Spiders!!!

Yesterday after training we went to get some fruit smoothie drinks which were really good and then we drank them in a cool park. It is actually the same park from the earlier pictures of the little river and bridges. Gerald (The director’s husband and over the English program) took us to that park at the first of the week but we didn’t really know where it was. Yesterday we found it.

When we were leaving the park we say the sun was setting and it looked really pretty so we decided to try and ride really fast to the bridge and gorge to get some pictures of the sunset from there. By the time we got there the sun had mostly set, but we still got some nice photos.

This first picture was taken on the way to the bridge. The sun was going down fast and we wanted to get at least one or two pictures of the sunset in case we didn’t make it

We made it to the bridge and gorge but the sun had pretty much set. It only looks light because of the really long exposure time on this picture. The picture turned out really good though.

Here is the bridge we rode across. I don’t think I mentioned before, but some day (I think on Thursday) some of the old teachers went out with us on a bike ride and showed us a cool bike trail. One of the trails leads to this bridge and on the other end of the bridge is one of the longest tunnels in Taiwan. It was used for handcarts but now is a bike/walk path

Then we decided to take a bike ride downtown. There is a main road that does a circle around the entire city and we were going to try to ride around that one, but we went the wrong way. We ended up just riding straight down one road for about an hour. It is really pretty at night with all the colorful signs and lights. There is also a lot more traffic on the roads and people all over the shops. The town is really alive at night. The only bad part is all the exhaust fumes from scooters and cars that I breathe while I bike around.

One of the first days here we all went riding up a mountain road and did a little hike to a waterfall (I need to get a copy of some pictures of the waterfall because I didn’t have my camera). During the bike ride we met a guy who was riding up the mountain too. He had a really nice bike and was dressed in bike gear. He helped one of the girls put the chain back on her bike that had fallen off. He talked to me for a bit and even gave me a push up the hill. Well, last night he was driving in his car and saw us riding and pulled over. He invited us to go biking with him the next day

So this morning we went back up the mountain road at 6:30am and saw him. He gave us some cool little lights that flash to clip to the back of our bikes so we can use them at night and people can see us. He is a really nice guy. Every morning he bikes up that same road so the next time I am going to try to get his email or phone number. The scenery from the mountain road is amazing

After he left, we went back to the place that had the waterfall but took a different trail. There is a cool little stream. We saw a crab, and some some huge Golden Silk Orb-weaver spiders that were larger than my hand. There was also a smaller one eating a butterfly. On the way back we even saw a snake.

All these pictures and more pictures from the last couple of days can be found starting on page 5 of the Week 1 photo album.