Xiao Wulai

The Taiwanese are known for their efficiency and economy. This is probably the reason why the country is so successful. However, this has also probably created some of the ugliest buildings known to man. I like to call them Feats of Architectural Ugliness. I will refer to them as FAUs from now on. Visit any city in Taiwan and your eyes will be assaulted with block after block of the same dirty concrete buildings with wires hanging everywhere, bars on the windows and air-conditioning units placed not-so-strategically on the sides.

Everything is made from concrete so the buildings can withstand typhoons. Same with the bars on the windows - this is not to keep out crime (it's pretty non-existant here), but to keep debris from crashing through them during typhoons. The wires...I don't know...maybe it's cheaper to have them on the outside vs. the inside. And, the air-conditioners are a necessity so why have central air when you can have the same amount of cooling for 1/3 of the price.

So, these FAUs are ugly...so what, the Taiwanese say. Are they efficient? Yes. Are they economic? Yes. Will they be able to withstand the test of time? Unfortunately, yes. And, actually the Taiwanese take great pride of ownership. I know that some of the most offensive FAUs have the most amazing apartments inside. So, here you really can't judge a book by its cover. Which brings me to the point I'm getting to. If Taiwan's cities are its cover and its mountains are the pages then you really have to venture inside to see the true beauty of Taiwan.

Last Saturday, Luke and I decided to venture into the mountains to find a waterfall we had read about. So, we hopped on our scooter and we were off. Hsinchu is in a great location as you can ride on a scooter for less than an hour and be in the mountains. The drive itself is gorgeous as you can see the jagged, misty mountains in the distance and the view only gets more and more dramatic as you go and before you know it, you're in them. I took a bunch of pictures from the back of the scooter but they inevitably turned out as all sky, or all ground, or all power lines.

After about two hours of driving through some of the most beautiful scenery we've seen (it reminded us of Kauai, just bigger mountains and more of them) we got to the turnout for the waterfall. We hop off the scooter, a bit stiff, take off our helmets and this is what we see in the distance:
We promptly headed down the trail to get a closer look and hopefully do some swimming. Here is a picture once we got towards the bottom of the trail.
It was pretty stunning and once again, so much better than we were expecting. We got down to the bottom and there were some locals sitting down with their feet in the water. Something funny about the Taiwanese is that they really don't like to swim (especially during Ghost Month which it is right now). I see something like this and I just have to be in it. So, of course we jump right in and swim around in the second pool you see in the picture above. Here's one more picture from the very bottom. There was this really old pagoda down there.
After hanging out at the waterfall for a while we decided to check out this other place nearby called Wind Rolling Stone. Our guidebook promised, "An amazing 3m-high rounded stone balanced on such a small surface it appears ready to topple at any time." I, of course, was picturing a huge boulder balanced on something the size of the tip of a needle. We cheerfully followed the trail until it turned into a series of incredibly steep stairs that winded up the side of the gorge we had just descended to get to the waterfall. It seemed there would be no end to these stairs. Finally, we reached a resting point which we thought was the end. This is Luke after we realized we were only about halfway there.
That's a pretty classic Luke picture. He's thinking, "I'm exhausted. Why are we doing this, again?" A quality that we both share is that we are incredibly stubborn. At this point we didn't care whether this Wind Rolling Stone would be worth it or not...we had come this far, we were going to make it to the top of these spiraling stairs if it was the last thing we did. Alas, we made it and it wasn't really worth it. Here is the amazing and much-anticipated Wind Rolling Stone.
Cool, but hardly balanced on the tip of a needle, thank-you-very-much. Haha....We finished the hike back to the scooter and headed back down. We stopped at a cafe that was perched on the edge of the mountain road for a milk tea. We watched as an ominous-looking storm moved in over the mountains.
We heard peals of thunder and saw some lightning in the distance but being the stubborn creatures that we are decided that we were tired and would just head back anyways instead of wait out the storm. Luke found a poncho in the scooter and I found a garbage bag which I ripped a hole for my head and two arms and we were off. We hadn't gone more than a kilometer when the rain came down. I'm begining to think that the best way to see Taiwan's mountains is on the back of a scooter if you don't mind a sore bum and the inevitable torrential mountain downpour. We were of course, soaked and got some pretty funny looks from bikers taking cover in shelters along the road. But, after a while the rain let up and we were dried out before we got back to town.
Unfortunately, we both woke up exhausted and with colds that are still with us a week later. All well, it was totally worth it.