Cycling Around Taiwan (2 Weeks)

Our campaign to cycle around Taiwan for 12 days had officially come to a close. Cycling was probably tiring, but I found out that coming back to school is even more tiring (probably because I have not used my brain for 12 days). Although everything has finished, I found listening to the songs I heard during the cycling trip being extremely memorable. My classmates, and my friends shared deeper friendship bonds that lasted even after the trip.

After completing this trip, I found that my knowledge of Taiwan has risen to another level. Before, I judged Taiwan on how Taipei looks like. However, after cycling around the whole island, I found that my method of judgement is incorrect. During the trip, I saw both beautiful and ugly aspects of Taiwan. The east part of Taiwan is pretty beautiful. It has more uphills and downhills, which make cycling less of a bore. The scenery could be spectacular. I captured a scenery of the sea with different colors. Near the sandy beach, the water was a comfortable bright blue. Further out, the color deepened all the way to sapphire blue. 

Taiwan has many aspects that can be improved. Near cities, beetle-nut shops are all over the place. These shops are so popular that there can be 3 shops that sell beetle-nut in a single block. Also, on average, we usually see a dead carcass lying on the floor every single day. These carcasses range from pigeons and other fowls, cats, monkeys, mice, to even turtles. I have no idea how these animals died, but something needs to be done about these carcasses (since they do not smell nice and that there are so many of them). Lastly, when we temporarily park our bicycles and stop for traffic lights, sometimes, the acrid rotting smell of the sewage goes up into our noses. The smell of the sewage was not too impressive. The government should probably clean up the drainage system. Having visited other countries, no other country that I have visited has such serious sewage problems.

Overall, I think that the trip was worthwhile. Seeing how our class worked together, knowing more about my motherland, and making deeper friendship bonds are definitely precious rewards.