Last week after writing my midterm speech I was extremely exhausted and stressed but was able to turn things around with a beach day! We took the Taiwan Rail (台鐵）from Taipei main station first to Houtong 猴硐, known for its Maocun 貓村 or cat village. After the coal mining industry began to decline, residents slowly moved away from the formerly prosperous mining town and many pet cats were left behind. Some animal lovers began to take care of them, and over the years other people dropped off their cats as well. Now there’s about 200 cats who live in the area and it has become a popular tourist destination! It was extremely hot as usual and all of the cats were lying very languidly in any patch of shade available. My favorite photo is of these guys resting by their respective motorcycles!
From Houtong we got back on the train to Fulong where there is a popular beach. First we had to grab bento boxes from outside the train station, another thing Fulong is known for! The beach was beautiful and not overly crowded, and the water was probably around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. That is to say, it was refreshing but not freezing like most beaches in the US! That was my first time in the Pacific ocean which was exciting as well. Fulong beach is also the home of an annual sand sculpture festival so we braved the heat to admire the towering sculptures. This year’s theme was characters from Pili 霹靂 (Thunderbolt) which is a popular glove puppetry (布袋戲) TV show.
排骨便當！
Sand sculpture
The rest of the weekend was many spent doing work and catching up for the week ahead! I was so glad to get some rest — it’s definitely hard to keep a balance between class, resting and all of the exciting things I want to do in my short time here!
Heading back to Taipei