Goodbye Taiwan

Well I managed to fit a lot of beauty into my last few days in Taiwan. I went to puli in the middle of the island (puli advertised itself as the heart of Taiwan, and Taiwan advertised itself as the heart of Asia. So double heart?). From puli I rented another scooter and went to sun moon lake(I knew this would happen, they are too much fun to pass up, I'm already getting cravings to ride one again). Then i stopped in Taichung for the day before heading to Taipei for my last night.

So my google maps wasn't working, so I relied purely on the paper maps provided by the hostel. This combined with a lack of signs and confusing routes resulted in me making countless wrong turns and getting lost at least 3 times. Here is a picture from one of the times I got lost. Pretty.

It was raining that day, and the day before and before and so on, so the roadsides were all very green and beautiful.

I climbed to the top of the famous pagoda at the lake and found this view.

Another view from the waterside looking in the same direction.

A water clock in Taichung. The globes on the left represent the hour, and the ones on the right are something like 3 minutes each. The time was 3:50. I watched this thing a good 10 minutes figuring out how it worked

Back in Taipei I went to the palace museum. No pictures allowed, so here is one of the cool figures I saw.

I stayed with the same couch surfing family as the last time in Taipei. Again they were absolutely wonderful. We went to yangmingshan, where they grow lots of orchids. Very beautiful. They also took me (and their American couch surfer guest) to some hot springs and a night market.

In conclusion, I really liked Taiwan. It has this charm that I haven't felt elsewhere in Asia so far. People are friendly, air is fresh, it has big cities and mountains and beaches all very close. I would like to one day return.

Next, Philippines. I had a bit of a scare when the check in staff informed me I couldn't go until I booked an outgoing flight from the Philippines. So the staff allowed me to use their work computer and I booked the flight in 20 minutes. So I'm flying to Kuala Lumpur on June 8th now! My flight to Manila leaves at 1:25am and I fly to Cebu at 7am. It's going to be a long night..