Fortune Favours the Bold

In a temple on Sun Moon Lake they have a little fortune telling machine. There is a nice smiley woman standing outside her house waiting to tell your all about your life, I could hardly refuse.

I put my money in, she quickly assessed me before scurrying into her little house to get the fortune that perfectly suited me. She emerges with the mystery fortune on her tray and drops it down the shute to my waiting hands.

This is it, my life, my future. I unfurl the scroll, it reads:

• Fame be failed
• Wealth be all gone
• Sickness be hardly cured
• Property be hardly in safe keeping
• Marriage be turned a flat refusal
• Litigation be not to give judgement

Do not lament for deferred travellers

So yeah, I’ll never be rich, famous or healthy, I’m going to be unmarried and robbed regularly, I guess it’s a life….

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Formosa

I left the 7000+ islands of the Philippines but my island-hopping hasn’t ended there, I’m now back again on the beautiful island of Formosa……

I met up with May again and since last time we explored central and southern Taiwan, this time it was the north of the country that we cast our eye upon.

We started off in Taipei and immediately headed for the big thing in Taipei – Taipei, currently the world’s tallest building, so we had to take a look. You can go up the the 89th floor to have a view of the surrounding city and countryside and it’s only then that you see how many mountains there are around Taipei….

We saw more of those mountains throughout the trip, there wasn’t a day when there wasn’t a mountain or two around, not least during our four day trip through along the highway that crosses the northern mountains. When I say highway, it’s really a narrow mountain road that snakes around the mountains but it was the only road there was.

We stayed in the clouds on Taipingshan where the clouds lift for a few hours each day just for those early birds who are up to see the sunrise like we were one morning, by 11am the clouds descend and the mountain valleys are hidden once more….

We stopped off at the magical sounding Lalashan to walk among the giant cypresses that grow there, some of them reaching heights of 50m or more and there are some that are over 2000 years old. The area is also renowned for its peaches and very tasty they are too!

It wasn’t all mountains though we spent time along the coast, visiting the strange rock formations at Yehliu, whichy had many different examples of rocks weathered by rain and wave, we stayed in a hot springs resort, we visited Turtle island (supposedly shaped like a turtle, you have to use your imagination…) which was once a military defence post but is now a national park.

One of the best things we did was go to an orchid farm where we had a tour around the complex and learnt all about the complicated process of growing orchids, we even got two orchid plants when we finished the tour so we’ve been travelling around for the last few days with orchid plants in the back of the car, something extra to take care of!

Read Full Post »

Formosa

I left the 7000+ islands of the Philippines but my island-hopping hasn’t ended there, I’m now back again on the beautiful island of Formosa……

I met up with May again and since last time we explored central and southern Taiwan, this time it was the north of the country that we cast our eye upon.

We started off in Taipei and immediately headed for the big thing in Taipei – Taipei, currently the world’s tallest building, so we had to take a look. You can go up the the 89th floor to have a view of the surrounding city and countryside and it’s only then that you see how many mountains there are around Taipei….

We saw more of those mountains throughout the trip, there wasn’t a day when there wasn’t a mountain or two around, not least during our four day trip through along the highway that crosses the northern mountains. When I say highway, it’s really a narrow mountain road that snakes around the mountains but it was the only road there was.

We stayed in the clouds on Taipingshan where the clouds lift for a few hours each day just for those early birds who are up to see the sunrise like we were one morning, by 11am the clouds descend and the mountain valleys are hidden once more….

We stopped off at the magical sounding Lalashan to walk among the giant cypresses that grow there, some of them reaching heights of 50m or more and there are some that are over 2000 years old. The area is also renowned for its peaches and very tasty they are too!

It wasn’t all mountains though we spent time along the coast, visiting the strange rock formations at Yehliu, whichy had many different examples of rocks weathered by rain and wave, we stayed in a hot springs resort, we visited Turtle island (supposedly shaped like a turtle, you have to use your imagination…) which was once a military defence post but is now a national park.

One of the best things we did was go to an orchid farm where we had a tour around the complex and learnt all about the complicated process of growing orchids, we even got two orchid plants when we finished the tour so we’ve been travelling around for the last few days with orchid plants in the back of the car, something extra to take care of!

Read Full Post »