands on the rope that was lining the trail because that was the easiest way to stay on our feet. The rope was supported by metal poles that had gloves on top of them so if you were to put your hand on one, the sharp metal under the glove wouldn't cut you. We slowly made our way down the mountain. Finally we stopped at a place on the trail where a rock stood dangerously leaning over us. There was a rope that we had to hold onto to help us inch down the rocks. We were going so slowly I thought we were never going to get to the bottom.  I must admit it was pretty sketchy.

Daniel climbing down toward the river

Finally, after an hour, the trail leveled out and we stepped onto a rocky beach. We waded through the water over to the hot springs and ate lunch. 

Finally we were ready to bathe. We changed into our bathing suits and climbed down the rugged ladder that was nailed into the side of the slippery rock and stepped into the water. 

Here the water was cold. While shivering, we tripped and stumbled over to the pools of warm water that were held together with sand, dirt and rocks about the size of my head, which, if you didn't know, is pretty big. My dad said I had to keep my ankles out of the hot spring and keep them in the cold river. He said this because in Hualien, I got some nasty black fly bites. Not that the flies where poisonous or anything, but since we have been in Taiwan, for some reason, my skin has been VERY sensitive. The fly bites only like cold water. I learned that the hard way. They turn all red and nasty and inch like crazy almost all the time unless they are in the cold water.

I dipped my feet into the river and I could almost hear them yelling, “More! We want MORE!!!!!!!!!” I plopped down next to Johanna with my body in the warm water and my ankles and feet in the cold. We chatted together as we watched the hot spring water dribbling down the cliffside that was green and white from hot spring minerals.  Later we hopped out of the hot springs. We all climbed back up the ladder, back to the rocky beach, changed back into our clothes and once again we were back on the mountain.