Kending 墾丁and the National museum of marine biology 國立海洋生物博物館

I've been in Taiwan for almost three years now and although I've tried to be more active in my local travels lately, I've never made it to the famous beaches in the south of the island which are scattered around the small town called Kending (墾丁). In general, beaches in Taiwan are not what you would expect from a tropical island since Taiwan is an island of volcanic origin and the only  postcard-type beaches can be found in the south. 

I left Taipei on a sunny and humid Sunday morning. It wasn't 9 am yet and the temperature was already at 35 degrees. I took the High speed rail at the Taipei main station and after about 90 minutes arrived in Gaoxiong (高雄), which is the second largest city in Taiwan. From there I took a bus called the "Kending express" which after about an hour of a pretty sound ride arrived at the National museum of marine biology (國立海洋生物博物館), which is roughly 20 km away from Kending. 

Hiking in Taiwan - Yangming Mountain biathlon

The Yangming Mountain National park (陽明山國家公園) is a wonderful place to go hiking with several hot springs, waterfalls, great views and most of all fresh air and the whole park is only a half an hour bus drive away from Taipei.

I went to the Yangming mountain (陽明山) several times but always took a bus from the ShiLin MRT station (士林捷運站) to the Yangming mountain tourist center and started the hike at the MiaoPu entrance (苗圃). I bought a bike last month and kept wondering whether there were any bike routes that would lead to the top of the mountain. As it turned out, there were none, because the last 2 km of paths are too steep to bike, but there are plenty of ways to get quite close. I searched the internet for some options and eventually decided to bike to LengShuiKeng (冷水坑), which is only 2.1 km away from the top of the mountain. 

牛奶湖 (Milk lake) at the Lengshuikeng tourist center

Hiking in Slovakia – High Tatras

Waterfalls, mountain lakes, mountain streams, amazing views and weather

I went back to Slovakia during the summer and after a very very long time visited the High Tatras. My log is mostly about languages and I know that posts about climbing mountains or river tracing might not be interesting to all of the readers, but this trip was so amazing, that I decided to at least share some of the pictures we took. My high school friend bought a flat in Tatranska Strba, only a couple of stations of rack railway away from Strbske pleso (the main tourist hub), so we decided to go there on Friday evening and start the trip on Staurday morning. 

High Tatras are amazing in any weather and any season, but that Sarurday there were almost no clouds in the sky and the temperature was around 25 degrees, making the conditions very suitable for a good hike. When we arrived at Strbske pleso, we decided to take the yellow route to the Furkotsky peak, which had a lot of interesting sights on the way. The entire hike was about 22 km long, but was definitely worth the effort.

Hiking in Taiwan - 陽明山 (Yangming mountain)

I went to Yangming mountain last week but took no camera and was later pretty sad, because there were some nice things worth taking pictures of. Since the place is not that far from Taipei city, I decided to go there again, just to take some pictures and try a different route.

陽明山 (Yangming mountain) is actually a complex of hills and peaks with the main peak called Qixing peak which is 1120 m above the sea level and the view from it is quite nice. It took me around an hour to get from the Yangming mountain station tourist center to the top, but I was taking pictures and resting so I think it could be done in 30-40 minutes of active walking.

The last time I went there I started at the Miaopu entrance, hiked all the way up to the Qixing peak and went down the other side to Xiaoyoukeng  and then took the bus back to the Yangming mountain terminal station. This time I started at the same place, but then went to Lengshuikeng, because I heard there’s nice waterfall there. The waterfall was nice, but unfortunately there was a fence and signs saying that it was dangerous to approach it. Being as hot as it was, that waterfall could’ve made my day. The waterfall started a nice little stream which eventually turned into a river. The hiking trails were always far up high from the stream, so it seemed impossible to get closer to it at first,  but I managed to find a small entrance, got off the hiking trail and made my way through the jungle directly to the river. I was so sad that I didn’t have river tracing shoes, because I would’ve traced the stream right back to the waterfall. On the other hand, I was alone and pretty far from the hiking trail, the rocks were slippery so I think it’s a better idea to go there next time.

Hiking in Taiwan - 紅淡山 (Hongdan mountain)

In a desperate attempt to escape the Taipei city pollution and noise (and boredom), after my last week's trip to the wonderful 陽明山 (Yangming mountain) and inspired by the this fantastic blog by Stu Dawson, I decided to start discovering the Taiwanese mountains and jungle on a regular basis! A lot of Taiwanese would laugh and say that there is no jungle in Taiwan, but compared to where I come from, what they have here definitely IS jungle :)

My plan is to climb a different mountain every week (well...... that's the plan) so hopefully I will write an article about 陽明山 later. My ultimate goal is to go to the top of the tallest mountains in Taiwan. There are 164 mountains/peaks that are taller than 3000 meters in Taiwan, with 玉山 (Jade mountain) being the tallest mountain in East Asia and the 4th tallest mountain on an island. There are so many things to see here, I can't believe I've been in Taiwan for such a long time and I've been missing out on all of this.