We awoke on our own several hours later, then, without a plan for what to do with ourselves. Since we were no longer in a hurry to get somewhere, we naturally consulted our Lonely Planet e-book over coffee and another episode of "Take Home Chef." I've already said we watch way more TV here than we ever did at home; TLC Taiwan has introduced us to many American shows we never watched before. Anyway, Curtis Stone was zeroing in on another hot chick in a grocery store when my eyes fell on the LP's entry for MaoKong, a little mountain village on the outskirts of Taipei City. I read about a 2-3 hour hike that led to a waterfall which sounded to me like an apt substitute for Yangmingshan. Mike agreed and we were off.
We didn't realize at the time of planning, but it turns out that getting to MaoKong would be half the fun of our day trip. Thus, the gondola ride through the mountains was the first Happy Accident we encountered on Saturday. You see we could've taken the #15 bus-- as Lonely Planet recommended-- but why the hell would we want to do that?
We shared our giraffe themed gondola with 4 other people.
For the record, it's much more comfortable riding in a tiny vessel with strangers when the strangers don't speak English.
The trip took about 20 minutes. Our lift glided above the Taipei zoo for the first leg, then passed over tea farms and dense forest for the rest of the ride. We could hear the animals below coooing, oooing, and roooing-- it felt like we had left civilization behind...until we spotted Taipei 101 in the distance.
As we disembarked at MaoKong station, the change in temperature hit us immediately. We'd come straight from Taipei's urban heat island--created by countless wind-blocking sky scrapers and endless miles of concrete--so needless to say, the crisp mountain breeze felt delightful.
And then the view hit us. Once we rounded some corners away from the station, the entire city was visible! We knew right away that coming to MaoKong was the right decision.
Of course, there are other advantages to getting away from the city for a day. Like getting to see all the quirky little country touches that only rural places offer...
and taking in all the green species.
We spotted some wild-growing mother in law's tongue and thought of our plants at home in St. Louis. Hope they're surviving the heat wave!
I'm not gonna lie, I got a little nervous when we saw a snake in the road. But I got excited when we saw this black caterpillar.
Soon after, we saw a black butterfly.
There were tons of little gardens.
And many humble abodes.
We enjoyed wandering around, though our main goal was to find the trail to the waterfall. Lonely Planet said it was just to the left of a temple so we focused on finding that. It was easy enough.
However, finding the actual trail was another challenge. We didn't see one anywhere. Then I remembered that Lonely Planet claimed there would be many map displays with English directions... Well, we didn't find those either.
At first, Mike didn't tell me that Mao means "cat" or that the name MaoKong means "cat empty" (how could he have kept this to himself?!) so when I saw this cutie on the Chinese language map I was surprised and excited. I thought, what a sweet cat-loving place...
Alas, kitty or no kitty, the map was useless to us; it was in traditional characters and Mike only knows the simplified versions. So we just kept walking...
Somewhere along the road, we found this cafe, whose name makes way more sense if you know what MaoKong means. I suppose it also makes more sense if you've ever spent any time with a cat.
Okay, maybe the word "cafe" is a bit of a stretch for a painted van with a foldout cart in the back. They did offer tables, though, and they had parked in one of the best spots overlooking the city.
Given the view, it's not surprising that all three tables were full.
There were dozens of other cafes offering tea and snacks, too. Apparently, most of the money is in selling the brewed tea, not in planting and harvesting the leaves. Though they do still grow some, most of what was offered at these cafes came from somewhere else.
...We kept looking for the trail, but we just couldn't find it. Then, strangely enough, we heard some faint jazz music on an otherwise quiet road and spotted its source: this little wooden restaurant with open air seating on the edge of a peak. Naturally, we decided to give up our search and sit down to look at the view. Thus, we encountered our 2nd Happy Accident. Relaxing at this place was easily as pleasing as the waterfall would have been. (At least that's what we're telling ourselves.)
As the fog rolled in, we ordered drinks and peanuts.
By the time we headed back to the station for our gondola ride home, we'd pronounced our trip a success, despite the few failures on Lonely Planet's part.
Fortunately, our good luck didn't end when we arrived back in the city center. After a few hours of recovering from our walk through the urban jungle back to our apartment, we decided it was time to venture out again for dinner. Thai sounded about right, and Lonely Planet had a suggestion for a Thai-Chinese fusion restaurant that supposedly served a grilled lemon fish we agreed we'd like to try. So Mike figured out a bus route to the approximate location we needed to be in to find the place. We knew we'd have to search a little, but we didn't mind since Taipei nights are much, much more bearable than Taipei days--once the blazing sun goes down, a gentle breeze sets in and it actually becomes possible to walk down the street without breaking a sweat.
But to wrap this story up, we searched and searched for the place Lonely Planet recommended and, like the trail, we could't find it. We were feeling so defeated we even considered calling it quits and going to a Hooters we'd randomly spotted.
Then, almost as soon as we'd decided to try one last block, we saw a sign for Jolly's Brewery and Restaurant. We thought, microbrew? Here? and crossed the street to take a closer look at the place. The menu, surprisingly, offered traditional Chinese and Thai food with good English descriptions, and we quickly surmised that all the beers were indeed made in-house. Thus, we had stumbled upon our 3rd Happy Accident. We ordered a few wheat beers and toasted to ourselves for finding a place that was even better than the one we were really looking for. Jolly's turned out to be exactly what we didn't know we wanted.
After this day of Happy Accidents, I'd almost like to write an editorial to the Lonely Planet Taiwan team and let 'em know what they're missing. But then again I can only imagine the cacophony of expat bros that would overrun Jolly's if more foreigners knew about it. I guess you can only follow the published travel advice so far. Every now and then, you're better off taking a chance and hoping for a few Happy Accidents. :)
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