Taiwan, Part 3

These guided tours take a lot of energy, getting on and off the bus at each stop. Anyway, we were pretty tired yesterday. We decided to have dinner across the street at a department store; they have a food court on the 12th floor. The most interesting part of the evening were the elevator ladies. I didn't get a picture (yet) but they were wearing uniforms (with hats and white gloves) and make sure you didn't get trapped by the elevator doors.

This morning, we boarded a different bus and a different tour guide took us to Kenting National Park. Our group of eight became twelve as a French couple (the wife is Cantonese but was born in France) plus two Japanese men joined our original group. The trip from Kaohsiung took about two hours and we drove along the coast. There is a typhoon currently moving north somewhere south of Hong Kong. Typically typhoons move from the Philippines, up the east side of Taiwan, and heads toward Japan. This typhoon is different that it's on the west side of Taiwan generating pretty large waves. The tour guide said that in his 25 years leading tours, he has never seen such large waves on the west side of Taiwan.


High waves generated from the typhoon


Wave damage at a rest stop. There were also debris on the road to Kenting in several locations.

Our first stop was a rock formation that looked like a cat. The waves were pretty large and the bus driver chickened out from driving out to the end of a pier. This was right next to a nuclear power station. I think someone had a sense of humor and built three (only three) windmills next to the nuclear reactors.


I don't see no cat... looks like a bunch of rocks to me.


No snorkeling today

After lunch, we continued along the southern coast of Taiwan to Elanubi Park, the southern most point in Taiwan. The waves were still pretty heavy and it was very windy, probably more effects of the typhoon. We drove to a couple more scenic spots and headed back to the hotel in Kaohsiung.

I'm having problems uploading pics again and running out of battery juice (no three prong outlets!) so I'll continue later.