nine people

Today I went on a small trip with some friends. One of them did an exchange at Gray's (the art school I go to in Scotland) last semester (although I never knew her then) and the other is going to Scotland for a year to study there. Ironically her flight leaves two hours after mine on Thursday.

We went to a place called Jioufen, which is a pretty funky wee town situated on the side of a mountain, in the middle of lots of mountains, overlooking the sea. A lot of it was built by the Japanese when they occupied Taiwan so it was a fascinating mix of the two cultures.

The town itself has lots of stairs and intriguing little shops, but if you take a short bus trip a little further up the mountain you come to an old gold ecological park with beautiful scenery and a few museum type places.

We had just gotten near the end of the walkway (next to Teapot Mountain which looks like it has a teapot on top) when it started to rain. We took shelter in a Japanese restaurant (with great food) just in time for the rain to really let go. When it rains here, it really rains. Although fortunately it doesn't lie for long since it's so ridiculously hot.

Right now I'm stuck inside waiting for a rather large thunder and lightning storm to pass so I can go out. But I must admit, there's something fascinating about watching lightning streaking across the sky and spiking out every-so-often. It makes you glad to be inside.