Départ de Shiacarl 夏卡爾, Green Island, Taiwan

Shiacarl près des montagnes sur l'ile verte attends,
Au large de la côte est de Taiwan dans le vent ,
Pour les petits bateaux de pêche sur l'eau,
Pour les nages parmis poissons colorés et les coraux,
Pour les marches dans les sentiers de randonnées
Pour les baignades dans les eaux thermales salées,
Mais surtout pour l'hospitalité,
De nos hôtes à Shiacarl toujours gaies,
Le savoir de l'ile du grand frère,
Le sourire de la blonde du grand frère,
Et l'attention du petit frère du grand frère,
Nous sers d'un merveilleux pied a terre,
La bouffe est bonne surtout autour du feu de camp,
Pour manger calmars, maïs et poissons volants.

5th day on Green Island, Taiwan

That morning we moved back from the other B&B to Shiacarl, taking our two carry-ons and two backpacks on the scooter for the 1mn ride (they are basically next to each other).

After another delicious breakfast, we went to the "cow head", a rock formation on the north east tip of the island that looks like a cow. I can't say I see it but they've conveniently also added a cow skull to the scenery. There are also remnants there of various abandoned fortifications, although I wonder who built it and why.

We drove back through the town (another shaved ice) back to Shiacarl and I went out for more snorkeling where I got a slight sunburn on my back.

We had lunch in town at the Seaweed Meatball restaurant and the owner (Tino) invited us to come back that night for a neat experience.

So we drove again at 6pm that night. The activity was to walk around the littoral and pick up various form of wildlife: crabs and shellfish. We also saw a big "sea rabbit" that emits a red cloud when disturbed in addition to many sea cucumbers and corals. Pretty neat! We could also see a big thunderstorm over the ocean west of the island but luckily we only got a few drops.

4th day on Green Island

After breakfast at Shiacarl, we went hiking in the ancient across the mountain trail. We saw many lizards taking in the sun in the trail and scurrying into the bushes when we came by, except for two that took an aggressive stance when we were coming down the mountain - probably frustrated at having their sunbathing interrupted all the time. We also saw a deer (a smaller kind then the Sika deer) and a big shiny salamander in addition to many butterflied.

We had to checkout from Shiacarl since they did not have a room for us on Saturday night, so we moved to an hotel in the same village. As most buildings in Taiwan, the exterior looks of older buildings is awful but the actual room was nice, although the mattress was a lot firmer than I'm used to. Still, a very good alternative 20% to 30% less expensive than Shiacarl, although you don't get the same personalized experience and there is no breakfast.

Talking about hospitality, our hosts at Shiacarl invited us to BBQ! The food involved is much different than in north America... We had flying fish (salted and whole), sausage, squid, chicken tail, slices of pork, fish soup (I had an entire small fish floating in my bowl) and corn.

That day, we've also tried out the shaved ice downtown which is ice with red beans, tofu, seaweed, condensed milk and a few other ingredients that are very refreshing.

Google on the road

[This is in no way official or approved by my employer].

I'm biased but Google online apps and the HTC/T-Mobile/Google G1 running the Android stack (with Linux OS) have been very useful on this trip. Any wireless access point as provided in most hotels (and even in the Green Island B&B!) turns the G1 in a portable computer.

The qwerty keyboard makes blogging and sending out emails practical at a reasonable speed that would not be possible with an onscreen keyboard. Writing these blog posts to share our trip with you is an activity I like to do while waiting for Min Lin to finish up whatever she is doing or waiting for meals.

I found the best way to blog on the road is to use the blogspot email-to-blog functionality. Using drafts on the Android email clients makes it possible to write my thoughts and observations offline to queue them for sending the next time I have net access.

The pictures taken with the built-in camera are low quality which makes them perfect as a preview to the pics taken with my "real" digicam. Email pics attachments to the email to blog are automatically converted. This is an awesome feature which is actually a lot easier than creating a blog post, transferring pics and uploading them.

