6/29: Morisaka (Lin Tien San) forest area, Guangfu sugar factory, Liyutan Carp Lake, Ci Sing Tan Scenic Spot

Today we visited some absolutely beautiful areas. First up was a cypress forest area that was logged heavily by the Japanese in their occupation era and then by the Chinese. It's mostly old-growth cypress which has the most amazing smell I think I've ever smelled. I bought so much stuff here, I think I blacked out in the stores and just went crazy. I ended up spending about $2,000 New Taiwanese Dollars, which is about $65 US. To put that in context, that's what I spent on everything I bought for an entire week in Taipei, and I probably spent $5,000 NTD in the entire two weeks I was there. I'm not showing a lot of it because there's a lot of gifts in there! I got so many fun ideas for Adroit as well, there were so many cute projects that I think we can recreate with the kids. ​

This is the entry to the forest area, like many things it was under repair so we didn't get to go in here. 

This adorable puppy came to say hi to us all in the bathroom area and didn't want to leave us alone. He was wet because his caretaker was giving him baths to keep him cool, but he was just so fluffy! He almost came on our walk with us because I couldn't find his caretaker to give him back, but she finally got him back so we could keep going. I swear, I almost stuffed him in my suitcase to bring home with me. 

This is the coolest industrial art I've seen in a long time. It's large equipment turned into a dragonfly!

Some cypress rounds on the wall of the little museum. You can see all the rings, the trees are old and huge!

The official gift shop had these amazing sculptures. I wish I'd been able to afford one, they were just stunning. 

When the Japanese started logging here, they built lots of homes and shops for the Japanese workers coming to stay. It's interesting seeing the contrast between Japanese style buildings (mostly here in this eastern region of Taiwan) and the Chinese styles that are most other places. 

This is the Guangfu sugar factory, further along our journey. I got ice cream that is made on site with sugar produced here and ran into some friends from the hotel. At breakfast, I was making faces with this family of little kids who were sitting in the space, and I ran into them here! They were so excited to see me and their mom helped me translate some conversations about where I am from and why I was there. They were super cute and it was fun to interact with them. 

Disney and Frozen is universal, we did a little singing and they loved it! Blurred the kids because, well, kids.

There was a pond with tons of fish that you can buy food for and feed. This photo in no way shows how many fish were there, it was just masses of them attacking the food. 

This is the Liyutan Carp Lake area, it's the little lake tucked right in amongst the mountain range that has become a little recreation area. We went out on the paddle boats (and I remembered how much I hate paddle boats), saw some giant fish (carp, I assume), and saw a practice dragon boat race. We got rained on a little but had a cover on our boat, so it was all good. 

These guys FLEW past on in our paddle boat, it was impressive. 

It's really hard to see, but there are two dark spots in the middle of this photo that were the giant fish. They had to be 4 feet each at least. 

I took this out the bus window so I'm not sure where it is, but it reminded me so much of some of the scenery in the Narnia movies. All the rivers have this type of riverbed here, it's a very rocky region. I love it with the low clouds and then brilliant greens. 

Our last spot was the Ci Sing Tan scenic spot, it's right by the local airport so that was interesting. While we were there a military plane of some sort landed, I have a video of it if anyone is interested but I can't get it to load on this blog. 

The upper part of the beach was rocky, then sandy, then rocky again right at the shoreline. The rocks by the shore were like little river rocks that weren't super comfortable, but I still sat there for as long as possible just watching the water. 

One of the guys from our group was walking along behind me and snapped this photo of me chilling on the log I found to sit on. It's one of my favorite photos I've ever had taken of me!