Day 6 - December 22, 2007
Meinong
We had stayed the night in an Evergreen Hotel and woke up to a very nice all you could eat buffet breakfast. All you can eat breakfast is not very appetizing if it is Taiwan style, but if it is American Style, it is quite good. Fortunately for all concerned, our's was a combo. The best of both worlds: Anting could have her intestine and seaweed congee and we could have some eggs and toast.
Our plan was to drive to Meinong, the famous place for hand-made paper umbrellas. Although the umbrellas there are made from wood and paper, they have a thick lacquer on them and they can actually be used. So,not only are they decorative, but also useful. After an hour or so drive, we arrived at Meinong, but could not see any umbrella makers. We did, however, find a nice lake with a pagoda, where Ryan had his lunch and we enjoyed the scenery. After Ryan's lunch we followed some tourist signs to a Hakka people centre, where Ryan managed to have the biggest puke we have seen to date. The Hakka Centre was also pretty boring so we left it quite quickly on our quest to find some umbrella makers. After driving through town back and forth, we got hungry and had some lunch. Finally, down the road we found the most famous umbrella shop and stopped in. It was quite nice, but perhaps not worth coming all the way down south for.
Moonscape on the Way to Meinong
So tell us how you like the food?
Stopping for Ryan's Lunch The Lake Pagoda Scenes around the Pagoda
BillBoard in Meinong
Making an Umbrella
The Umbrella Store
Mountain Highway
We had a decision to make. We were in the lower middle part of Taiwan, but on the west side. Our next major destination was in the North East. How to get there? If we drove south down to the nearly the southern tip, we could then drive north along the East side, but this would take quite a bit of time. Our other option was to go straight (on a winding road) through the mountains, but this involved some risk. We did not know if the road was very good and had heard that it was closed in the winter. In the spirit of living dangerously, we chose the latter and headed off towards the east coast. Three hours later, after driving about 80 kms we started regretting our decision. The road wound its way through the mountains. In many places it was only one lane and in many other places it was under construction, leaving an open cliff only a few feet away from our tires. Things got more interesting when we lost visibility due to a very thick mountain fog. Then it got dark and foggy. We pressed on and finally started seeing the mileage signs for the town at the end of the mountain road. Another couple of hours and we finally made it out the other end, but then had another 2 hours of driving to get to Hualian, our destination for the night. As such, we found a restaurant nearby, had some dinner, and then continued on our journey. We were all happy to arrive in Hualian in one piece.
Interesting foothills
Mountain Highway
Temple on the Mountain
Above the Clouds
After that drive, we'll eat anything!
