Last Weekend

As I mentioned, last weekend my friend Janelle came down from Taipei.  And when a friend comes from the big city, what do you do?  Kill 'em with "PE".

Friday night I made us dinner and we went to the meeting.  There were a lot of people standing around outside as we got ready to leave.  "You're both going to ride that scooter?" one asked.  "I can hear it crying," another said (Chinese, of course.)

On Saturday, I planned to take her on the Dong-Fong bikeway (the one I ride every Tuesday), because I wanted to ride bikes and show her Shi-Gang dam (which I've written about before).  I even let her take the nice bike because I'm a good friend like that. 

I wanted to get up early because the bike path gets clogged with people weaving slowly or barrelling along on electric bikes, but she wasn't having it.  We left a little before 9.  It was funny- she was all about running people down.  It's frustrating but they're just there to have fun.  It's actually cool that so many people come there to rent bikes for fun.

The air was clean and it was beautiful- I guess pre-typhoon pleasantness.     

We rode all the way to DongShi and were starving, and I wanted to go to a good restaurant I knew, but I couldn't remember the street it's on so I called Jasmine and she met us for lunch.  Good stuff- fried chicken breast with no bones and Thai dipping sauce.

The ride home was fun- not many people on the path and since it's a slight downhill we could go really fast.

We took a nap and headed out to the TianXin hiking trail I've mentioned before.  Good stuff- as always, a sweat-inducing climb straight up the mountains, but pretty and pleasant.

We saw the world's biggest spiders.  It's hard to get the scale.  The leaves are really huge- the spider's center is almost as big as the palm of my hand. I couldn't get Janelle to put her hand next to it to show us, though.

We did have to cut our hike short because the trail  was closed  after a certain point- as you can see, a little "caution" tape doesn't stop Taiwanese people!

Then it was back to the apartment for a quick shower and off to a very cute restaurant in Fong Yuan, called "Basil."  They have an English(ish) menu and decent pasta and good bread and Tiramisu.  It was fun.  We did a little shopping but we were pretty beat.