Hot pot, temples and hiking....

I had the loveliest time last weekend... so relaxed and stress-free - just what I needed!! Last week I found myself getting totally wound up about the smallest things, crying at work, and generally not feeling on-top-of-the-world!! I guess I'm just anxious about leaving Taiwan next month and all that that entails...

On Saturday Martin and I lurked around inside all day (catching up because Martin had been away on holiday last week) until we finally ventured out to have an early hot pot dinner with some friends. We went to a local place, right next door to the school where I work.

Katie and Martin get some black tea to go with our meal.


Miranda, Ema and Katie enjoy the selection of sauces available.


Mmmmm.... yummy bacon (NOT!). Seriously - this is what most Taiwanese consider good bacon. Yuck!! If they could only see the stuff we get at home :)


Martie and Katie and Katie...


Ema, Sophia and Miranda enjoying their ice creams.


Poor Miranda had no idea what those foreigners were up to!


Buying fruit tea and milk tea at our local tea shop.



On Sunday Martin and I woke up early (a miracle indeed!!) and decided we would go on a biking adventure. Not really sure where we were going, but that didn't matter. It was an absolutely gorgeous day... sun shining, little puffy white clouds in the sky and a cool breeze!!

I'm ready for the ride...



First Martin took me to a temple on the mountain side that he used to visit sometimes. It's a lovely big temple overlooking the whole of Yuanlin and surrounding areas.


Martin at the front of the temple.


Where's Wally??


Me and Martin.


The temple man burning paper money for the ancestors.


Flower sculpture things...



After the fun at the temple, we headed off further south down the road. After a while we realized we were in Tienchung, and with a little more driving we discovered the "Tienchung Hiking Trail". A nice little walk would do us good we thought, so we parked the bike and headed off to see what we could see...

A nice little walk!!! We ended up hiking up the mountain side in the mid-day sun, me in my flip-flops and jeans and bright red in the face!! We did make it to the top though, and enjoyed the stunning views over the surrounding tea fields and little villages.

On the way down we came across a little hitch in the proceedings, we reached a place where you had to scale down the mountain side - there'd been a landslide and the steps were all washed away! The only way one could get down was by holding on to ropes and slowly descending. Martin wasn't too bad off with his long legs, but I must say I must have looked a sight!!! I got scared half-way down so ended up throwing my body against the rocks to save myself from falling down the mountain!!! When I eventually reached the bottom I was covered in sweat and dirt and had burning hands from the ropes!! As if that wasn't bad enough, we later bumped into a student of mine hiking with her family... Martin had no t-shirt on, I was covered in grime and generally looking rather rough... and we had to endure a little polite chat with them before we could move on!!!


My cool shot of this weird insect I discovered (half butterfly, half bee or something!)


Martin prepares himself to climb some more...


I've reached a flat bit - yay!!


The view across the valley to the part of the trail that we hiked up...


Why did we go on this hiking trail again???


The top part of this picture is the area where you have to sort-of absail down... we later discovered that most people climb UP this side to avoid having to go down holding on to ropes!!! (good to know!)