Today is our last day with our tour guide Michelle and our minder Jane. It's been an amazing time with them, Michelle is incredibly knowledgeable of Taiwanese history and Jane is just an amazing person. Jane is a student at a different university who has been traveling with us, taking care of logistics, and making sure we take lots of group photos with our banner. She has so many photos of me taking photos of things, I am waiting to get access to her stuff so I can share some of it!
The Park of Lover's Lake is this tiny little park at the top of a mountain outside of Keelung City. It was really hot and humid as usual, but I make it around the lake and up to the top of the lookout tower you can see at back of this photo. It was really pretty and looks all the way down to the ocean on the other side.
This is the view from the tower back to the lake.
The park is full of lizards, dragonflies, and turtles. I also managed to find a couple of cats, of course!
On the far side of the lake there was this really cool suspension bridge. You can tell how hot I was here!
After yet another Chinese table food meal we headed over to the Yehliu Geo Park. I really enjoy the Chinese table food, but it's been a lot having it every single day and sometimes twice a day.
The Geo Park is this amazing geological site with multiple layers of rock in different strength, so it's all carved out in different shapes. There's mushroom rocks and caves and rock that looks like sponges, it's all really cool.
The line here that continues across the water is a fault line. It goes in a dead straight line right through the whole area.
This is the Queen's Rock, said to look like Nefertiti from a certain angle. There was a very long line to see it from that angle, so here's my best shot and a
link to see it from the right angle.
There's a ton of fossils in the area as well, this is a sand dollar fossil.
There's warning signs at the start of the park telling people that if someone falls in, you should not try to go get them. There are workers who will activate safety procedures if someone does go in. Because of the waves and rock formations, it's very dangerous to go in. This statue is of a man who went in to try to save some tourists who went in and lost his own life too. He left behind a wife and kids, so the local government set up a fund for their education and housing and stuff. The oldest son came back to the area and volunteers in the park still.
About halfway through the park I found the little snack shop and got a mango smoothie. What else would you get in the middle of mango season when it's stupid hot?
We went to a couple of other spots but I didn't take many great photos. The wharf was just a wharf, and not a nice one. It was just kind of a working wharf with a fancy bridge. But the last stop was the Damsui Old Street, which is a tourist zone and shopping area. I got a lot more souvenirs and gifts for people since this was my last real shopping day in Taiwan.
For dinner we went out with Professor Ying who gave us our lecture on Taiwan's economic situation. He was a fascinating man to have a meal with and gave us so much information about his childhood, his mandatory military service, and Taiwan's current place in the world. It was the fanciest food of the trip with a huge fried fish and abalone, among many other dishes. I may have stolen one of the abalone shells to bring home (what, it was beautiful!).
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