Hiking Ren Shan

Today, I was invited by my friend Stew to accompany her and her Chinese teacher, Zhan Laoshi (with whom I also went to the Miaoli Lantern Festival) to go hiking at Ren Shan Mountain.  The springtime weather was absolutely gorgeous again today and ended up being perfect hiking weather.

We left in the afternoon and spent about three hours hiking and exploring the gardens atop the mountain.  Sounds intense, but there's a big difference between Taiwanese / Chinese-style "hiking" and American-style "hiking."  In Taiwanese-Chinese "hiking," going uphill is not necessarily involved at all -- it pretty much just means walking around outside.  Sometimes, like today, there are lots and lots of paved stairs involved.  I experienced "hiking" like this in China as well at the Great Wall and Huang Shan.   Once, as we were "hiking" around a flat lake, my co-teacher asked me, "I hear that in America when you go hiking you have to use your HANDS??!!"

After the hike we drove to a mountain temple to eat ice cream, a much-deserved post-hike treat.

The views from both the mountain and the temple were incredible!  We could see all of Yilan county and even Turtle Island off in the distance.

Mountaintop garden

You could smell the trees!

Stew sippin' on the holy mountain water

Inside the temple

Stew teaches us how to tell if your lion statue is male or female

Oh...