I Saw Stars in Fengyuan

Saturday afternoon, Josh and I took the train to Taipei. Walked to our hostel, got settled in, took the train to dinner, ate (a salad!!), got ice cream, and were back to the hostel. Sunday morning we woke up at 5:30 to be at Taipei city hall for Josh's 10k which started at 7. He ran well, and it is a good thing he had a watch, because apparently they only kept a record of the first 10 finishers. It was a small race- nothing like the Taipei marathon coming in December that will have 10,000 in the marathon/half combo. Yikes!
At the beginning of the race, I heard a voice behind me ask if I was lost. "No, I'm not, thanks." He tells me that he is lost, trying to get to America, if I could help him. The rest of the race, I will call him 'this anarchist guy,' and I wandered around looking for breakfast. I know I am perhaps growing judgmental in my old age, but anarchist guy was terribly annoying. He was not funny even though he tried to be, he was rude to people we talked to, and I'm pretty sure he suggested we run out on the "check" for breakfast. He drank his way out of college in the US and was in Taiwan to finish-he was asian and could speak Chinese fairly well, and prided himself on that extensively. Hello buddy, just by being American we are in the upperish income brackets here. and it's horrible. Pay for your damn breakfast. Finally, he almost made me miss getting back to the start of the race in time for Josh, I said "peace out" and ran away. Phew. I think I have more in common with most everyone I've met here.
After the race, we stayed for a bit to watch a cool drum performance, and then went back to the hostel. Stashed our bags there and took a train to the last stop on the green line. From there we took a bus that wound up the mountains (40 minutes) to a town called Wulai. Of course, I felt sick and Iron-stomach-boyfriend felt great. From Wulai we took a "minitrain" through the mountains to another stop, where we saw Wulai falls. From THERE, we got on a cable car and rode it across the river valley, directly above the 80m waterfall, and to what we found out was a mountain amusement park.
Another rope course! A sigh that said "please be careful playing in the river" which I took as permission. Soo cold and fresh and wonderful. We kept climbing and got to where we could see waterfall above us and potentially the source. So cool. After we had had enough adventures, we took the cable car back, found a random rusted metal bench under a huge tree, and watched the falls for a few minutes. The minitrain had closed, so we walked the 1.6km back to Wulai, where we ate fresh corn on the cob and bought candy that had been made right before our eyes. Back down on the bus (less scary this time), back on the train, back to the hostel. Grabbed our bags, found dinner, and went to buy tickets. It was 9:21. The last train to Fengyuan had left at 9:05 and the next would leave at 11:30 so Josh got cheesecake and then we took a bus home. Got off hours later at the Fengyuan train station, got out scooters, and drove home.
That's not a very exciting version of what happened, but it was amazing how many different methods of transportation we used. What a novel idea. Because we didn't have anywhere "to be," it was lots of fun figuring it out.
When we got home, I saw stars in Fengyuan.