Hiking and Sheep

My roommates tonight and for the next two nights are Mary, Ivy and Jennifer. I'm looking forward to getting to know everyone :) The beds here at Meijang farm at not very comfortable. In fact they are rock solid, even Robin mentioned that she had to use the comforters on her bed to make it feel nice. However it doesn't bother me too much because by the end of everyday I am really too tired to care. Today's breakfast was more western style with a bagel sandwich ( it had lettuce, mayonnaise, some orange sauce-thousand island??, onion and a piece of ham, some fruit like cherry tomatoes, guava which I love! especially the juice and pineapple slices, and lastly another sandwich which had egg, cucumber, and lettuce. I did not care for this one too much. Our bus ride was divided into to two small buses today. The bus I had gotten on played elevator music, songs that went very well with the scenery. There was alot of swerving in our trip today up the mountain and traffic too. It's amazing how we were driving on the edge of the cliff with barely enough room for other cars to pass going the other direction. We took a short restroom break on the side of a road which sold some delicious peaches and apples.

For a moment I thought our bus driver owned this place because he was giving samples and everything 

 I really wanted to buy some apples but my braces have limited me ability to eat such fruit and the peaches were expensive. I have to say though that I prefer Fredrickberg's Texas peaches because they are much more sweet. After eating those peaches I told myself I would never eat store bought peaches again. 

After we finally made it to Hehuanshan, a very beautiful area, we started or should I say the others started a long hike to the top. I think that I should have worn my tennis shoes and not my casual shoes today because hiking up the mountain was very painful to my legs. Not to mention running out of breath because of the lack of oxygen as we got closer to the top. However I ended up stopping and heading back down with Anbo who wasn’t feeling very well and met up with Robin. The three of us all had a nice chat about random things. It was during this time that I got sunburned L I put sunscreen on but not really on my upper arm, so I think next time I will be more careful. Everyone looked very tired when they all came down but Robin, Anbo and I were all ready to get the day started J

Next we went to Cingjing Farm where we watched an Australian man speaking Chinese sheer a sheep. The sheep reminded me of Shaun and they even had Shaun the Sheep merchandise in the gift shops. We even got to watch a horse show performed by Russians but unfortunately my camera gave out once again so I didn’t get to take any pictures. I think the most exciting thing about this place besides the sheep was the bees. A local salesman showed us the queen bee and even let us taste some fresh honey, but there were bees everywhere! I was very paranoid and afraid I would get stun. The honey tasted like tea to me but I’m not really sure what it was supposed to taste like since I don’t think that I have really ever tried it. 

 Can you see the red one? That is the queen bee

Our day ended with a lecture on NTU Highland Experimental Farm give by Dr. Der-Ming Yeh. Roughly 80 years old it is considered one of Taiwan’s 100 must see prizes. I also found out that peach trees have purple flowers. What? Why was I out of the loop? I was amazed. Particular to the farm is the establishment of four new Pleione cultivars that have been awarded with plant breeder’s right (PBR), which is just like a patent. It also has roughly 237 mushroom species! Whoa, I’m curious as to how many I will be able to identify and recognize from mold’s and mushrooms. They have also established an Eco-tour camp in which they do not emphasize slope management and instead plant plants to help reduce the impact on the highland, while being environmental friendly and balance their budget. Just when I thought the day would end we also watched a video on a type of bird called the Steer’s Liochila that we will see tomorrow at 6 in the morning! Goodnight J

p.s. I feel like this blog is really long and I apologize.