Yilan and a Goodbye to the East Coast

Sigh . . . Who ever wants to leave this?

When I initially made plans for our loop around the island, I knew I would be sad to leave the east coast of Taiwan . . . and, I was. The contrast between gorgeous mountain green against azure blue is something I don't think I could tire of, and I wanted to hold onto every view as long as I could. Unfortunately, we knew that to reach our next destination of Yilan, we would have to brave the Qingshui cliffs--probably the most treacherous stretch of road on the whole island. The road literally clings to a cliff hundreds of feet up above the ocean, and in recent years the major influx of mainland Chinese tourists have resulted in casualties there, including vehicles hurtling downward into the water below. Li-ling was terribly nervous about this stretch and we all felt it would be best to get an early start before the Chinese tour buses began coming from the opposite direction in earnest. 

As it turns out, the hardest part of the drive was actually Buggas, who screamed with fury during the whole drive. It was such a bummer to be sailing along such a gorgeous coast, with an overtired one-year-old in the back who was angry at the insult of being asked to sit in his carseat--again. Poor Li-ling tried to comfort him in every way possible, and I felt for her as I tried to safely drive, which turned out to be really important when an insane Chinese driver decided to pass a truck by driving into oncoming traffic (and directly in front of our car). It definitely woke everyone up, and shortly after we rolled into Yilan without too much trouble. 

Interestingly enough, the home stay we booked that evening provided one of the most authentic Asian experiences of all--hard beds! To his credit, the strange (and over-the-top environmentalist) host had tried to forewarn us about this part of his place, but we ignorantly said we were fine with this, and dropped our things there nonetheless. Little did we know it would literally feel like laying down on a hardwood floor. Sigh . . . The irony, too, was that this dumpy place cost more than some of our other lovely accommodations we'd already slept in. 

The one perk (and reason I had booked it to begin with), was that this home stay was known for having loads of fireflies in their garden, and that the host did a nice job educating his guests about the critters. This he did, (although the extent of the fireflies there didn't hold a candle to Alishan), and then we quickly headed out to the local night market to get some yummy street food. After all, our days in Taiwan at this point were numbered, and we needed to milk the culinary time we had left.

Pizza in a cone. This stuff seriously tasted amazing. Every American sporting event should have these available in their concession stands!

Coco discovers the all-famous Peking duck!

Anyone who's ever spent time in Taiwan will recognize these tasty little yogurty drink bottle beverages. The children here all grew up on them, and now one sees all sorts of variations of the stuff. It's as good as I remember.

A quintessential element to every night market is the presence of the novel and quirky. This one was no exception:

Notice the papaya milk in the baby's bottle in the background. Man! Do I miss that stuff! He was on a constant, steady stream of drinking it at all times, (and I didn't mind sneaking a sip from time to time, either.)

This was a little game where you were allowed to catch as many small fish via your basket and place them in your own bowl. It had no rhyme or reason to it, other than it was strangely soothing. Even the adults there frequented the place.

Each of the kids had to buy something from this place.

After a late evening like this one, it didn't matter how rock-hard our beds were, we slept just fine. :)

Here's a shot of our breakfast on the day of our leaving Yilan. Though delicious, (I HIGHLY recommend the roasted duck from this region!), this was essentially all they prepared to feed our group of nine people! I know our host is preservation-minded, but my goodness!

Our first time eating ferns! These actually tasted quite delicious, and had an interesting texture to them. They almost seemed to get more sticky the more you chewed them.

Mr. Bitts demonstrates his fetish with gnawing shapes out of his guava. Pictured below is our plate of pure gluten. Yuck! Needless to say, with Dad being a celiac, we didn't touch this stuff.

The next morning we headed over to the highly recommended National Center for Traditional Arts. This place has a recreated Taiwanese village, akin to what it looked like in the 1920's, and features all sorts of traditional Taiwanese foods, performances, and arts where one can try one's hand at it himself. Our day there started off with a Taiwanese (this was a new experience for me) opera based on the famous folk story of the Monkey King. I was thrilled to see this, especially since I had read the story to the kids before we had come to Taiwan, and they quickly became fans of the story, just as most Chinese children do. As a result, though they couldn't understand the Taiwanese, they could easily followed the story and remained riveted by their athletic prowess and fascinating costumes.

Note our upteenth photo bombing on the right. . . classic.

Directly after this performance, there was a recreated street procession down the main drag. The kids were obviously dazzled.

Directly after the performances we took advantage of the DIY opportunities the village had available, particularly the potter's wheel. Mr. Bitts was especially enthralled, and declared that he must have the opportunity to learn this more when we return home to the U.S.!

On the whole, it was a great day, and we could have easily stayed longer, but ultimately we needed to head back to YuanLin so that we could properly prepare for our concert (more to come on that later). We were grateful for the fun capstone for such an amazing week and a half--even if the last few hours of driving home were harrowing when dealing with a very cranky and very overtired baby. Sigh . . . I goes you can't win 'em all. It's definitely part of the hard reality of traveling with kids, right?

Watch out for this kid your neighborhood, (or motor vehicle), because he always gets the last laugh!