Keelung

Yesterday, we took our first day trip outside of Taipei. We had wanted to check out Longdong, a well known climbing spot in Northern Taiwan and the weather promised no rain. We left our Air BnB at 8:00 a.m. to catch a 9:00 a.m. bus. This seemed a bit early to me, but thank goodness we did, as it took a good 45 minutes to find the right bus station. Was it the Taipei main bus station or the bus station we could see across the street. After asking at the Taipei Main Bus station and the information desk, and several google translate cell phone conversations later, we were finally on our way to the correct bus station. While we were able to get one way bus tickets to Longdong, we didn’t quite get a clear answer on how to get back to Taipei, but as David said “I’ve heard there are buses, so we can figure it out later.” Ok...again, open mind and a bit of faith it would all work out. I had actually contemplated staying home today to just read but I didn’t feel right in leaving David to sort out the buses on his own with two kids and then also have to find out where exactly the climbing routes were in Longdong as we hadn’t purchased the Taiwan climbing book. I’m glad I decided to go.

Longdong is located on the pacific ocean, along quite a rocky shoreline. It was windy, so we were rewarded by fairly significant waves in beautiful turquoise waters. In hindsight, we realized we were dropped off one stop too early, so had a bit of a hike to the climbing crag. We went along the shore which involved some boulder hopping, but it was really pretty as we were right by the ocean and able to see the waves come crashing in. As we weren’t sure if this was the right way to the crags, we stopped to ask some locals, who showed us a less rocky path, however, it did mean back tracking a little bit. Taking the new route involved just a bit of uphill along a well paved path and then just a bit of downhill to get to the climbing crags.

While David and Sophie got a route set up, Neve and I went a bit further down on fairly flat rocks to take in the views of the ocean and watch the waves. It was quite windy so in the end, David, Sophie and Neve only climbed one route, but that’s ok. We can either come back or do some indoor climbing in Taipei. It was also fairly cold out and while we had warm gear, I think we all got a bit chilled. The other bonus was that we met a Canadian couple from Calgary, so it was fun chatting with them about their travels. All in all, it was a really nice day, spent hiking, climbing a bit and trying to navigate public transportation. In the end, it was quite easy to get back to Taipei, with only one bus ride and then a train ride. It was also really nice to see a bit more of the countryside, which is mountainous and lush.

P.S. The girls will be blogging again - we just got behind because we've been seeing so many things so figured it was best to get caught up.

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