Exploring Taiwan!: 19 July 2006

we drove to Fugang Habour (富冈渔港) early in the morning to catch the ferry to Green Island (綠島), which is a pristine volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean just off Taitung...we took a 2 days 1 night package for NT1500 per person which include a room, a mob for self-travel on the island, ferry to and back Taitung, snorkeling + a guided night tour...and it is really cheap considering a return ferry ticket itself is already like NT800 per person...and we were given a room for 4 for the 2 of us...pretty worth it i will say...we ate breakfast near the habour, enjoying the free F16s airshow since the airforce base was just nearby...the ferry takes about an hour and we finally reach green island...mounted onto our 200cc mob (yeah, you dun need to wear helmet there haha) and off we go touring the island while we look for our minsu which is at the other end of the island, but nearer to the ZhaoRi Hotspring (朝日溫泉)...the scenery there is really magnificent!...clear sky...blue water...i just luv it there!...toured around before going for our lunch...we had deer meat which was the local delight there considering they used to rear alot of deers over in the island...went touring again...really beautiful pictures of the Pacific Ocean + rock formations + cliffs...the island itself is actually very small and probably takes around 45 mins of continuous drive to complete a full circle of the island...we went snorkeling in the evening and was really fun...we were fully equiped from mask to full diving suit and shoes...really impresed with the good condition of the equipment since i got pretty bad ones when i went diving in philippines...saw many colorful fishes...there were puppet fishes, sea snake, sea urchin, hermit crab and even fishes almost that of a human size!...and not forgetting the huge array of corals and this humongous brain coral which is probably thousands of years old...the water was really clear and was really relaxing as u dun even need to do any work...the instructor will drag us along with the floats and we will just hang onto it and enjoy the beautiful underwater world haha...we tried flying fish for dinner, another local delight while we watch the sunset by the sea haha...rested a while before going for the night tour with the guide...we moved off in convoys of bikes...was really interesting...we saw deers in the wild running away from us while we tracked them down...big thick fat stick insect which are green!...we also do some stars gazing in the total darkness...and he will show us where is the north star and the various horoscopes...and u can really feel the sky of stars spinning around you haha...and luckily for us...we actually saw a comet!...it leaves a nice trail of its tail behind...so nice...and i made a wish too hehe...the guide was really humorous and also told us lots of stories and histories of the island...Green Island was only opened to tourism a few years back, hence it is still relatively untouched by tourists in the sense...in the past, it acted mainly as a place for prisoners (it is still now actually), including some famous political prisoners like the current vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮)...in the night the road was pitch black since there aren't any road lights there...so the road is only lited by your mob's head light + those little glass bulb that lines the centre of the road which will reflect light back...went back minsu to rest and were supposed to go the Zhaori hotspring abit later in the night so as to catch the sunrise...but we ended up sleeping till the morning lol...

the Fugang Habour from where u take ferry to Green Island