Rock Climbing at Longdong (龍洞)

Wow.

Taiwan’s natural scenery is beautiful. Outside of Taipei, that is. Taipei has its own kind of splendor. A type of city-bright, neon-lights, living-beauty. (Are there really neon lights in Taipei? I forget.)

This past weekend, I went with the Mountain Climbing Club on an introductory rock climbing day trip. That’s what 登山 of 登山社團 really means. It’s not actually an outdoor club but a rock-climbing-hardcore-mountain-doing-things club. My revelation aside, it was fun to go outside and see somewhere else in Taiwan that wasn’t Taipei.

Earth is beautiful.

To practice the belaying and rock climbing skills we learned at the last two “classes” that the club put on, we went to Longdong (龍洞), which is about an hour away from Taipei.

With gorgeous weather for an October day and nice grippy rock, practicing belaying and rock climbing was a nice way to spend Sunday. We were right by the seaside, which was an added bonus.

So beautiful, yet so dangerous. Not.

Haha! Getting to the rock climbing area was interesting, if not a little dangerous. I remember looking down as I was made my way to the climbing area and thinking to myself, “if my hands get too sweaty and I accidentally slip, I’ll probably die. Those rocks down there don’t look too soft to land on…”

Tall.

Other than that, there was lots and lots of Mandarin speaking to be found: free for you to tune into or tune out just like a radio, or, even school (or life). Almost a television analogy. The digital age! Or was it analog?

All in all, there is so much more to Taiwan than Taipei. Taipei isn’t Taiwan. Just like how Guangzhou is not Guangdong. [Historically, Guangzhou (Canton) came to be taken as the name for the whole province because the city represented the province - somehow.] I feel like I’m just getting started on getting to know Taiwan.

It feels good to exercise outside.

Looking at our climbing area from a distance.