Day Two: Taroko Gorge

Taroko Gorge is supposed to be Taiwan's version of the Grand Canyon. There are steep marble cliffs and supposedly some hiking trails...I didn't really see any of what I would consider hiking but that's possibly because our bus got stopped behind a huge line of traffic on our way up the gorge. After sitting there for about 20 minutes and seeing people get out of their cars and walk ahead, I decided to go and scout out the situation. A short distance ahead, there were two buses wedged between the mountain and the guard rail.




















With so many narrow roads and tons of buses driving around, I'm thinking this is probably a daily occurrence around here.








We had already gotten a late start in the day, so with the bus de-wedging delay and the last tour bus leaving Taroko Gorge at 3pm, we didn't have time to see as much as we would have liked. However, we did have time for a hair-braiding contest on the bus. I love these pictures of the boys braiding Tammy's hair. We were placing bets on which of the two would be the better braider. The contest was pretty intense, but in the end Joseph won the prize for speediness and Steve's braid won for being more aesthetically pleasing.















Watching our bus driver maneuver through the narrow winding roads with barely enough room to squeeze by other cars and huge tour buses was pretty entertaining. I really wish I knew what our driver was saying to the other bus in this video...Jon George, can you interpret?


I brought snacks for the kiddos and Tammy used the Pringles to impersonate a duck. We coerced Joseph into participating and though he'll probably get a little irate when he sees this picture, it's too funny not to post.














Disclaimer: Joseph would rather hang from his toenails than see this picture here but, he has been so far unable extract the password to this blog. You can read his opinion about the power of public persuasion on his blog entry entitled: Sand Dance





After our quick tour of Taroko Gorge, we headed back to Hualien and found a fabulous restaurant to eat at.

I pointed to chicken on the menu but I think that the waiter might have thought I was pointing to the item just above the chicken....

I ended up eating the vegetables and giving the rest away. Call me a big chicken, but I just can't eat ostrich.

After dinner, we walked down to the night market again. Several of us had to use the bathroom so we stopped at a Starbucks to use their facilities (mostly because we know there will be clean western toilets and toilet paper a plenty). I'm not sure how it happened but for the rest of the trip (and probably forevermore), whenever anyone needed to use the restroom, we referred to it as "going to Starbucks".