Apologies for the delay, it seems that the absence of a working right hand has hindered my progress with these blogs. Enough talking, please enjoy these three days worth of pictures and embarrassing photo captions:
Day 6: The day I lost my favorite hand.
Yup folks, I busted my wrist here.
Okay, so I fractured my wrist and the story is unfortunately hilarious. In a concise retelling, I was speeding peacefully through Taiwan's windy southern countryside until I met a butterfly. On my eye. Really hard. I panicked on the thought that a half-mangled butterfly was squirming on my iris, then crashed into the bicycle in front me, and effectively falling wrist first on the tarmac. So I was administered to the hospital and got my right hand x-rayed. I then discovered that I fractured my wrist, which basically fractures my entire biking career in Taiwan. I got my hand burrito-wrapped and sent back to the hotel like some kind of Mexican delivery service.
Due to my injury, I am unable to turn my right wrist clockwise for more degrees than that found in an angle of an acute triangle. As you may have realised, eating with chopsticks requires an astronomical feat of precision for an uncultured asian like me, and the fact that my wrist is broken increase the difficulty by 600%. I asked for a spoon and a fork for dinner, however the closest thing they had was a soup spoon and a fruit fork. I tried to eat tofu with this. Let your imaginations run wild people.
We stayed up to new years (actually Tiffany slept, but she was there in spirit) under the freezing midnight wilderness to celebrate the complex/cringe-worthy web of relationships I have formed during the past 12 months. I would like to first and foremost thank my friends on this trip who have helped me feel useful despite my debilitating condition by asking me to continue my blogs with my left hand. Life has been quite uneventful since the guys at Giant won’t let me ride a bike due to my injury. My new year’s resolution is to ride a bike.
Day 7: Actual Touring and Good Scenery
Woefully for me, day 7’s cycling route was easily the smoothest and most scenic of all the days in the “please have my quadriceps painfully crucified” biking calendar. The absence of winds and the abundance of downhill slopes resulted in the perfect combination of a good time, much like a Chipotle burrito with extra guaaaaaac.
Blossoming with intoxicating arrays of flowers and mountains, the Da Nong Da Fu Forest Park is renowned for its breath-taking beauty, but more so for causing printers to run out of colored ink when you print a photo of it. Pretty much any picture taken in the park instantly gains desktop-wallpaper status
After days of traversing in the what seemed to be an infinite expanse of mountains, hills, mountain-like-hills, and hill-like mountains, we finally reached our first point civilization: Hualien county. Naturally, I proceeded to investigate the hidden treasures this city had to offer, including the quintessential Taiwanese Mochi. This ball of carbohydrates has Japanese influences, and tastes amazing when combined with red bean or black sesame. The ones I got were stored in Bamboos stems that needed to be cracked with a rock, which would be impossible for me to perform with a wrist so swollen I could use it as a flotation device in water.
We actually promised ourselves not to overstuff our stomachs at dinner to the point of vomiting for once as we planned to explore the Taiwanese night market. After learning that our destination took more than 10 minutes (that’s like 600 seconds!!!) of walking time to get to, we sort of did the opposite of what was initially proposed.