Plum Blossoms

I think it is my and Ken's destiny to view castles in the rain. Osaka castle was still beautiful in the rain and this time the plum orchard on the grounds was in bloom. We located some geocaches and toured the castle and grounds. I took oodles of plum blossom photographs, but have only chosen a few to share; enjoy.

SAMURAI TIME !!!

Plum orchard.

Made it to JAPAN!

After a short flight from Taiwan, we arrived at the Kansai International Airport. We exchanged money, picked up some tourist information, and rode the train to the hotel. Our home-away-from home in Japan was once again the Hotel Monterey Osaka; Ken and I stayed at this same hotel in June of last year. The only difficult part about getting to the hotel is the maze of underground passageways from the train-station to the hotel. It was only until the last few days of our stay, did we finally get the hang of the signs and didn't have to do any backtracking.

On our first night, we ate at a restaurant in the Dotonbori. It was a rainy evening and the neon and mechanized signs, which the Dotonbori is so famous for, were powered-off to conserve energy because of the quake. The night ended well with the location of a geocache.

Kansai International Airport.

Heading to the hotel with luggage in tow.

Area where we found the geocache.

Leaving Taiwan

Our time in Taiwan was short. We packed our belongings and made our way to Japan. On March 11th, 2011 while in Taipei, we heard from Helen's Dad via telephone an earthquake/tsunami had hit Japan. While eating snake in one of the night market restaurants, we watched the destruction unfold on a TV inside the restaurant; water enveloping everything, debris, fires, and so much loss of life.

The next day, The China Post reported, "8.9-magnitude quake ravages Japan - 5th largest quake in the last 100 years, equal to impact of 11,000 atomic bombs, sets off 23-foot high tsunami". The quake was later increased to 9.0 from 8.9, has shortened Earth's day by just over one-millionth of a second (1.8 microsecond), and shifted the Earth's axis by ~6.5 inches. Such POWER!

Ken spent hours on the phone making calls regarding our Japan plans. News from Osaka was promising, our flights were changed from touching down in Narita International Airport (Tokyo) to Kansai International Airport (Osaka). We arrived in Japan on March 15th, 2011, four days after the quake.

Master Packer.

The following are images from the Taoyuan International Airport.

The "Taiwan Green Wall", which measures 12.2 meters (40 feet), covers an area of ~36 square meters, and is made up of over three thousand different varieties of plants.

Our ride to Japan.

Us as Taiwanese aborigines.

Mom and Dad :)

The terminals in the airport are very elaborate.

The port town of Danshuei, Taiwan

We traveled by boat to reach the port town of Danshuei (Danshui). This historic town has remnants of the island's European colonial history. In Danshuei, we met up with more of Helen's family, took in the sites of the town, and of course, we tried more Taiwanese street food. There was no holding back on trying new food (read below to find out more).

Deep-fried, spiced, potato on a stick.

Hmmmmm... this looks interesting...

Pig's blood cake: sticky rice and hot pig's blood is formed into a flat cake and is cut into rectangular pieces and skewered. It is usually garnished with soy sauce, hot sauce, powdered peanut, and cilantro.

Sugarcane juice.

Spicy mini snails.

The mini snails were great!

Quail egg covered in mini fish.

Bust of one of Taiwan's most famous foreign residents, Canadian missionary and benefactor George Leslie Mackay (1844-1901). Locals call this "the cuttlefish statue."

Danshuei Church, built by Mackay; however, there is not much left of the original structure.

Eating more food...

Red bean filled pastries.