sandy models

A few week-ends ago, my aspirin-colour self and three golden-skin friends went to the bai sha wan, an -almost- white sand beach. The weather was great except that a strong wind was blowing the sand on our skin (free exfoliation) and the sand was boiling hot. I had never bathed in such warm water , i must have spent half of the time in the ocean -anyway, it was impossible to shai taiyang because of the wind, we would have ended up with strange sand-pattern tans. Swallowing so much sand makes one thirsty, so Josh and I went to get more water from the car, and were stopped on our way by a group of people. They were taking pictures of a car ( a kind of giant burgundy motor-insect) for a magazine. they made us pose in and in front of the car and promised to give us the pictures and send us a copy of the magazine. here is one of the pictures:

you must have noticed that "my English is no" lately ;)

jiufen - village

Jiufen - view

Jiufen

Last week-end i went to Jiufen, as my lonely planet said " it is the first place foreigners who live in taiwan bring their families".

As my family would not take the trouble to come to an island nobody knows could exist in this part of Asia - i am sure they are still convinced i am in Thailand...no, just joking..quoique! I convinced Patty it was worth going. And off we went. Forty minutes by train and a taxi ride later we were there, ready to explore.

What a disappointement when we discovered the only attraction was a shopping street with stone beads, food and T-shirts "been there done that".... well, we tried every type of food : herb cakes, taro cakes, honey cakes, chili oil marinated fried fish, Thai crisps and of course my favorite stinky doufu. we also saw a weird creature for sale ( remember Yehliu...two new animal discoveries in 8 days. ) It was a kind of sea animal, with a shell. I have checked on the internet, and apparently it is a "Calcinus Tibicen". Check this link for more info : http://www.recif.be/article/hermit.htm . For a hundred yuan you could take one home in a small plastic bowl. I struggled not to adopt one and bring it back to France. But then i thought that it would probably not survive the week when i will not be in Taipei, or the length of the flight home. And what about passing the customs...hum, i guess i cannot prove it had got all its shots and i do not think you can get them an identification tatoo or chip like cats and dogs. So i did not adopt any.

I also took pictures of things people thought weren't worth taking a picture of, doors, windows, streets, while the average taiwanese tourists took pictures of themselves in front of the scenery, their friends in front of the scenery, themselves and their friends in front of the scenery...with fingers in the shape of a "V" and a bright smile. the scenery was indeed beautiful. ( please can someone tell me if i can use "indeed" in the middle of a sentence? thanks)

The sun was really hot so we had a cup of tea and guazi in a small traditional house with a view on the port and the mountains. Soooo relaxing.

I almost adopted one...I would have called it Albert or Hortense, a "cool" name like those