Taiwan Trip Day 11

Our last touring day!  We have to finish up and be ready to leave in the morning for the long trip back home....original plans were to take the "bullet train" to the south to a national park we had read about.   We tried to buy tickets but they were sold out.  But, lots to see, so we decided to take a bus to a town on the east coast - Jinshan.  Scene outside the bus terminal....

Onboard for the 1 hour ride "over the mountains"....

Neat to pass by a little  "steaming"  valley.  I assume there is a hot spring there.

An uneventful ride on some pretty curvy roads!  The town itself is a bit different than Taipei!  No high-rises here.

We wandered thru the town - aiming towards the ocean!  A pretty archway entrance to a temple.

We headed east and figured we'd eventually find the sea....

Just had to take a photo of this aloe plant on the side of the road.. Reminded me of the "Feed Me" plant from the play "Little Shop of Horrors" !!!

Cool display on the side of a little building.

Cool bridge approaching the sea.

 View from the top of the bridge.  Looking out towards the East China Sea!

So, we were hungry by now - but this was definitely not a tourist town.  So we decided to brave a restaurant near the bridge.

This is the faded  menu in the window....no English spoken here!

And lunch is very fresh....

I pointed to a few things in the ice-filled cooler....

My peel-and-eat shrimp came out first....

Duane's fish were fabulous!  Absolutely fresh - the stuff that looks like salt was just barely salty...still not sure what it was but it was really good too.  Duane told me that the most nutritious part was the eyeball, so I had to eat that, of course.  It didn't really taste like anything - but I hope I got plenty of vitamins!

We read about a park that was up the hill - but had a really hard time finding the entrance.  We walked right thru the houses, but finally found the pathway.

Razor sharp plants!

Views from the park - not a soul on a beautiful beach.  Definitely a fishing village, not a tourist place!

A better view of the East China Sea.

A happy Buddha! (The umbrella is to keep out of the sun, not rain!)

This is an evacuation tunnel - the opening was just a big black hole - I stuck my arm in and shot this with the camera...not a "buggy" as I would have figured.  According to a map we found, this tunnel goes all the way back down the mountain to seal level (we had climbed almost 1000 feet up the hill at this point.)

Street scene in Jinshan.

 

So, we boarded a return bus - I slept a good part of the way back!

A little time was left before sunset, so we wandered around back in Taipei a little while....

Found another street market - ducks ready to eat!!

And happened by a little "live" play of some nature in a park. These ladies were singing or chanting...and it was not really pleasant to my western ears!   Back to the hotel to pack up for our busy travel day tomorrow...a wonderful visit!