24 March 2017
A quick run up a small mountain
The wonderful view of Puli at sunset from the geographical centre of Taiwan
I think I like Puli. It has mountains, lots of them. They seem to have paths. Some of these paths are actually for cars, but thats ok because the view is fantastic and there are street lights and a designated walking path off to the side so you can run all the way to the top and enjoy the view at dusk.
And what a superb view it was, very orange thanks to the sun disappearing behind a mountain, cloud and pollution.
There were actually a lot of people jogging, biking, walking and being towed up by their dogs all appreciating the view and the exercise. Earlier in the day a few paragliders were taking off from here, but as I believe they rely on thermals, they become parachutes once the sun goes down, which meant they had packed up by the time I had run to the top.
The rest of Puli is great too. Its a very compact city, but I believe it largely exists purely for tourism. The views from the mountain suggest a population much greater than 80,000 but perhaps that figure is just for residents, with tourists included it feels like it must be a larger city.
There are a lot of good places to eat within a rocks throw of my hotel, but I found the best of all, a place where you can get pork chops and ice cream and much much more.
This might be the geographical centre of Taiwan. But stay tuned as there is another contender for those not as lazy. Note this one is at the top of just a few stairs, in front of a cliff.
Then there were a lot of stairs. So many stairs. I was surprised by the number of stairs, but I do like to climb stairs.
There are probably 10x as many stairs in total compared to the number of stairs shown in this photo.
Once at the top of the stairs, its time to enjoy the excellent view! So orange.
And here we have another contender for the geographical centre of Taiwan. I am not sure how they even measure that, because I read recently the coast line moves up to half a metre a year due to earthquakes, and somewhere in their territory new islands are forming due to volcanic activity.
Regardless of the meaninglessness of this monument, a man has sacrificed his dog and is yelling at the structures pointing directly to the centre of the universe.
The road loops around a few times, and gives you lots of opportunity to enjoy the view. So I did. Whilst running up hill. I was so happy to be running!
The whole of the city. A bit less orange at this point.
Push her.
View from the cliff.
Heres the best I could do. Enjoy my sweaty head.
Back in town now, and I had less reason to do neon photos tonight because I had already done view photos. So here is a bonus neon photo anyway.
A very Taiwanese thing to do, is to group everything similar next to each other. You will see more evidence of this below, and it happens with everything you can think of. This is obviously take away pizza shop designated zone.
This entire street is selling nothing but garden tools.
Now I am at the buffet restaurant. I was sceptical, but rewarded! EVERYTHING INCLUDE! Vegetable bar, tofu buffet, make your own instant noodles with all the extras, dessert bar, ice cream sundae station, fruit bowl, drinks, tea, coffee, chocolate fondue fountain.
I had to restrain myself.
I chose the fat free pork leg steaks as my main course. This place is like sizzler, but $9 and EVERYTHING INCLUDE!
The photo everyone wanted, my dessert! 3 scoops of different flavoured ice cream, I am guessing the purple is taro but I have no idea about the others.
Then I added peanuts, some kind of mystery sauce, and the best part, half cooked chocolate chip smashed cookies.
I might go back tomorrow.