This trip was a success on so many levels. First, we planned to leave at 8am, on a Sunday morning. Yuck! Buuut we wanted to get there still early so we wouldn't be coming home too late. We actually left on time! Anyone who knows Abe knows that this rarely occurs, and anyone who knows me knows that I am being driven mad by his constant tardiness! Second, we scootered there. Our second scooter road trip, this one was about 2 hours away from Jhongli. Abe had the map (hand-drawn, done by himself) and the only thing you can hope for is that the signs stay in English. Thirdly, we made it there! We didn't get lost or drive hours in the wrong direction, hooorah! Oh, when I say "we," I mean Anthony, Abe, Dawn, Greta, and I.
Anthony looking manly on my scooter with the pink helmet. I rode with Dawn. Then when we were stopped at a red light a group of bad ass motorcyclists pulled up. whompwhompwhooomp.
Some rando temple-type structures along the road, next to some palm trees and stick hut.
When we went to Hsinchu to find the golden Buddha from the reading book "Beautiful Island" we found a lot of information about there being one of the largest Buddha statue's in the world not too far away. We had taken the train that day and didn't want to venture out by bus. Months later, we made it to find this Buddha with the convenience of our scooters.
He stands at Emei Lake next to a monastery. There are a few other accompanying Buddha's there as well, but not as large. This Buddha is 236 feet tall! The monastery itself looked so nice, but we weren't allowed past a gated area so we couldn't see inside. After oogling the Buddha for a while we continued walking around and came across a place that was renting bicycles. We decided to get some bikes and coast around the lake. Anthony and I went with a twosie bike, that proved to be a bit of a poor decision as the road was very hilly and there were cars coming at you at times and it was freaking hot outside!! In other words.. we sucked at riding this thing and it took a lot of effort to get it going. Near the end we had improved.
Before we could take off on the bikes though, we went through a series of bikes before finding one that was in proper working condition. You must keep up on the maintenance of twosie bikes! After getting the 2nd one, we thought we were off, then realized the front handle bars were snapped at one of the screws. So we went back to the little garage and the lady who had been helping us was now holding a baby. Anthony and I were picking another bike out from the masses and the lady was like no, no, no, no.... she looked at me and says... "here, baby." And just handed off her tiny infant to me! I was a bit shocked at how trusting she was, just giving her baby to someone she doesn't even know. The others started laughing and the baby was soooo cute so they started taking pictures of me with the baby. Then it turned into a family portrait of Anthony, the baby and I. I guess we decided to adopt an Asian baby so we won't miss Taiwan so much when we leave!
Dawn, Greta, and Abe paroosing the selection of bikes. And the behbeee! You can see the mother working there in the corner on the left. She put the pacifier in her own mouth!
Biking around the lake was nice, it was really hot, as I said before. When we had our fill of the giant Mr. Buddha man, we decided to make one more stop before heading home. We noticed signs for Lions Head Mountain along the way, and it didn't look too far from the main road. I've heard of this place before, so was curious to check it out. We got to the visitors center area, it was up in the mountains with a beautiful view of only green all around. Feeling tired from being out in the sun for hours already, we didn't hike up the mountain, maybe another time. Overall it was a lovely day with some walking, some biking, some scootering, and a big fat Buddha!
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