around the country in 7 days

in the past week, i've been all around this little island!last saturday, i traveled 7.5 hours by train from taipei to taitung - a small, scenic coastal city in southeastern taiwan. we had a 4-day weekend for dragon boat festival, so i spent it with my friends who live in taitung, and with another friend, who came up from kaohsiung for the weekend too. we hung out on the beach, played & swam in a beautiful, refreshing river, soaked in the hot springs at jhi-ben, and enjoyed a whole roasted chicken in a hut at an aboriginal restaurant in the mountains. here is a pic from the beach...on tuesday, i traveled back to taipei (another 7.5 hours) but overall it was really enjoyable because the scenery on the east coast is gorgeous! then early on thursday, i left taipei for taichung, in central taiwan for a work event. it was a treat getting to take taiwan's new high speed railway! i was really impressed. it's fast, smooth, clean and just plain cool. we got from taipei to taichung in 49 minutes- a journey that normally takes about 2.5 hours by regular train and close to 3 hours by car! here's a picture of one of the trains.after the even in taichung, we again got on the high speed rail and headed down south to kaohsiung. at the tzoying station in kaohsiung, we saw this sign: "kiss and ride" - which i thought was just an example of cute chinglish for the drop-off area, but my coworker said it's british english. in any case, it was totally cute.and the HSR stations are all thoroughly modern and very much like an airport. here's a shot of the tzoying station.in kaohsiung, where we spent the night on thursday, we got to enjoy the GOODNESS that is gong bao chicken fried rice. yeah baby! be advised: this is the best stuff ever. everyone agreed. :)

we also got to have mango ice, and eat at the "cracker barrel of taiwan" - xin taiwan de yuan wei - which is a very cool restaurant with really great food. thanks to the bicycle that i rented from our hotel, i also spent some time at xin jue jiang - the best night market in kaohsiung - and also by the beautiful love river. it was great to be back in kaohsiung - it almost felt like home. too bad i didn't get to see many friends there because the time was limited!

on friday afternoon we headed back to taipei and got there in under 2 hours - fantastic! for those of you who don't know, it takes almost 7 hours by regular train! in any case, i'm now definitely a fan of the HSR! and in these past 7 days, i've also been reminded what a fan i am of taiwan. going around the island really reminds why i love this beautiful country and it's people. who knew a small town girl from north carolina would ever be such a fan of this island? God's plans for our lives are truly amazing.