OUR FIRST HIKE IN TAIWAN!

My director and one of my co-teachers and some of their family members took us hiking last weekend. We hiked up a small mountain about 15 minutes away from Douliu.

We got to see a lot of tropical plants and some tropical wildlife (a lot of different lizards and some beautiful butterflies)!

(Bamboo)

(Coffee Beans)

(This is called Typhoon Grass. Apparently the number of horizontal lines on the grass changes from year to year. Each year, though, every Typhoon Grass plant on the entire island will have the same number of horizontal lines on it. The number of horizontal lines represents the number of typhoons Taiwan will get in a particular year. This year the Typhoon Grass only has one line on it and so far there’s only been one typhoon...who knows!)

(This is pomelo, a fruit we weren’t familiar with before coming to Taiwan. It’s similar to a grapefruit, but sweeter and the process of eating it is much different. Apparently Douliu is famous for pomelos.)

On the hike, I was involved in a conversation that screamed, “You’re obviously not from a tropical place! How do you not know that?!?!” The conversation consisted of me finding out that there wasn’t just one type of tree called, “Palm Trees”. Oh no...there are many types of palm trees, each producing their own fruits or nuts. I probably should have known that!

(Here’s two types of palm trees. The ones on top are banana trees. The ones on the bottom produce Betelnut. When people chew Betelnut, we’ve been told feels like a caffeine buzz. Chewing Betelnut causes a person’s mouth to look like it’s bleeding. It’s a habit here similar to chewing tobacco in the States.)

At the start of our hiking trail, there was another Taoist temple. This one was the most colorful one we’ve seen so far! This month is “Ghost Month”, so there were a lot of people doing interesting dances. We were told they were doing the dances in attempt to ward off and/or separate themselves from ghosts. The dances were interesting to watch! At one point, Phil pointed out to me that one man had his middle finger up while he was dancing. I don’t think it had the same meaning for him as it would have if Phil or I would have done it. Phil was able to keep in his laugh, but of course I burst out giggling right as we walked by this poor guy!