Taiwan Day 3

Our last day in Taiwan we chose to spend in the mountains. We headed an hour north of Taipei to Yangmingshan National Park. 

I have to pause here to tell you what impressed me most in Taiwan. The people were incredibly kind to us. You know how on subways there are priority seats for those with small children or pregnant ladies or elderly people etc? Every time we stepped on the subway with Lucy, someone offered us a seat. EVERY SINGLE TIME! Japan has a reputation for politeness, but I have been in Tokyo pregnant and with Lucy- once standing there on the subway while she was screaming and trying to breastfeed her and no one offered me their seat. I was really impressed Taiwan! Also we got on the bus to the park and didn't realize you had to pay in coins-which we had none- and 3 people offered to pay for us. I was so touched by their kindness. Don't forget there are good people in this world!

We only had time for one hike. We picked Mt Qixing. We had absolutely no idea what to expect. It ended up taking 2 hours to reach the summit and it was about 98% stairs I would say. Both our legs were shaking on the way down. It was intense! The weather that day was rainy and overcast, which was nice since we were hiking, but couldn't see a thing at the top! I'm glad we did it, even though my legs were sore for the next 4 days. Ha.

 my photography game was so off this whole trip, so lets just pretend I meant to have that tree in focus...

The Summit! Lucy was LOSING IT, so we snapped a pic and ran down. It was way past nap time on the way up, and the only way we kept her happy was letting her nurse on the go, which meant I had to carry that lug around! But she slept the whole way down the mountain, so yay for that!

 near the top there was like 1 minute without stairs..it was the best thing I'd ever seen

so.many.stairs.

After resting at the hotel for a bit we went to the area down by the Taipei City Hall MRT stop for dinner. Our hotel was close to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial and the area was fine, but I really enjoyed this other part! It felt more "big city" and had a fun vibe to it. The restaurant we had planned on eating at ending up being in the most upscale mall I've ever stepped into. They motioned for me to take my poncho or to leave. Haha. We decided dinner was probably going to be extremely expensive so we went across the street to a more affordable mall and ate an American-looking restaurant.

a horrible iPhone video, but I had to post this of Lucy laughing while we waited for our food. One of my favorite things is to hear that laugh!

view of Taipei 101 as we walked home

 Lucy making friends at the airport. So cute.

This little ham cracks me up.