Mountain Top for Matthew's Birthday

This past week I had a very short work week consisting of two days. I had Thursday through Saturday off for a national holiday called Tombsweeping holiday. I did not get much information regarding this holiday so I am still unsure as to its purpose. Either way, I had made big plans for the coming weekend as it was Matthew's 36th birthday. Unfortunately, I do not possess an abundance of funds, so even though I had five whole days off, I had decided that two nights would have to suffice, especially considering that most hotels drive up their prices during holidays.

The first two days of my holidays were filled with rain, rain, and more rain. I don't mind the rain too much, but it did limit us to outings we may have done. I especially love the rain at night, or thunderstorms, I find them very soothing and I always get the greatest sleep during storms. So, while Matthew struggled to sleep, I was out like a rock and fully energized for the next couple of days. A co-worker has actidentally let my big surprise slip, so Matthew had found out that I was taking him to a hot spring location for his birthday gift, but he didn't know which one. There are tons on this island!


I had made reservations and pre-paid for the hotel and everything was set, except I had no idea how we would get there. I had read online that we could take a bus there, but I didn't have a clue how often they ran, or which days, I was really just hoping for the best. It turned out to be not so bad, luckily I had written all the towns' names in Chinese characters. We took a bus from Erlin straight to Taichung, which is a pretty big city (its secretely where I had wanted to end up) and really the artistic centre now. From there we found a bus company that serves the Nantou area. Matthew still didn't know where we were headed, so I had to do all the reading myself, not that it matter much as he can't really tell the difference between Chinese characters yet. We found a shuttle bus service that would get us to the county and we would have to transfer buses there. The side of the bus read "Sun Moon Lake Shuttle Bus" so Matthew of course thought that's where we were headed, but he was wrong. We hop on the bus, and travel the distance to our transfer location in Puli. Puli is located in the geographical center of Taiwan, so that was pretty neat. Once we got there I had to figure out which bus would take us to our destination by reading the inofrmation board. At this point Matthew wanted to help and had been watching me and what symbols I was looking for, so he eventually discovered the symbols to our destinations, but since he can't read he still didn't know what it said, so I finally told him. The desk woman couldn't help and didn't seem to want to serve me at all because we didn't speak the same language. So, Matthew and I ventured around for some food and went back later. At that time there was a much friendlier cashier who even called up the tourist information help desk to get a translator. I had all my information written down in Chinese, so I thought it would be easy. The translator told me she just wanted to make sure that the 5:30pm bus would be okay, because it was a 30 minute wait. All the confusion for a bit of a wait. We got on that bus and headed up the mountain.

 

The bus driver scared me half to hell. First of all, this bus was set up more like a city bus rather than a coach. It was also long and Matthew just had to sit at the very back. The roads were narrow and curvy and the driver was driving so fast it looked like we were headed right off the cliff at every turn. I kept picturing our deaths in my mind; it wasn't the most pleasant of drives, but the views were absolutely breathtaking. Finally we get to the top and I get to touch ground. We were about 4000 ft above sea level when we finally made it, it was well worth it. There is a really neat suspension bridge that connects the town to the mountain side where most of the hotels are located and it looks wonderful at night. It's also fun to wacth people cross it because some of them get pretty nervous with the swingin motion; there were even children who had purposely swayed it to scare their mother. We checked in, and headed out for some dinner, then back to the hotel for a nice soak in the hot springs, after filling our tummies with millet wine of course!

The next day we went out exploring. After all, it was Matthew's birthday and we had better get some exercise in him; he is 36 now and he'll need to do lots of physical activity to stay young and keep up with me. We explored in the opposite direction of town and found a narrow foot path on the side of the mountain that led to a village where we ate hard boiled eggs that were cooked in the hot spring water. The views were amazing. It's wonderful to find places that are so serene. I had a coffee and Matthew had a beer, and we sat and listened to the chirping birds for a while before heading back down to explore the town. We hiked for a long time, until nightfall and then had our feet massaged by little fish. It was a very weird sensation. When its just a couple of fish it feels like a light tickling, but when you stick your whole foot in the water, all the fish come swirming and the overload of sensations feels more like that tingling feeling you get when your foot starts to fall asleep. I don't think this form of massage is very therapeutic but it was an interesting experience nonetheless. We went back to the hotel for another night of hot spring soaks and a good rest after a long day of wandering. I must have been exhausted because I fell asleep in no time, which is very unlike me. We had a rushed breakfast, checked out and headed back down the mountain, but this time the driver took his sweet time and there was no worrying of flying off cliffs from me.

I hope Matthew enjoyed his birthday weekend, because it is back to work for me and packing for our move this week.