Keelung

Our plan for Keelung, the port city for Taipei, was to take an excursion to Yehliu Geopark. This is a stretch of coastline with various rock formations that have been formed through wind and water erosion. We got ourselves up and breakfasted, then took the 30-minute bus ride out to the park. The day was gorgeous, clear and sunny and not too hot. Our guide gave us background on the park and on Taiwan in general. She touched on the relationship with the People’s Republic of China, saying that people in Taiwan are “not scared.” I took her at her word, but I’ve got to believe that having a gigantic country sitting just across a narrow strait that treats you as a rogue breakaway province has to be in the back of your mind.

Setting geopolitical reality aside, we really enjoyed the geopark. We walked through a bunch of the rock formations and continued along a long path out to the end of the spit of land on which the park sits. This lead up and up; steeply up stairs at first and then gradually along a slope. By the time we came to the observation deck at the end we were sweating pretty good. Well worth it, though, both for the workout and for the view at the end. Not only did we get great views of the shore and sea, we also got a closeup look at a partially submerged crane ship that had had some kind of mishap along the coast. From the look of it, it must have been fairly recent.

We hustled back to the bus to hit our departure time, with just enough time to spare for the boys and I to hit the 7-11 across the street. We then went back into town and up a hill to visit the White Guan Yin Statue located in Zhongzheng Park. This is a 22.5 meter (about 74 feet) tall buddha statue looking down at the city. We were scheduled to have an hour here, but the whole group agreed that was more time than we needed, so we headed back to the ship for lunch.

We had walked a bunch, so we gave the boys the afternoon off while Liz and I went for a walkabout in the city. To have a destination in mind we set off for the night market (which is open all the time, not just at night). The bridges that span the river that runs through the city each have a small statue of a Chinese zodiac figure at the end. We found the market and wandered through. We wanted to buy some waffles to snack on, but it was cash-only and we had no Taiwanese money. We did eventually find an ATM and got some cash, with which we bought some pastries. Wandering through some of the streets and alleys we found a clothes vendor, from whom Liz bought a lightweight sweater (we did not pack much in the way of warm clothing) and a pair of shorts (for a grand total of 200 Taiwanese dollars, or about $6 US).

As always we really enjoyed walking among the local folks doing their thing.Read more