April 27, 2006 - Day Five
We left Tainan at 8am and headed north, towards the famous Taroko National Park with the renowned mountains and fresh air. But the weather wasn't kind, it rained and rained harder still. The chaps decided to abort the excursion because "we won't see anything up there with this weather." Shucks, as Mr. X would say.

We arrived in the cool mountainous region of Nantou (on our way, we saw the stone that marked the geographical centre of Taiwan. THAT was interesting). Tonight, they performed at Nantou University. We stayed in a hotel downtown. View of the hotel.

Taiwan's interesting too because as Huang explained, five years ago, there was a super powerful earthquake that shook the whole island, particularly the little towns around this area we were in. The earthquake was so powerful, it changed the landscape of the mountains. The peaks became more pronounced and left them poor mountains, prematuredly 'bald'. The mountain peaks lost all their vegetation.

Then, it hit me. Earthquake? What earthquake?!