Cassey & Allister's Visit to Taiwan

Back in early August, Matthew's sister Cassey and her boyfriend were headed to Asia for both work and travel, and of course they came to visit us in Taiwan! At first I thought they might get bored because we live in a small city, so we went ahead and planned out things to do and show them. They arrived on a Saturday, so we took them to the night market which Matthew and I visit each week (yes, we're predictable). I have this crazy addiction to a chicken sandwich that one man sells there and I had to introduce them to it. I'm pretty sure I got Cassey hooked on it. We bought some, and later before leaving she bought another. They truly are delicious, you guys just don't understand.

There are many things at the night market; tons of random dollar store items, shoes, clothes, food, and bumper cars! Yes, a very cheap version of bumper cars. There are no safety standards here, so these metal bumper cars have no seat belts. Cassey, Allister and myself decided we would hop on one each and take them for a spin. You just walk up to one, hop on and place a NT$10 ($0.35 CDN) coin into it and you're off! Ok, so I'm apparently a very horrible driver. I will let everyone know that I have never been in a car accident when driving a real car, but I seemed to have crashed into every possible person and thing while driving the bumper car. At one point I crashed into the car of a Taiwanese man. I didn't realize how bad the situation was at first, and I shall warn everyone that I was a coward. I rammed into his car when trying to turn mine around. He had a small girl who was maybe around the age of 3 or 4 years. She fell out of the car and smack her face into the concrete ground. I only realized it was a child when the man picked her up and held her in his lap. At that point I managed to turn my car around, speed back to Matthew (who was the only one not participating) and jump out of the car as fast as humanely possible and ran away like the coward I am. Luckily, this is Taiwan and no one is responsible for pretty much any accidents. I only ran to the side of the track where Matthew was, so it was possible for them to see me and come and approach me, but there really isn't anything that would be done here anyway. But really, that action repesented how horrible of a human being I am. I hope the girl's face doesn't hurt much. It was a pretty embarrasing moment and I panicked.

We didn't stick around the bumper cars area for much longer after that. We moved on to eating and introduce some newer foods to our visitors.

The next day we drove down south to Chiayi to the same place we had gone to with the motorcycle gang. The difference? This time is wasn't a holiday weekend and the place was booming! There were vendors all over the place selling all kinds of food, not just Taiwanese food. We ended up having Indian food and it was delicious. I had wished I brought a swimsuit because there was a beach! It was a man-made beach and it was super busy.

I didn't get to play at the water park for too long, everyone else was dying in the heat, so they wanted to buy some drinks and relax in the shade before moving on to something new. While walking back to the car, we came across an old fishing boat, which both Cassey and Allister thought was a neat old boat for show. To their surprise the boat is not for show, it's actually still in use by current fishermen. Can you believe this boat is still in use?

We ended up also showing them a temple which Matthew and I had visited before with the Lehi and Mark. This time, the temple was dead; there was almost no one there that day. It wasn't quite as interesting as when we had originally visited.

On Monday we drove up to Sun Moon Lake in the mountains. Sun Moon Lake is the most popular destination for honeymooners in Taiwan. Originally, it was two separate lakes, Sun Lake and Moon Lake. During the Japanese occupation a hydroelectric dam was built, which resulted in the two lakes becoming one large lake; it is the largest lake in Taiwan. That being said, it's still very small compared to most lakes in Canada; you cannot actually see Sun Moon Lake on a map of Taiwan unless you zoom in a few times.

Once you get to Sun Moon Lake, you can take either a left or a right turn and drive around the lake. At certain parts around the lake there are stops and things to do or see. Our first stop was a peacock farm. We stopped there for a bit and got some nice pictures of the pretty birds. One even wanted to show off for me!

We continued on our way until we got to the ropeway (cable car). We we unsure of what was on the other side of the mountain, so we tried to find out. There were some small shops there and a cultural village, but we couldn't visit it because we were supposed to buy tickets for it on the other side of the mountain where we bought the tickest for the cable car ride. There was also another cable car ride from the cultural village to an amusement park, so we didn't get to check any of that out that day. Perhaps Matthew and I will go back there to see what it is. Despite having missed out on that, we did get a pretty view of the lake from the cable car. This cable car ride was eerily quiet.

When we got back to the point of origin, we hopped in the car and continued driving around the lake making random stops. We found a neat trail through some woods and hiked down until we came to the water. We sat there for a while and watched the local boats pass by. It wasn't a super sunny day so the heat wasn't too bad, but the breeze down by the water was still very refreshing.

We hiked back up and continued driving until we got to the end. They are currently still constructing a path around the lake, for walkers. The walkway is complete in certain parts so we decided to check it out. From the bridge you can see these strange shaped floating devices on the water. I'm not completely sure what they are, but they look like floating gardens with flowers and plants. 

We waited for Matthew to get his perfect picture; setting up his old school film camera with tripod and all. It's funny watching him do his thing, sometimes he looks very pleased and other times he looks like he just feels frustration.

The drive home was a quiet one without much conversation. I guess the heat and the outdoor activities got the best of us as we slept for most of the ride leaving Matthew with no one to keep the ride interesting. We got to Taichung city and took our guest to our favourite restaurant for a good meal. The next day, I had to work as did Allister, so Matthew and his sister got there own day for whatever they wanted. Wednesday morning they packed their bags and Matthew drove them to the airport so they could head off to Shanghai for more exicting adventures. It was a short visit but we had fun and saw many things; I hope they enjoyed Taiwan just as much as we enjoyed having them.