Adventures with Jamie

Met Jamie in Taipei nearly two weeks ago. We spent the morning wandering around the city, and returned to Fengyuan by early afternoon. Last weekend, Jamie, Josh and I flew to Kinmen, a Taiwanese island 6000 meters off the coast of China. We spent a long weekend driving around and around the island, looking at old and active military sites, observing birds, going to museums, and eating Taiwanese food. For Sunday, we took a ferry to Little Kinmen, borrowed bikes from the park service and rode 18 km around the island.

Kinmen is an interesting place to us for many reasons. It was the main site of the Chinese civil war in 1949, so there are many remnants of that. These include a man who makes knives out of the propaganda shells that the communists launched onto Kinmen. 280 bird species. Museums depicting several famous battles. Wetlands. Beaches unwalkable..."Danger! Mines!"

Josh totally geeked out. He had so much fun trying to figure out exactly where everything happened, what it looked like, what the modern military was doing, seeing Mainland China off the coast, driving endlessly down small roads to see what was there... :0)

There were incredible birds. I identified bee eaters, hoopies, magpies, oriental magpie robins, mynas, intermediate egrets, black crowned night herons, a gray heron, and many others.

Jamie was very brave and tried some traditional Taiwanese soup, which she dutifully ate a bit of before being totally grossed out by the liver, tiny shelled shrimp, and strong fish oil taste. We were so proud. and politely declined a taste.

During the week we have been hanging out, eating food, going shopping.

This past weekend the three of us took a train down to Chaiyi where we rented scooters and drove into the high mountains. We stayed in Alishan Village, at 2200 meters. It was a very cold drive after sunset. We then got up at 5 the next morning to drive to Yushan National Park. It was gloriously clear in the morning, so we had spectacular views, including Yushan (Jade Mountain), the tallest in Taiwan. By 10 dense fog had moved in, so we did a bit more hiking, but without the same views. Saw laughing thrushes and a nutcracker. Good exercise. The fog also encouraged us to head down the mountain before it got too cold. The drive was very chilly, but we didn't get rained on until we were farther down and it was a bit warmer. When we got back to Chaiyi, the sun was shining and it was hot. It's amazing how different mountain climates are!

We bought tickets but there weren't any seats available, so we sat on the floor for the hour and half ride home.

Went to bed at 10, got up at 2. We watched the world cup final (by that I mean Jamie and Josh watched with our friends and I slept on the couch).

Now it is Monday morning, Jamie's last full day here. She's packaging some things to send to friends and I am relaxing after a week of very very little sleep.

It's been a good visit, and really interesting to watch her go through the same observations and culture shock that I did when I first got here. I guess more on that as I pack up and leave in the next month.