Since we did not make reservations ahead, Min Lin researched and made reservations on the road and even paid for rooms on secure sites.

Of course, Google search engine has been useful to look things like "jellyfish sting taiwan" to figure out if I was going to die or not.

Some Android apps are awesomely useful too on a trip. I've fallen in love with My Tracks, which uses the built-in GPS (yes, a real GPS!) to record any kind of travel from hiking to train rides. It provides statistics (such as average speed and moving average speed), elevation profile and of course the recorded path on a map. You can also share the tracks, although that doesn't currently work with the OS version I have installed.

There is also the Sky Map application that uses the GPS, compass and accelerometer to show celestial bodies and constellations names. Hold it up at night with a starry sky in the background and you can finally put a name on those shiny things in the sky!

The future is here and it's useful! I think that there is a lot of potential here.

Third day on Green Island

After going to the hot spring, we slept a little and afterward I went snorkeling. I got in my mind to try picking up some of the plastic trash floating around. When I got to what I thought was a blue piece of plastic, I got a strange burning sensation between my fingers... Jellyfish! My whole right arm was numb. I put some vinegar on it but one of the B&B owner told me that pee was more effective so I tried that in the shower. I was worried it would get worse (some jellyfish are so poisonous that they are deadly) but the pain went away by noon.

We went downtown to get some gas for the scooter and taste the shaved ice. We then went back, had a beer and a while later bit returned to the water for some snorkeling together. Among other things, I saw an impressive lion fish.

After dinner, we went to a special night tour of the island with one of the host. We looked at the stars, a family of Sika deer, brown and green stick insects (the later is a protected specie) and the memorial to the five hundreds political prisoners or so during the Kuomingtang dictatorship.

Our last stop was to get some stinky tofu downtown...

Shiacarl Cafe 夏卡爾, Green Island, Taiwan

The B&B also doubles as a small cafe for serving guests and outside customers. The eating area is nicely decorated with relaxing music and a soothing ocean breeze.

Our hosts and hostess Selena all take turn cooking and luckily for us they also make the best food on the island, although they quite humble about it.

While the downtown is bland or excessively bizarre, their food strike the right balance between original and good taste. Of particular note is the fruit salad that is common to most of her dishes. They are also accommodating of their mixed carnivorous and vegetarian guests, serving versions of both for any dishes to me and Min Lin. the vegetarian version is also not an inferior version of the meat dish, but delicious in its own way.

I love the fact that we don't have to choose the dishes; we just tell them when we want to eat and the dishes are served, a pleasant surprise everytime.

Jhaorih saltwater hot spring 朝日溫泉, Green Island, Taiwan

5 minutes drive away from the hotel there is an ocean side hot spring where the saltwater is heated by the underground magma - one of the only three saltwater hot spring in the world where this experience is available.

The resort was called Jhaorih saltwater hot spring (rising sun) 朝日溫泉 during the Japanese occupation, so it is not entirely surprising that rush hour is 5am, just before sunrise. Tradition demands to sit down on the lukewarm water next to the reef where waves crash noisily, although not loud enough to cover the loud discussions of the Taiwanese that made the stop too.

Interestingly, a few hours later the resort is practically empty and me and Min Lin were left almost alone to enjoy the beautiful view and the hot water jets.

Real Snorkeling (2nd day on Green Island), Taiwan

Yesterday, we went out to the small port that is just across the street from the hotel. I dove in while Min Lin was looking and walking on the littoral.

Just there, below the surface, fishes and coral abound. I saw one of those strange tube like trumpet fish and a small moray hunting in the crevisses that took a cobra like pose when it saw me. There were also huge urchins, their spiky exterior sticking to the walls. The most beautiful was a fiery orange fish, but all the rainbows colors were there on fish of all sizes and stripes.

When I came out of the water, Min Lin reported happily that even the small ponds that she walked along were filled with wildlife such as crabs, fishes jumping from one small reservoir to the other, colorful babies of the bigger ones we see in the water.