Project done and update

Finally it is the 25th of November,  I am done with my project! Running with weights every weekday has been tough but I have done it. Today, on my final run, I also reached my goal of doing 4 kilometers, yay me. So, results: being able to run 4 km compared to 1 km the first time, feeling generally more fit, visible results: none.

I was hoping to see at least some difference in the way I look, apparently I was wrong. Anyway, I might keep doing it every once in a while to feel good, unless I come up with some other way of exercising.

Oh and another thing, should have written this a few days ago but I’m lazy. Last weekend me and Yini went to Yilan for a bit of exploring. They call it the rainy city and true to its name, it started raining as soon as we got off the bus. Not wanting to walk around too much in the rain we had some lunch instead. Then the rain became heavier but we decided to rent a scooter, put on our rain coats and go to the hotel. However, before driving our newly rented scooter to the hotel we had to stop for fuel, we filled paid and…couldn’t start the engine. This was starting to look like a  catastrophe of a weekend. Luckily the store next to the petrol station was a scooter rental shop owned by the same man, they replaced our scooter free of charge and we were on our way.

After unpacking at the hotel we tried to figure out something to do on such a dismal day and opted for indoor activities. The only good one seemed to be to go to a hot-spring, so we drove to the town of Jiaoxi and found the hot-spring park. An open air area where you could walk around with your feet in the warm water, with no need to change to a bathing suit. That turned out to be brilliant!

When we got hungry we drove back to the city and found a small night market under a bridge, pretty standard stuff for Taiwan but still nice. I also bought some new shoes without holes, that was great. There was not much else going on so we made it an early night at the hotel.

Much to our surprise, the next day was sunny with a clear sky. Fantastic! We started by going to the town of Luodong for breakfast then continued to the largest park in Taiwan, Luodong sports park. It was more or less a standard park but we did find a hill with a big bowl like crater on the top.

Maybe you cant see how bowl like this thing is but it’s nice.

Childish as I am, I could not help but run down one side and up the other screaming out gibberish and generally being happy. Except for the hill there was a pond with a small island, and a few other parkish things. Next, we drove south for a bit and came to Nanfangao, a place famous for it it’s bridge across the sea. It turned out that there was a sort of natural harbour there, shielded by several small islands and the bridge went from the mainland to one of those islands. It was pretty beautiful but not more special or more beautiful than other places in Taiwan.

We had some lunch in nanfangao fishing harbour then drove around a bit more, eventually finding a neat little beach. I didn’t go for a swim, oddly enough, I usually do but i did have a fun time playing in the water. I think Yini enjoyed taking photos of me. From the beach we then drove to Suao and visited the local cold spring. This place was kind of strange, a sort of brick walled shallow river, devoid of people except me and Yini. The river bottom all covered in a sort of orange mud that turned turqoise when stirred up. Pretty cool I would say.

The cold spring is a really odd looking place.

 

That was more or less the end of it, we drove back to Yilan city and returned our scooter and hopped on a bus back home. I think the street side hot spring park in Jiaoxi was absolutely brilliant but otherwise Yilan is far surpassed by Hualien as a tourist spot. Not that it’s not nice, just that Hualien is better.