Friday, September 30, 2011

To the Coast - Yehliu Geopark

Ok ... made the  blog wider so I can make the pictures bigger.


More scooters ... you can see them piling up in the ScooterBox in front of the cars. Scooters are not allowed to make left turns on busy roads so they have to do jughandles, i.e. turn right onto a minor road and then do a U-Turn and cross the intersection. Another interesting safety-law is that you're not allowed to enter or exit taxi's through the left door.


The guy in the foreground has that classic Harley form ... feet forward, slouched back, no protection and a helmet that leaves the most common impact areas exposed (i.e. face). But he looks happy!



Since this was a vacation for Dave and Yvonne too, we went to the coast! First due east, then up and over the top back west to Taipei. Dave took us down the street to where the locals eat breakfast. We loaded up on a large sack of food items, two or four of each. Everything was breaded and fried in a skillet in unhealthy doses of oil. One item was an omelet ... but breaded and fried. The pork potstickers and buns were excellent, the white carrot cake (not like ours) was ... interesting ... had the consistency and sweetness of sticky rice squares breaded and fried. Then there was a leek/onion/spinach cake, also breaded and fried. Total bill was $6 to feed four people, and we ate about half of what we bought.





We were on our way to Yehliu Geopark. Before you enter the park, like in most 3rd world countries, there is a market where the gov't allows locals to make a living by selling wierd stuff to tourists. We were early risers so we had the place to ourselves.



 Jenn took a picture of some black slimey things in a vacuum sealed bag. No clue what these are. Cobra balls?




Jenn wanted a photo of the giant squiggly CFL's. I like the dried squid in a bag. Or cuttlefish. 

Fish Powder. Get your Fish Powder Right Here! And sardines ... minnows ... plankton?



And here's the actual Yehliu Geopark. It is a peninsula that sticks out into the ocean and has lots of neat geological features. Note the people with umbrellas - they want to stay out of the sun because lighter color skin is considered attractive here. They don't sell sun tan lotion ... but rather, lightening creams! Oh yeah ... we felt like giants. For two weeks we were in the minority, towering over the locals with our freckled skin and non-black non-straight hair. In an attempt to fit in we carries big cameras too.



Jennifer and Yvonne enjoying the hike!



Continuing with my tongue-in-cheek characterizations of differences between the occidental and oriental peoples, we found this bench on the side of the hiking path which was barely a few inches above the path. Yvonne is testing it out. 


Give a girl a camera, and she'll take pictures of bathrooms! Im' glad she did, because this illustrates one of the differences of our societies, i.e. how we pee. This is the women's room. That is a trough. One foot on each side of the trough, drop drawers, squat, and pee. Men's rooms have urinals. 



This is how they poop. Same concept, except that there are (usually) flushing facilities. In airports outside of North America there will frequently be stalls with these, too. Think about it ... how many women actually sit on the bowls in public restrooms? Don't they all hover over the seat anyway?


This rock formation is what makes the park famous - it looks like a queen's head. I don't know who that guy is ... there was a big line to get your picture taken in front of the Head and we didn't feel like waiting so we cut through the line and took his photo with it. It was about 85F with 186% humidity, so it felt like 95F.


More squid! Lots of squid is eaten here.


This is a squid-catching boat. It has lots of huge light bulbs on it and they go out at night. The light attracts the squid in large numbers, then they lower the nets and hoist it in.

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