High Speed Rail

We are now at our hotel in Kenting (Kending is an alternate spelling - most places here in Taiwan have more than one English spelling), and I'm on Paul's computer, hooked into his personal "hot-spot" wireless through his 4G i-phone.  Amazing technology!!  Kenting is at the southernmost tip of Taiwan, and we are here for 2 nights on a weekend vacation for Paul and Alana!!  :-)   As usual, we hit the rain just right again today.  It was sunny and nice in the morning when we took the bus, then subway to the High Speed Rail station.  Most of the trip was also sunny, and we saw more beautiful scenery along the western side of Taiwan heading south.  Then it rained heavily for a while, but only at the tail end of the train ride and during our taxi ride to get here.  It stopped while we unloaded our luggage and went down to the 7-Eleven for some snacks, and now it's raining a little again while we chill/relax in our rooms a little.  Tim and Paul are playing cribbage here in our room, and Alana is in their room for a bit.  I'll try to upload some more pictures to the blog.  

Beautiful clouds over the mountains - on the high-speed rail line to Kending

More views out the train window

The west side of Taiwan has some fertile plains between the mountains and the sea.

Flowers outside our hotel in Kending

The "blue room" at our hotel in Kending

Our room again

tree on the boardwalk across from our hotel

View to the west from the boardwalk

The famous "Nixon head" rock - directly in front of our hotel.

The balcony of our room.

Storm clouds brewing

Another interesting shower in this hotel!

Tim's favorite spot to read during the rain, with an ocean view.

Playing games during the rain storm

Our fish for the evening meal.

Paul with our fish!

Our fish after cooking! 

Night view of our hotel.

Lizard in the hotel entryway.

Paul and Alana's room

View from our balcony

The Nixon rock - view from our balcony

View to the east from our balcony

Again, from our balcony - big waves crashing on the shore.

These are the lychees we had for dessert at our hotel seafood restaurant.  (fruit!!) 

Tim doing his Nixon imitation in front of the rock!! 

Backing up to yesterday, after the Palace museum, Tim and I took the subway, then a bus to Danshui, which is actually at the very northern tip of Taiwan.  There's a Fisherman's Wharf there, some scenic views, and markets, etc.  It was raining off and on, but we used umbrellas or stayed under overhangs, so it was fine.  Then we came back to Taipei Main Station, where we met Paul and Alana and bought the HSR tickets for the weekend.  There is a nice restaurant that they had been wanting to try, only a couple stops on the subway away from there, so we went there for supper.  It was an 8-course meal, which is way too much to eat, so the guys each ordered the full meal, and Alana & I just ordered an entree each, so we shared all the rest of the food.  Some highlights were the pumpkin soup - delicious - and the blueberry dessert - kind of a light, layered cake - YUM!!  Then we headed back - it's about an hour out of Taipei back to Sanxia.  

So, now to load pics again - hope this works again!!  

We heard it is really hot in Iowa --- same as here.  We are hearing in the news here that the typhoon will be turning towards Japan, so Taiwan will be spared the brunt of the violent weather.  Just on and off rain, which we can deal with!!  

Love to all!!

-M and T-