Friends in Taiwan!

Ok Readers, I’m back…

Ahhh I don’t even know where to start… What a whirlwind of a month! Let me back up… I had two fabulous friends visit me for a week over Lunar New Year. Wow! What an amazing experience sharing my Taiwan life with them! So much gratitude and blessings, laughter and conversation!
Here are pictures of our time: January 29th through February 5th…

On the first day (Thursday) we ate breakfast with my co-teacher, Zoe, at Shark Bites Toast…She gave us traditional red envelopes with a Chinese token for the holiday.

Then we decided to go to my favorite mountain town and walk around…we found a great hole-in-the wall Thai restaurant…Lori used chopsticks! We shared a few dishes. Afterwards we did some market browsing and sampled snacks.

traditional Taiwanese flower pot dessert…
it’s ice-cream!

Friday through Monday was spent in Kenting, Taiwan. Kenting, Taiwan is a beach stretch at the southern part of the island. Easily accessible by high speed rail to Zouying Station in Kaoshing and a 2.5 hour bus ride from the station. Express bus tickets are cheaper if bought round-trip at 650NT. Waiting time from exiting the HSR to an Express Bus is relatively short, a little less than a half hour.

Starbucks.Duh.

bus ride to the beach

We decided to cab it to Baisha Beach… and spent the day at the Happy Panda beach bar enjoying the sun and waves… a fun place to relax and drink…a bit pricey, but worth the cab ride and prices for the beach away from the main Kenting Avenue area. We were able to catch a bus ride back to the main avenue.

Dear Glamour…publish us! 😉

Sunday it was rainy…but that didn’t stop us from renting an umbrella on Nanwan beach and sitting at the Bossa Nove Cafe for the afternoon…

Our hotel…

Ding JIa Hotel
946 屏東縣恆春鎮墾丁里墾丁路80之1號

No.80-1, Kenting Road., Heng-Chuen Town. Ping-Dung Hsien, 946, Taiwan, R.O.C.

It was airy..and clean…

and it overlooked Kenting Avenue…a bit noisy at night with the market going on down below, but we just closed the windows! Great balcony…we could see the sunset and busy-ness below.

beach just off Kenting Avenue

Kenting’s night market was awesome!!! Variety of crazy snacks like dried duck’s blood and squid!!!
(We ALL tried the squid…so funny!!!)

had to get some gelato to wash away the “interesting” tastes!

breakfast cheers!!!

we found a Shark Bites toast in Kenting too!
please explain the ice-cream with cereal and the
“omelet” with potato chips…
it was delicious.

After coming back from Kenting on Monday we hung out around my town…I took them around to see my school, grocery store, 7-11, my dumpling shop, and a milk tea shop!

tea after massage…

On Tuesday we ventured to Taipei! We took the subway to the Taipei Zoo stop then rode the Maokong Gondola to the top of the mountain…it was a misty day, but we were able to have tea and waffles and enjoy the tea plantation and cherry blossom view below…and we found the Cat’s Got Nothing to do Cafe that was featured in the BBC Travel Cafe story under Taiwan…so cool.