Today we went to Swensens to meet Joy’s college friends for lunch. Joy’s sister came too and after that we took the MRT (subway) to Dan Shuei and met Joys brother and his girlfriend there. Dan Shuei is the last MRT stop to the north and is where the Dan Shuie river empties into the Pacific ocean. We took a boat across the river and rented bicycles. There were a lot of people everywhere. On the way back across the river we happened to catch some fireworks.
Today we took the High Speed train traveling at 240 Km/h to Tai Zhong in the middle of Taiwan. It took about 40 minutes when it usually takes 2 hours on the express train. From Tai Zhong we took a tourist train up into the mountains to the small village of JiJi. JiJi is a tourist town made famous by its beautiful scenery and many bicycle venders.
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We rented power assisted bicycles that allowed us to ride 2 people on a bike and would be powered when at cruising speed. On acceleration and steep hills you were required to pedal. It was really a lot of fun. One of the many little touristy places that we stopped at was a temple that had partially sunk due to the earthquake in 2000.
We’re back in Taiwan again visiting Joy’s family. This was the first time we’ve been back since moving to San Diego and were able to take advantage of the shorter traveling time. Only 14 hours compared to the 20-24 hours traveling time from Michigan.
The weather here is nice, in the 70’s of course the Taiwanese think it’s cold and everyone is walking around in layers of clothes. Joy’s been dreaming about the breakfast shop food and of course on the first morning we had everything in the picture below for only $80NT (about $2.50 USD).