6/30: Taroko National Park, Daka Ecological and Recycle Park, Yilanbing Pastry Shop

 Today was a hiking kind of day and it was beautiful. We came up around the northeast part of Taiwan and ended up back in Taipei at NTNU for a couple of nights before heading to Vietnam. Hotel breakfast yesterday was absolutely horrible, so we tried to go to a nearby McDonald's to grab some food. For some reason it didn't open until 10:00, so we ended up at the good old staple 7-eleven and got tons of good food.I got onigari again plus some chips and water for the road. 

This is the view from the visitor center which was <prepare to be totally surprised> under renovation. It was really pretty though. 

This bridge is the Lion Bridge, it's covered in these carved lions. Each one is slightly different from the rest and it was fun to look over them to try to find the differences. It might be something as small as the direction the eyes were looking or as big as the shape of the mane. Just a cool touch. 

Walking along the bridge you can see the covered path to get up into the valley. It's down on the lower right on this photo, you're essentially walking through an underhang of a clif. It was a good time to be short, I didn't even have to duck. 

The water through here was so beautiful. The color reminded me a little of some of the streams in New Zealand. I want to take the photos to a paint matching place and have them make a custom paint for my house, it just made me so happy. 

Here's the photo under the overhang, it was all wet and dripping underneath. 

The rock layers in this area are stunning. You can see all the folds from being along a fault lines. 

The area is still very important for the Taroko Tribe, so they sometimes bring goods up and down the path. It was fun to see this 4 wheeler come whizzing by towing a cart and with a kid hanging on the back. 

I asked Nicole to take a photo of me sitting on this rock which led to an incredibly sequence of me running up and posing in multiple ways. I pulled my favorite two to post. 

We all because a little obsessed with snails on the trip but none more than my roommate. I took this photo of this iridescent one on the trail to send to her. It seriously was glowing. 

On our way out, it started to rain but we still stopped at this little memorial site. It's a site for the people who died digging the tunnels through the park area. 

Our second walking spot was the DaKa Ecological and Recycle Park, another spot through a valley. It had much more water running through so there were a lot of rapids down below. This was a gold mining site going way back through recorded Taiwanese history. 

Walking through the overhang areas, these birds were dive bombing everyone who walked through. When I was taking the photo I realized it was because their babies were in a nest up here and they were trying to protect them! We also saw a big snake slithering around. 

Our rest stop on the way back to Taipei was at Yilanbing Pastry Shop, a super famous spot. I got some amazing flaky cookie/biscuit things and wandered through their little history area. These are some of the original cake pans used by the company.