Yangmingshan National Park and Beitou Thermal Valley & Hot Springs

Friday, July 13th               

I started off my day in the principal’s office… every morning this week I was in the principal’s office first thing in the morning – not because I was in trouble, but because my host family both work at the school and need to be there every morning at 7am.  Although I have to wake up early, I get to upload blog posts every morning so I don’t mind. 

This morning Principal Lee treated us to breakfast at Chi Burger, the local breakfast place directly across the street from Yong Ping HS.  Beauty and Jimmy have been taking me there every morning for breakfast so I was excited to share all the delicious breakfast options with my colleagues.  I am big fan of the egg pancake wrapped in a hash brown.  Yesterday, Allen had dumplings for breakfast, so I was excited to try them myself this morning.  Furthermore, I love the fact that the dumplings are an acceptable breakfast option. 

After breakfast we boarded a bus for a day full of excursions led by Jackey Chen (yes, that is his name)  or Jackey #3 as we like to call him and Carol.  We love them both so much!  Our first stop was the Yangmingshan National Park which has volcanic sulfur area and many nature trails to explore.  We spent some time at the sulfur area and walked on the trail towards Erziping.  We also had some fun with some photo ops near the sulfur fumaroles.  After a nice walk we headed to Shilin for lunch at Cha for Tea. 

Cha for Tea is amazing!  I can’t wait to eat there again.  Most of the food we had was marinated in green tea.  I had green tea noodles with wontons and green milk tea with QQ, which is bubble tea.  We shared tempura tea leaves, green tea vegetable dumplings and a tofu dish in a delicious sauce.  We thoroughly enjoyed our lunch and the company.  

All of us ladies needed to hit the ATM so we had a little fun with our cash.  In Taiwan, a hundred dollars is worth less than $3.00 so we feel very rich with all our Taiwanese money.  We feel very rich!

At the bank, Jackie #2 got all these candies from the teller.  She was all excited about the sesame candy until she and Kelly each took a bite.  The looks on their faces were classic.  It looked like they had just eaten dirt!

 Then we headed over to the Betiou Thermal Valley and hot springs.  The Green Sulfur Spring is 90 degrees Celsius, which is 194 degrees Fahrenheit!  As we walked by the spring, we got alternating waves of hot air then a brief respite of a cool breeze.  It felt like we were in a sauna!  You used to be able to boil an egg in the spring but now they have protective fence up.  Then we went to a hot spring foot bath at the former residence of General Zhang Xueliang who was placed their under house arrest by Chiang Kai Shek.  We enjoyed the quiet time and rest for our weary feet in the white sulfur or “milk spring” as many locals refer to it.  Many of the buildings and the hot springs culture in this area were heavily influenced by the Japanese colonization period. 

We had dinner together at a restaurant near Da’an Park and Yongkang street and ended our night with two of our favorite people, Carol and Jackey #3 over a drink at Japanese restaurant nearby.

Our two favorite people - Jackey #3 & Carol

Peace Out!