Wednesday Adventures

Our breakfast at the hotel was every bit as lovely as the rest of our stay. The views certainly didn't hurt either. We started our day off crossing the wee Shanyue Suspension Bridge. 

The name means "Mountain-Moon" which makes sense since it's 500 feet up. (Please read that last sentence with an appropriate amount of panic.) The photos truly don't do it justice. If the whole thing wasn't scary enough, they put a see-through grate on it. I know, right?!  Did I mention it was FIVE HUNDRED FEET UP?

After that surge of adrenaline, we stopped at the Taroko People Welcome Center for an 18-minute movie on their traditional way of life. We learned a lot, despite the fact that there were no subtitles. 

A large portion of our day was spent alternating between laundry and hiking. We put our clothes in the washer and headed to a hike, where we came across a monkey chilling in a tree. 

When we got back to the laundromat, someone had moved our wet clothes to one of the public laundry baskets, as one does here in Taiwan. We put everything in the dryer and went to find lunch. 

We ended up at another aboriginal restaurant. This time they brought us our rice in their ingenious version of an on-the-go lunch box...a piece of bamboo that is stuffed and cooked. You simply whack it apart on a large stone to get it open. The restaurant was filled with the knocking sounds of diners breaking open their lunch. We were far from the only people taking photos of the process. 

We spent a bit more time in the park, learning to appreciate a gorge wind, before turning our back on the mountains and heading for the sea for a few hours on the bluest water we have ever seen in the Pacific Ocean.

While we failed to see any whales, we did join one hell of a dolphin party. This huge pod was jumping, leaping and generally living their best life. We even spotted a couple of baby dolphins.

We finally grabbed the laundry, partook of yet another excellent vegetarian buffet, enjoyed some peanut butter and sesame mochi, and headed to Hualien to check in to our hotel. The little city looked amazing, but sadly I was far too exhausted to explore.  Instead we opted for an early night to prepare for what we knew would be yet another jam-packed tomorrow. 

Interesting note: Our hotel didn't have a 4th floor.  It turns out that the word for "four" is strikingly similar to the word "die," so like 13 in the States, they often just skip it.