March On

Holy Smokes! Has it really been more than a month since I've written here? I am really falling down on my blogging duties.. Well, between two birthday's in the family, everyone caught the cold, busy at work and everything else, I guess this blog was the last thing in line. For the month of February during Chinese New Year's we took a trip up to LuShan Hot Springs Town off the Central Cross Island Highway. It was great fun to stay in the little town with our friends and eat drink and be merry. It was extremely cold and we could actually see a lot of snow on the top of the mountains. This was the first time I have ever seen snow in Taiwan.

In early March to celebrate my birthday (yes, I am getting older) we took a wonderful trip up to Deng-Pu hot springs which lies to the North of Sun-Moon lake on the way up to Jade Mountain National Park. We stayed in a great little cabin which has a natural open-air hot springs right outside the room. This is vital when you are married and have kids, because after the little ones are aspleep, you can sneak out and enjoy a nice soak under the stars together. It was a beautiful night in the mountains, with no moon and the stars were out in force all the way from orion to the big dipper.


The next day after soaking in the hot springs, we continued up the road to Jade Mountain National Park which I have never been too before. The weather was fabulous blue sky and not too cold. The road winds up the mountain valley for some real breath-taking scenery. My wife says all mountains look the same, but I just don't see it that way. I always like to see what's around the next bend and I just enjoy being there. I convinced her we should continue driving down the other side through Ali-Shan and we did just that. Of course she and the kids were sleeping the whole time so we just breezed on through and back down to the other side without many stops. The scenery coming down that other side was almost as spectacular as that going up, however because it was becoming late afternoon and we were coming back to civilization around Chia-Yi, it was a lot more hazy.



Of course, driving around is a great way to see Taiwan or any other place. Sometimes I wish I was still young and driving around on my 150cc, but the car has its advantages too. Bringing the kids is a lot of fun, but I swear they can have fun just about anywhere they are. They had a good time soaking in the hot springs too, but mostly they take pleasure in the little details. The leaf next the trail, or the snacks are a lot more interesting than looking at the scenery for them.
All for now, back to whatever I was doing before I remembered to write a blog entry. Which is probably working the day job, watching the kids, or figuring out how to lose more money in the stock market. Either way, I'll re-commit to coming back here and posting an article more often than once a month!

All the best, Joe.