Scooter Sights #2 and Toufen Bridge

On Sunday I went off to go see things and ended up taking far too many pictures as usual.

But I like documenting these mini-trips for future remembering.

This reminded me of some old grand ancient abandoned temple.

It's actually a business building, but still.

Endless green.

The hills are full of these white flowers in all the trees.

From a far distance it could even pass as snow.

Photos of these flowers never capture the real beauty of it all.

I live less than two miles from this river and had no idea.

Taiwan has so many small but fun bridges.

This is the Toufen Bridge, about 3 miles from where I live.

I decided to stay on the bridge and watch the sun go down on the weekend.

Bikers.

Scooter Sights #1

Well, once I got the scooter it practically rained for two weeks straight, so I didn't go far with it.  But today I finally went out and about to explore this beautiful country.  It was so nice and fun not having the barrier of a train between me and the world.

So today I just drove south for about 90 minutes and looked around; didn't really have a destination in mind.  I went through small towns and over overpasses and through tunnels and saw things I would have never seen if it weren't for the scooter.

Here are some photos of my day's travels.

Scooter lane.

I have no idea what this building is, but I loved it.

It was right about here that I got a little lost for about ten minutes.  When what to my wandering eye should appear, but two white shirts and black name tags in the middle of nowhere?  I didn't get a photo of them but the missionaries were out walking to an appointment.  I'm sure they were more surprised by my appearance than I was by theirs.  "What is this non-Asian guy doing in the middle of nowhere, Taiwan on a scooter!?" We talked for a few minutes and they told me the way to go and I went on my merry way.

Divine intervention at its finest...?

The white flowers (don't know what they're called) are in full season right now in the trees and all around the mountains and such.  Beautiful.

Passed a University.

Scooters have there own lanes on most streets!

Family of 4 on a scooter.

Mother the only one with helmet.

Side saddle and a pooch.

Finished the day off by going to the beach for sunset.

The tide right now is sooooo far out.

The boats in the dock area are all sitting on the sandy floor!  Crazy!

Good day.

Scooter

Well, I finally reached my limit of traveling exclusively by train/taxi/bicycle.

It took 14 months...but I guess it was inevitable.

If there was any hope of me seeing more of this place and getting the most out of these last few precious months then something had to change transportationally (not a word, but it works).

I remembered my friends from church, Jared and Melanie, mentioned they would be selling a scooter at some point but I couldn't remember when.  So I sent them a message asking if they were still selling it, and they responded saying: "How about we just rent it to you instead for your remaining time!? That way you don't have to worry about selling it yourself in July."

Life-savers.

They also acted surprised that I hadn't reached my limit earlier!  Haha.

So this past weekend I went and picked up the scooter and it's a blast!!

I'll get to see more of the island and go places not possible by train and/or bike.

It's super easy to drive and completely fun.

This just might be when the reaaaal fun begins.

Just kidding.

Beach Day

This past weekend I biked to one of my favorite spots.  It's on a hiking/bike trail about 30 minutes away.  There's a hidden pond there with a scenic bridge, like out of The Secret Garden or something.

Afterwards, I went to a favorite beach spot that doesn't have very many people.

The tide was soooo far out that my first thought was TSUNAMI!!! THIS IS IT!!!! Because really, I would be hopelessly dead if there was a tsunami...no one would even know I was there and I'd have nowhere to run haha.  Plus I saw that movie, The Impossible, which completely terrified me.  

Alas, it was obviously not a tsunami, just a really low tide.

Plus the locals were goin' fishin!

Far off in the distance I saw a bunch of kite surfers and decided to walk down and watch.  It was really awesome and seemed like a perfect day.  One guy from Japan noticed I was taking pictures and stopped by on his board and introduced himself and invited me to learn (HA!).  

I got some awesome pictures though.

"Beam me up Scotty!"

The sunset that night.

Taiwan really is a beautiful place.

This particular day was great too because it was the first sunny day after a week of non-stop rain.