Danshui, Taiwan

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The trip back to Taipei was a little longer and a lot funnier then the trip to get to Keelung. As typical foreigner behavior we tried to get to our platform early. Walking up to the ticket gates Amy put in her ticket....only to have it shot right back out the other end and onto the platform floor. It had to wait till a station worker came by to retrieve it for us. Luckily, a lovely old man came over and explained why we couldn't go through, and then we checked out tickets to see that they didn't have magnetic back, so, of course, they flew out the other end. There was nothing to catch them.

It's a 45 minute train ride out to Danshui from Taipei station. It's the end of the line on the Danshui line and it drops you off at the end of the Danshui river and into a beautiful tropical location. The weather was amazing and the view couldn't have been better. Across the river was Bali Island and it was a beautiful thing to wake up to in the morning. There was the brief problem with not being able to call the number we were given to call our hotel but that was taken care of with a quick visit to the station visitor office. Our hotel was across the street from the station and, as mentioned before, had a beautiful view of Bali to enjoy.

We headed out to Fort San Domingo as walked well into the great town. Danshui is a college town and has a rather youthful feel to it. It has a lot of European influence in the architecture along with a long beach walk to turns into a long carnival in the evenings. Throwing darts and water balloons being the most popular and icy ice cream cones that are at least 2 feet tall. It was a smashing success of an evening that ended with a long dinner at a river front porch restaurant with a flirting baby at the next table. He'll be breaking hearts when he is older.

Friday morning had us out of our hotel and on a short ferry ride to Bali Island. We rented bikes and rode around the island. It was beautiful and so relaxing to just bike around. The weather was beautiful and wonderful for a long bike ride....if only we hadn't gotten sunburned. I now have a rather nice tan on my back. We had lunch at a rather unusual restaurant before biking back to the ferry terminal and heading back to Taipei.

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