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Sunday, January 12, 2003
The last 4 days in Taiwan went by pretty quickly. We spent one more day in Taipei and then took a 5-hour train ride back to Kaohsiung. While in Taipei, we visited Yangmingshan National Park where we ended up taking a hike to the visitor center (a simple sign pointing to these stairs made it seem that the visitor center was up these stairs, but instead, we had to walk about 3/4 of a mile uphill to get there). It was really nice, peaceful, and nature-y.. so different from the bustling city that Taipei was. After that, we had "authentic" beef noodle soup at this place where my parents used to eat at when they were dating almost 30 years ago.
The next day in Kaohsiung, my dad took us on a ferry ride across the bay to Chijin, the site of a lighthouse and a battery (or fortress). There was a good view of the entire bay from the lighthouse. I had a boba drink for only NT $20 (that's about $0.60) and it came with a free popcorn, too! We were planning to rent some mopeds to tour the area, but no place was renting them (all they had were these really dinky electric scooters.. they looked like razors on steroids).
The rest of the trip can be summarized into: 1) seeing relatives, 2) visiting my grandfather's grave, 3) eating lots of food, and 4) flying home. While on the plane back to SFO, I sat next to this guy who was very armrest greedy. I stood my ground and we "shared" the armrest. I felt bad for him later, though, because the guy in front of him reclined his seat and knocked over the cup of orange juice on his tray. It was interesting because he told the guy off and then started muttering cuss words to himself for a while. Didn't feel too cool sitting next to him.
Here's a trip summary:
Countries visited: 2
Cities visited: 8
Hours spent in a train: 10
Hours spent in a bus: ~20
Hours spent in a plane: 34
Number of shopping malls visited: 6
Total purchases at shopping malls: $0
Number of cousins I saw: 15
Amount of food I ate: 100+ lbs
OK, here are the last pics from the trip that I'll be posting.. unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures during the last half week or so, like in Chilin.. but it does include some studio pictures, as promised, at the bottom. (note: these are pictures I took of the pictures, so they kinda look weird) Enjoy!
Me after conquering the trail to the visitor center at Yangmingshan National Park
On top of a viewing point at Yangmingshan with the city in the background
Studio picture 1
Studio picture 2
Studio picture 3
Studio picture 4
Studio picture 5
Studio picture 6
Studio picture 7
10:16 PM Albert
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..a life in DUO