Finally, after over six months, I’m writing a new post. Today’s post is going to be a quick one; I’d like to start things off slow again. I’m sure you have some questions: Why the long hiatus?; What have I been up to so far?; Have I been keeping true to the spirit of onethingoneweek? I’d like to answer some of these questions.
First, I’d like to admit it’s been mostly laziness that’s kept me from posting. I have been doing something interesting every week and have a lot of content backed up, I just haven’t edited it all. I went to a couple of places in Taiwan, I went to Thailand and Laos, I went to Japan. I have plenty of pics (and video too). I’m just now getting to my backlog of content. For now, enjoy the short post for this week.
The most practical way to go to the hot springs is to take the red-line to the Beitou station and then transferring to the two-station line between Beitou and Xinbeitou. Not only is it more practical, it’s also cheaper than the option we decided on. Instead, we took an Uber straight to the entrance of town. We probably would have taken the metro but we all woke up WAY past noon (what can I say, we were on vacation).
I first stop in Beitou was the Beitou Hot Springs Park. We checked out the water and natural scenery and watched people walk by. As I said, we woke up late so we were short on time. We definitely had to find a place to have a dip in. We checked out a nearby public spring, but the lady tried to swindle us into buying some crazy expensive shorts just to get in. But no, us savvy consumers aren’t getting tricked into paying too much by a local, we went straight to a nearby resort to get tricked into paying too much by a large business. We paid for a public room, it cost each of us… I actually don’t remember. It was probably more than the nearby, outside springs.
When we went into the locker room, we were told that we were to disrobe as no underwear or towels were allowed. We had not foreseen it, but our friendship levels were about to rise dramatically. We removed our clothes, using a towel to shield each other from the horrors below. If we were to get past this initial awkwardness, we were sure to cement our statuses as best buds. In all seriousness, it wasn’t too bad. Inside were three pools: a 30ish degree pool, a 40-degree pool, and a 46-degree pool (celsius). We cycled between each spring, taking a couple of minutes to acclimate to the temperature before moving on to the next. When we were done at the springs, we were pretty hungry. We made our way to the more commercial part of town (by the library) and went into a Wellcome (supermarket chain). I bought myself some food and a drink and we peacefully ate at the park. I also took this time to pull out my drone and get some nice aerial footage. At this point, I realized the NDR filters I purchased were the wrong size.
Landing my drone marked the end of our little adventure this week. Beitou really has a lot to offer besides the springs, so I can’t wait to go back. This post marks the end of a long-running hiatus for me. So make sure you stay tuned for next week’s post. We’ll be heading to Xiangshan (象山) for some mild hiking. For now, enjoy the video below and make sure you like, subscribe and check out my other videos. Also, go out and do something interesting with your week and post it on Instagram with the hashtag #onethingoneweek (not this week though, most of us are stuck at home due to the epidemic :’(