Vacation!

We do sometimes get out of Taipei, and these pictures prove we took a trip to the Penghu islands off the southwest coast of Taiwan. We went on a three day tour with other teachers from our school. We had fun in spite of the cold weather, abundance of seafood and Chinese language tour. Have a look at our pictures and comment if you feel like it!

Day One

We flew out of the domestic airport and had a great view of the city and Taipei 101.
A boat (we don't know why it was special because our tour guide only spoke Chinese!)

This is a special bridge. Everyone else was talking their picture pretending to hold it, so we tried too. When in Penghu, do as the tourists do!
This temple is set around a 300 year old banyan tree. The story says that during the Qing dynasty, a ship sunk off the coast of Penghu and a seedling floated to shore. They planted the seed which turned into this huge tree.

Julia snapped this while I was seriously focusing on my camera (trying to take a picture of her!)

The Western Fort

This is a famous fort that was built in 1887, and once housed 5,000 soldiers. They said it was made with mud and sticky-rice pulp.

Photo Montages

Put three girls on a tour that they don't understand, and they may get bored. What did we do? We made photo montages (idea courtesy of Paul, direction by Louise)! Hopefully you can tell what is happening without a description. As you might have guessed, all of the other teachers on the trip looked at us like we were crazy at first, but they eventually found us entertaining (and possibly endearing?)

Day Two

Cool kids sit in the back. This was our view for many hours in a freezing bus (why, why air-conditioning when it's cold outside?) The woman at the front was our tour guide.
Louise is standing in front of the Matsu temple (Matsu, goddess of the sea). It was built in the 16th century without a single nail.

This is the four eyes well, built around the 15th century. It's important because it's hard to find fresh water on an island! I successfully drew a half bucket of water- not too shabby.This village was famous because many of the houses were over 100 years old. Also, the people have been living there for so many generations that everyone has the same surname!

They had us walk up the side of the mountain in blistering, freezing wind to see the whale cave. It was hard to enjoy while we were being blown over. It's supposed to look like a whale and was formed by a gigantic whale crashing into the rock and leaving an imprint. Well, that's the story, at least.

(By the way, you may notice that we are wearing the same clothes everyday. We did actually pack more, but we had no idea how cold it would be, so my one hoddie got a lot of use!)

The Beach

We took a boat to an outlying island for a freezing day at the beach. We watched in amazement as the other teachers put on life vests and went jet skiing in coats, runners and jeans! It was so cold, I decided no amount of fun was worth pneumonia. Relaxing at the beach was fun though.

Aquarium

Julia, Louise and I unanimously decided that the aquarium was the highlight of the vacation. It was really well laid out with interesting fish and a great turtle exhibit. Plus there was a great gift store- who could ask for anything more?

Day Three

Another day of boat trips, moderately miserable. It was interesting to see small islands with beautiful scenery and a different way of life.
This was our tour group posing in front of the basalt columns on an island (it reminded me of the Giant's Causeway in Northern Island).