11:33pm, Hero House Hotel, Tainan City
Another day full of itinerary surprises, with a destination no one anticipated this morning… Up at 7am, as usual, and found the breakfast buffet to be wonderful! The handmade soy milk was agreeably the best we've had all trip, and just about every dish served was good. In fact, they had a salad bar even! My first plate was all salad. It was a welcome breakfast compared to yesterday's at Taroko Gorge. For the first time I saw peanut butter here too. Ate more cereal with breakfast, and used some raisins.
I walked around the Center, found a path between buildings that led to the ocean...
We loaded the car, but didn't check out, cause we were heading to a beach for a potential ocean swim, and wanted to use the showers before the 11am check out limit. The skies were a gorgeous blue, equally matching the vibrant waters. We drove up the road and found a scenic empty beach, with a handy parking spot nearby. This suited our needs to wade into the pleasant temperature ocean, which was mighty easy to become used to. Would have been easy to go for a swim, but none of us were feeling up to changing into suits, and taking showers later. We skipped stones, and walked along the surf for a bit.
The water was quite pleasant! A vast difference from dipping toes in the waters of Norway, Iceland, and New Zealand...
Then we continued down the coast and walked out to the southern most tip of Taiwan, a place Irene visited in her youth, before returning to the hotel to check-out. Irene called a hotel in Maolin, and found they were offering an 80% off discount today. Sounded good, even though there wouldn't be any food available in the area. We'd have to buy some to bring for dinner and breakfast.
Photos from Taiwan's southernmost point...g
On the way out of town, we drove up to the Kenting Forest National Park, which was lined with interesting flowered trees. I had meant to stop at the visitors center, but that was actually at a different location. Doh! But the drive was pretty...
Before leaving the area, we drove down to the south western peninsula, on a tip from some people we met early in the day, who said there was great fresh seafood, and white sand beaches. Food was 1st on the agenda, and we found the marina where several eateries were housed in a harbor. The Changs' ordered some fresh fish (red and black colored), and I couldn't resist trying a long thick deep friend calamari.
I bought one of the huge long fried calamari's in the 1st pic. We bought some fried "flying fish" to go...
Lunch took awhile, and we skipped the rest of the peninsula to keep our 1pm departure schedule, to make sure we arrived in Maolin before 5pm. The skies were surprisingly getting very hazy, and soon visibility was reduced to ~1 mile, drowning any mountains views to the east as we headed north.
We stopped at one of the many fruit stands to buy a large box of waxy apples (kind of like asian pear texture, with the body of a apple shaped like a tomato). Wendy loves them. Further up the road we stopped at a stand to buy "black mustache" beans. They smelled great from the road, so we couldn't resist, and you can only buy them in the town we were passing. We also picked up some coconut water and sesame bars at the stand too.
Wendy was a master navigator with her gps-iphone setup, and kept us on the proper route. Just before Maolin, we stopped at a small town and checked out their market street. There was a bakery with some of Wendy/Betsy's favorite buns, for just 10NT (35 cents US) each! There were tons of varieties, and since the hotel we'd be staying at in Maolin didn't have food, we loaded up. The lady behind the counter thought Wendy was crazy for buying ~15 of them (for her and me), but they were so cheap!
Next we walked down to a bubble tea shop, and large cups were just 10NT! Cheapest price yet, and it was one of the best tasting! We found a fruit stand, we bought some papayas, asian pears, dates, and bananas. The lady gave us some free sweet tomatoes too. Lastly, before leaving town, we found a street vendor selling fresh red bean, peanut butter, and creme filled cakes, for just 7NT (21 cents)! I tried one of each, they were great.
When we mentioned our destination, the bakery lady informed us that a large typhoon last August wiped out the road and all the natural hot tubs in Maolin. This was cause for great concern, since most of the attractions were no longer available. We still drove the last ~25 mintues to Maolin, and found lots of constuction work going on in the river, and observed plenty of road wreckage scattered about in the valley below. The road we drove on had been washed away in parts, and reduced to single lane for stretches. We stopped at the tourism office, and verified that the hot tubs in Douna were wiped about by mudslides, and that the one attraction still available, the purple butterfly valley, only had a modest amount of butterflies that would be active at daybreak tomorrow.
After some brainstorming, the consensus decision was to scrap plans to stay in Maolin, and drive to Tainan City for the night, ~2hrs away, where there would be city things to do the following day, before heading back to the mountains of Alishan. So we retraced our route, and relied on Wendy's expert navigating, and hotel research/calling by Betsy and Irene to arrive at the Hero House in Tainan ~6:30pm. We upgraded our rooms (2 2BR rooms), and have nice new rooms with stellar baths.
We arrive to Tainan City shortly before sunset. Wendy and I had a pretty sweet room...
We walked towards a night market in the evening, stopping at a noodle soup restaurant, where the Changs had soup. I was saving myself for the night market, which turned out to be the best night market yet. This market had lots of high quality selections, and new food items, along with other decent merchandise. I got a egg/scallion pancake, honey mustard squid filled with a yellow rice thing, and a egg, cabbage, duck quiche thing. All very tasty! And each one was $2US or less. Wendy bought a bunch of 100NT stylin' tights to use for frisbee.
A bakery at the night market...
This night market was active, and had an amazing selection. 2nd pic: honey mustard squid filled with yellow rice...
An egg, cabbage, and duck quiche...
Mmm... Egg, scallion, doughy pancake...
After taking a taxi back to the hotel, we ate a bunch of fruit before retiring for the night. Everyone was pleased with the food outcome of the day. There's no breakfast included here, so at least we'll be able to eat some of the food we bought today.
A couple B&W's from Betsy's camera...
