yang ming shan national park, a summary

the last of the taiwan posts – and really, this place on its own is all the reason you need to visit this country in the spring. taiwan has an intriguing mix of metropolitan cities and the great green wilderness – rolling hills and mountains and green, green grass so far as the eye can see (so much that you forget just (sorta-)round-the-corner is a bustling cosmopolitan city like taipei).

when we were here in february, the weather was chilly, windy, and very good for long walks. there’s something very surprising about this place – it reminds me of the lake district and all those scenes you read in literature about the great british outdoors – certainly not something you anticipate being in this part of the world.

anyway, enough preamble. I hope you enjoy the photos!

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if you time it properly, you’ll catch some of these beautiful fuchsia blossoms. I think they might be a variant on the cherry blossom so famed in japan – but regardless of species, their bright pink colors are certainly mesmerizing.

some parts of the national park are unforgettable by way of smell too – take this sulfurous steam-emitting hill, for example, where a couple of more olfactorily-tolerant people were flying their tiny remote-controlled helicopters. you could literally smell it more than a mile away, that greatly overpowering fume of fart.

and this last part – doesn’t it look almost exactly like ye olde english moors? makes one miss the UK, it does (not like I really needed help in that department).

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