My luggage is back!!!! Yesterday was a great day anyway, but opening my suitcase was like Christmas :)

Now that we've got that out of the way, on to the more illustrious events.  At 8am we boarded onto the classiest charter bus I've ever been on and headed out of Taipei and into the mountains just outside the city.  Our destination was Yangmingshan National Park, an area preserved for its significance as a dormant volcanic site.  We hiked for three hours in the woods on the Bailaka trail, stopping frequently to observe and take pictures of interesting insects and plants.  After this bout of nature exploration we got picked back up by our bus and ate boxed lunch as we headed to our next point of interest.  Boxed lunch in Taiwan essentially consists of lots of bread. Pastry, pastry with sausage, pastry with sausage and pork floss (think bbq pork all dried out and shredded really finely, almost like powder), pineapple goo inside of a dry cake, and a slice of bread like pound cake.  

Our next stop was the Siaoyoukeng volcanic site.  This place was really cool.  We had a wonderful volunteer tour guide named Nora, who gave us a detailed history of the site.  She was an adorable old lady and she spoke English very well.  The volcanic site is composed of many fumaroles that spout hot, sulfurous steam and some hot springs that bubble with boiling water.  The mist was rolling in pretty thick that afternoon, so it was difficult to really show in pictures the steam separate from the fog, but in person it looked amazing.  My camera died before we got to the site, so I couldn't take any up close except with my phone. Naturally, there isn't a good way to get them on the computer.

 You can faintly see the area of the mountain that doesn't have any vegetation because of the high temperature and acidity of the soil around the volcanic fumaroles. 

A little hot spring at Siaoyoukeng 

After our visit to the volcanic site we traveled another thirty minutes or so to the Beitou Hot Spring Museum.  This site is a historic bathhouse that was built at the Beitou hot spring by the Japanese during their 50 year occupation.  It is a very interesting building because the architects utilized elements from many styles of architecture.  The first floor is made of red brick, and has a Victorian appearance.  The second floor is all wood, and it has a classic Japanese style.  The main bath area features Roman arches with the typical 6:4 ratio.  I thought the building was really beautiful and wish I had been able to take pictures.  If I can pull some that other people post on Facebook, I will put them up.  Just as a side thought that occurred to me, being at Beitou made me realize that I would like to visit Japan if I ever get the chance.  After seeing the museum we walked down the street into the park to look at one of the pools of the hot spring.  It was like a small, boiling, sulfur lake.  They told us that this pool was around 90 degrees Celsius.  Completing this visit, we climbed back on the bus and went back to NTU.  

When we got back, some of the Taiwanese and Chinese students took me, Corinne, and Stephanie to a family style, traditional Chinese restaurant.  It was the type that has a lazy suzanne in the middle of the table so that everyone can share from several large dishes of various foods.  Everything was delicious.  I also got to try guava juice for the first time and loved it.  It was the perfect way to end a great day.