Dragon Boat Festival

Here are a few pictures from the Dragon Boat festival when my parents came to visit. The first day was pretty relaxed. We decided to see the main sights of Taipei. I took them up Taipei 101 (my second visit) and then to Ximending for some shopping and beers.

The next day I thought I would take them up Yang Ming Shan. I absolutely love this hike and have done it 3 times now. It is one of my favorite things to do in Taiwan so far. I think mom found it a little grueling but dad loved it! It's a bit like Taipei's version of the Grouse Grind but a million times prettier and more interesting.

The bus ride off the mountain was crazy. Because it was a holiday everyone was out hiking so we didn't have any seats, the bus was crammed and the road was incredibly windy . Mom claimed it was one of the craziest bus rides she had ever been on.

After the hike we decided to head back to Taoyuan. I had never taken the train back to Taoyuan from Taipei (only the bus). So I wasn't totally sure how to do it. We asked a couple of people to help us and they sent us on the wrong train. We were going in the right direction, the only problem was the train did not stop in Taoyuan, it just flew by my train station. It turned out we were on the express train to Taichung which is another city halfway down the country! Thankfully, Taiwan is not that big so it was only a 2 hour train ride and another 2 hours back. We made it back to Taoyuan by 10pm, just enough time to take my parents to Great White Shark one of my favorite places to eat in Taoyuan.

Dad and I posing along the east coast highway.

Mom and I in a tunnel in Taroko Gorge.

This is a town we stopped at for a nasty seafood lunch along the east coast on our way to Taroko Gorge. We ordered our food by pointing at the seafood tanks in front of the restaurant. We got some gross tiny crabs, prawns with heads, eyes, shells intact (yes...I ate prawns, my environmental morals are going downhill) whole squids complete with ink sacs and eye balls and topped it all off with a water, ginger, oyster soup. Mom and I stayed clear of the squid but Dad actually ate most of them. The plate was left with a pool of black ink, mmm-mmm.