Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Angels Hard at Work

Day 6 in Taiwan, we embarked on a 3 hour train ride to Hualien, where we were to hike and stay overnight in Taroko National Park. These were grand marble gorges, I've never seen anything like it! Marble is extremely heavy, I can't even imagine how difficult it was for the men to build the roads and dig the tunnels that we drove and walked through! As we were walking through the mountains, it hit me that it was all MARBLE! We PAY for marble floors and kitchen counters, and here I am, surrounded by 9,000+ feet tall cliffs of marble. It was like winning the lottery but not knowing where to go to pick up the prize!

At the train station, I found the pudding that we used to eat as kids in Taiwan. It tasted just as good as I remembered it. It's not really pudding, it's more like flan.





















In front of our hotel
















This interesting 'dish' of sticky rice cooked in bamboo
















Pictures from our hikes





































Yes the views were amazing by the railings. However, shortly after this picture we realized that loitering by the railing is a big no-no. The four of us were strolling along, each minding our own business and enjoying the views, when we heard noises coming from above. Then rocks began to fall! I looked behind me when I heard it, and a rock the size of at least two human heads flew into the railing and knocked the railing off the cliff! This was no more than 10 feet away from us! As soon as I saw it, everything felt like it was in slow motion, as I thought, 'Oh my gosh, it's a rock slide, we're going to die, oh wait, we should run inside towards the wall of the mountain and maybe we'll live, where is my mom, why is she just standing there, oh gosh a rock is going to fall on us'. By this time, my aunt and my sister were already standing by the wall, the two of them are yelling for my mom and I to run, I'm trying to get to my mom to tell her to run (at this point, she still has no idea what had happened, she thought it was fireworks). Finally, we were all hugging the mountain and realized that it wasn't a rock slide, just a few that decided to fall at that moment. A few feet closer and we would have been dead. For the rest of the hike, we were recovering from shock, and thanking God for protecting us. My sister said that it would be interesting to see what was happening in the spirit realm, were angels pushing the rocks away from us as they were falling? After the incident, I realized that there were signs that said to beware of falling rocks and not to loiter around open areas. I guess they weren't joking, although the 'chances' of rocks falling and hitting a person is like winning the lottery. Needless to say, we followed the directions and stayed 'inside' the path as much as possible for the rest of the trip.
















































See the tiny people by the railing?





































Remnants of a real rock slide, scary!















































































Before checking out the next day, we hiked a really fun trail. My aunt goes to Taroko every year, so she was our tour guide. We went through several long caves where we needed flashlights just to see the ground we were stepping on. At the end of the trail, we had to put on our raincoats to go through a cave where water was continuously pouring on top of us from above. It was like going through a mini-waterfall. Our shoes and pants were drenched by the time we came out! It was definitely a new experience, worth the hour of discomfort of walking in squishy socks and shoes afterwards! (Note: my camera battery died so I have no pictures from the second day, I will share an album of all my and my sister's pics from Taroko when I get back to the States, the views are amazing and I can't post them all here!)

I highly recommend coming here if you're in Taiwan, I think it's the most beautiful place I've seen here! Just be careful, and if you hear loud noises, it's not fireworks :)

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Nice rock story ! I'm glad no one got hurt !!!