Monday, June 16

Today I took Rob out for his Father's Day present -  a day at the hot springs of Beitou.  Try and top that!  lol  We left the hotel around 11am and drove to the town of Beitou.  Unfortunately, the Hot Springs Museum was closed on Mondays, but we decided to hike the area instead.  We hiked way, way up into the mountains (in a thunderstorm) and saw the actual hot springs in nature.  It was unreal - there was steam just pouring out of the ground and the water was green.  Since these are sulfur springs, the air stank like rotten eggs but you go used to it pretty quickly.  After hiking a bit more we turned around and headed back to the public bathing area.  There were six different pools that we could go in - four different temperatures of hot and two of cold.  The hottest pool of water was 42 C (108 F) and was scalding.  The pools were terraced in stone above one another so the water would pour down a waterfall into the next spring, thus cooling it by several degrees.  We started out in the middle pool, then took the plunge (I plunged - Rob stuck in his toe) into the cold pool.  After that it was off to the HOT pool - ladies, never, ever shave your legs the morning before you go into a hot spring - it felt like millions of tiny needles stabbing my legs all at once.  This wasn't from the heat, but from the minerals in the water.  OUCH!  After spending an hour going back and forth between the different pools (I finally convinced Rob that the cold pools feel good) we got out and walked to downtown Beitou where we ate lunch (at 3pm) at a McDonalds.  Everything was in Chinese (no english here) so it was fun to order our meals.  I got a Rice Burger - it's basically a hamburger topped with cabbage in a spicy red sauce inside a bun made of rice.  How I wish I could post the picture!  It was actually very good and I have a feeling I will be trying another one before we leave Taiwan.

After we ate we hopped on the subway and headed to the Shilin Night Market.  It was nice (and very rainy) but I liked the night market we went to the other night better.  I did however, find an outfit for Myah to wear when we take pictures at The Grand Hotel tomorrow after 'gotcha'.  It is an adorable pink silk asian looking outfit.  I also found SQUEEKY SHOES - those of you who know what these are understand that they are not the easiest thing to find.  Basically, it sounds like you're squeeking a dog toy everytime the child takes a step.  Cute now, but will probably end up driving me crazy when she is actually old enough to wear them.

After about two hours at Shilin, we took the subway back to the hotel and while walking back to the hotel, saw a guy taking his dog (a golden retriever) for a ride on his scooter!  Again, wishing I could post my pictures.  Anyway, we were glad to be back at the hotel.  We were soaking wet, had blisters on our feet from walking in the rain so much and ready to just kick back and relax - we watched CSI in Chinese.  We estimate that we probably walked about 15 miles today!