Green (Lyudao) Island
Ahhhh, Green Island…we loved Green Island. So relaxing, peaceful…except for, yes, the WAY to Green Island.
Ferry. In the ocean. In the rocky ocean. Cindy. Not so good with seasickness. But I didn’t puke! Either way! Woohoo!!
Actually, Damien taught me a trick – first off, I had to go outside (where I got soaked!!!!). Next, stare at the horizon where it’s calm. That definitely helped – plus – it was only like an hour.
We got picked up at the ferry terminal by our hotel, The Par Far Hotel. On the way there were probably over a 100 scooters lining the street to rent. They also handed us keys to the scooters we had rented! John was SUPER HESITANT at first since he hadn’t driven one since he was a kid. Plus he had to balance both of us on the scooter. But after a few practice twirls around the street in front of the hotel he was okay and we headed out to bop around the island.
First we went to the highest point of the island (not very high!) but the views were pretty cool. Then we went clockwise around the island. The entire island is only like 18 km around. Not very big. After stopping at “the little great wall” (ummm, I’m thinking NOT), sleeping beauty rock and peking dog rock we stopped for a while at this awesome salt-water hot spring. Supposedly there are 3 of them in the world (we thought there were only 2 – one here and one in Italy, but we were corrected by this guy that lives on Green Island who said there was also one in Japan). It was really relaxing – not super hot and we were the only ones there (these school kids came in later but not until we were ready to leave). Did I mention this was the off-season? I guess they get like 2000 people a day during high season but we were one of maybe 20-30 tourists on the island at the time.
The only problem we had was – incredibly enough – dealing with the language barrier. Finding food. John ordered this pork with vegetable deal and it ended up being pork fat with chinese brocoli.
The second day, John and Damien went to the 7-Eleven – I stayed behind because I already had a noodle bowl waiting for water to be added – and so I was flipping through the channels – the world series was on! Woohoo! I was so excited! So, while we waited for the weather to clear up, I watched the first few innings of the world series. It was awesome. Did I mention that I missed baseball?
Anyway, hello, we are on an island. With really great snorkelling. So we rented snorkelling equipment and headed to one of 2 places mentioned in the book. The first, had a big red no-no sign across the beach area. Okay, nix that one. The 2nd one didn’t so we went. John was a bit tentative – did I mention this was a first-time for him? Oops, forgot to tell him it’s pretty darn hard to drown. I mean, you really have to want to sink. He finally got the hang of it and is now hooked. Can’t wait to get to Thailand! Beautiful coral everywhere – awesome fish; oh, and did I mention that apparently Taiwanese people don’t really like water that much so we had the place to ourselves? Such a fab day.
We didn’t want to leave, but alas, we had to leave the next morning. Well, we didn’t have to, but there are plenty of other beautiful places on this mainland we wanted to see!
Tags: RTW Trip, Taiwan
JohnCin
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