Saturday morning began with a very long overdue chat with an old university friend who, like everyone else I know, is in lockdown. She is an academic at a well-known US university, and it was interesting to hear how they, and her students, have been dealing with it all. This is one of those friends with whom a friendship comes back to life almost instantly, and I find myself wishing we were in more regular contact.
Once the GF rose, we left. It was extremely hot – 36 degrees said the forecast, and feeling like 39, so we took the rather unusual (for us) precaution of having more than one water bottle, putting on sunblock and wearing hiking attire. First was lunch at a Japanese Italian restaurant with surprisingly tasty mentaiko pasta. Who would have thought the Japanese would have taken Italian pasta to their hearts, but so they have. As have the Taiwanese, I’m told, though I’m yet to go to a Taiwanese pasta restaurant.
Then to catch the bus to Yehliu, a small penninsula on the northern coast, for the Yehliu geopark. It was a longish busride – 60 minutes was expected, but the traffic made it 90 made it longer, but eventually we arrived at a small, sleepy looking port with almost no one out in the afternoon sun. It was around 3 by now and though quite hot, the worst of the heat had passed. Here, mid-afternoon seems to be when the heat starts to turn a little. We arrived at the geopark, bought our tickets and went it.
It was ok, quite pleasant, but nothing spectacular. Perhaps I’m bit spoiled by the dramatic geological features I’ve seen, though I don’t think that’s it, as it was very pretty, and there were some lovely fosslised sand dollars, streaked in reds and oranges, in the rock, and the sea was blue under the blue sky. The eroded formations, like little candles and mushrooms, were not monumental but they were certainly peculiar, like red versions of those in the white desert in Egypt. The bigger spoiler was that it was all very carefully manicured, with pathways created right up to where the formations began. It was worthy, of course, as it made it accessible to all abilities, but it did feel like building a motorway to Stonehenge. There were a good number of people as well, since it was a weekend.
We kept walking till we reached the lighthouse and then the lookout point, which were up some low hills reached by green and flower-lined paths filled with quite lovely and varied butterflies. So it was all very pleasant, but nothing out of the ordinary.
We caught the return bus without trouble but though the journey was shorter it was less pleasant as the heat and sun had me feeling a little ill. It was a relief to leap off near the Taipei City Hall, and we went up into one of the department stores for a dinner of udon. (After an abortive trip to Wu Pao Chun for their lovely Taiwanese mianbao, but they had decided to close an hour earlier today for some reason). After udon (quite nice though not worth the high price), we took an Uber back. We stopped at the cake shop at the end of our street – untried to date because it is so close – and bought a speculative slice of oolong cheese cake. This was bad in a rather odd way: technically well made, with a good texture etc, but tasting of cardboard, as though whoever made it had no idea whatsoever of creating flavour. Usually the problem is in the other direction, there is some attempt at flavour (however misguided) but poor execution.
Return, cold showers, and into bed with my book while the GF watched a film.