The World's Longest Tunnel

I woke up early this morning. Bleary eyed, I looked at my watch on the table, thought it said 7:00 and woke everyone up so that we would be ready to leave by 8:00. We all got up, got all ready to go and went to ring May's doorbell. Joseph came out and said "We're not leaving until 8:00." It turns out it was only 7:10 and Trina pointed out that I must have read the time wrong when I woke her up an hour earlier. Since that was the case, we went and bought some breakfast, and when we got back, May was ringing our doorbell, wondering where we were.

We had the same driver and the same van as the previous week. When Jeremy tried to play with the interior lights (which were off), Trina noticed that the fingerprints were still there from the week before. May told us that it used to take two hours to drive through the mountains from Taipei to YiLan, but they've built a new tunnel so it only takes 45 minutes. I think we were all glad for that. It is actually a series of three tunnels, with the longest section measuring 12.9 km. Our hosts told us that it is the world's longest tunnel, but a quick search on wikipedia shows that it is the fifth longest road tunnel in the world, second longest in East Asia. Either way, Michael sure thought it was neat.

After stopping briefly at the historic village, we decided to spend the morning in the park and the afternoon at the village. The park was beautiful, with wide open spaces, grass, trees and water. The temperature was very warm, around 30C, and the sky was clear. We played with bubbles, rode a bike, flew a kite, played ball, and ate tropical fruit. It was very relaxing and we enjoyed spending time with our friends.

YiLan, Taiwan

Click above to view the album.

At lunch time, May and Joseph wanted to take us to a restaurant they really like. May grew up in YiLan, but she said it has changed a lot, so we had to get directions. Then they ordered way too much food, from tripe & blood pudding through mountain vegetable, mapo dofu, spicy chicken, pork belly, popcorn shrimp with sweet mayonnaise and sprinkles, betel nut tree soup, bitter melon and salty duck eggs. And for the kids, dried tofu, clams and a few other dishes. It was a veritable feast and we greatly enjoyed what we ate. I won't claim that we tried everything, though.

In the afternoon, we visited the Traditional Arts Village. Jeremy and Michael both fell asleep in the car, and we didn't have the heart to wake them. They had a big morning and a big lunch, and I could have napped myself. Joseph carried Jeremy and I carried Michael and the ladies went shopping.





You can see that I had gotten a sunburn during the morning. I tried to stay out of the sun the rest of the day, and it didn't get too serious. When the boys woke up, they were happy to just play in the grass with Annie and her cousins. Joseph took me to visit a historic residence, which I enjoyed. I told Trina that she should write what about what she did, but she said they shopped the whole time. Apparently, she found some really nice things, but since they're fragile and wrapped, I won't see them until we get home.



Apologies in advance for another diaper story. We had planned to meet at the entrance at a certain time, so Joseph and I, the boys, Annie and the cousins were all waiting inside. Jeremy dirtied his diaper, so I grabbed a clean one and went into the men's room. On the way past the ladie's room, I noticed they had a change table, which got my hopes up. I guess Taiwanese men don't change diapers, because our washroom was not equipped. I briefly considered just using the women's, since it was mostly separate from the rest of the washroom, but I told Joseph about the situation and he said Annie would help. She and her cousin attempted to change the diaper, using many wipes in the process. When I walked back past the ladie's room with Michael, I distinctly heard Annie's voice (in Chinese) saying "so stinky, so stinky!" It turns out that they got a stranger woman to help them.

On the way back to Taipei, we stopped at some hot springs and dangled our feet in for a while. It was nice and relaxing and the two boys love playing in water. Michael kicked his toes around and Jeremy amused himself by splashing a stranger. It's lucky he's so cute... but we moved him to the other side so he could splash without getting anyone else wet.





May and Joseph invited us for dim sum, but we didn't get back to Taipei until around 8:00, so decided to postpone it until Tuesday. We're looking forward to it!