Taiwan: Day 13

What I didn't mention about day 12 was that late that night we caught the train to Hualien where we pulled into the station at 1 in the morning in the pouring rain.  We didn't have a hotel booked yet, but we knew there were a bunch right near the train station, so at one in the morning we went running through the rain to all the hotels trying to find one with space for the three of us (Shannon, Josh and I).  The first one we tried no one seemed to be around, but as we came out of that one, we got flagged by the owner of another hotel where we found a room.  It wasn't the nicest of hotels I've stayed in, but it looked clean enough - even if there were no towels in the bath room.  After a nights rest we were up fairly early on day 13 and picked up breakfast as a little "restaurant" near the hotel.  Then we rented two scooters for a day of driving through the Taroko Gorge.  Josh had taken a few scooter lessons with Mike a day or so earlier, so he and I took the one and Shannon took the other and led the way.  It was an exciting day!!

Our first stop along the way (once we did finally find our way to the Gorge -- boy did we miss having a GPS!)  was at the Eternal Spring Shrine.  The walk to the shrine cuts in and out of the mountain, and once at the shrine you can follow stairs up the mountain to get to a pagoda looking out over the gorge.

This is the "spring" for which we presume the shrine is named.  We thought it looked more like a river through the mountain, but it did have a fare bit of flow and did make for a beautiful cascade down the cliffs.

Ahead you can see the small pagoda building that we climbed to.

Josh and Shannon looking out over the gorge from the pagoda.

We saw many signs like this along our walk up the mountain.  I do love the pictures they use.

This was another stop along the way.

A really cool leaf bug that was chilling in the parking lot.  He was even doing his leaf dance trying to blend in!

This was another pagoda we climbed up to see.  The statue is of a Bodhisattva (enlightened being) looking out over the gorge.

Josh took my picture for a change looking out from the top of this pagoda.

A closer look at the Bodhisattva.  The thing for incense in front gives you a bit of perspective as to how big the statue really is.

And the monkey that chased us.... here's the story:  We had walked through the garden on the way up to the pagoda to see if we could see any monkeys, and we did... we saw one way down there.  So after climbing the pagoda we decided we'd go back and take another look to see if we could see any more monkeys - since they're so cool and cute.  Well we did we more.  There were about four or five of them moving around.  One of them came a little closer and Josh was trying to follow it to get a better picture.  Shannon and I were left watching one way down there when all of a sudden, the above monkey was running up the cliff straight at us and appeared about a meter away from us.  Naturally we jumped back when we saw it appear, but it kept coming.  We ran to about where this picute was taken and it came right through the fence and then ran down the fence after us.  Josh tried to hold his ground, but even that didn't deter the thing!  In the end we ran back a ways up, cut through a fence, and then looped way around to get away.  We all agreed that we never wanted to see a monkey up close before.  It really was terrifying!

Buying some water before heading back to the hotel.

We decided we really couldn't rent scooters without taking pictures as proof.... so here's Shannon putting on her dorky helmet.

Josh pretending like we're driving really fast

More scenery along the way

What you may or may not be able to see is that all these rocks are marble.  It was kind of crazy to think about the effect the water has had on these marble walls when I think about how hard marble is and how little it seems to be effected by weather and time when used to construct buildings, and yet here it's been worn smooth by the water and has become a huge gorge.