TheNHBushman.com

Photos by MJ Klein. Check out more photos on flickr.com!

For weeks, Hui-chen and I planned on going to the geocaching woodstock as previously blogged. We were going to ride up to Taipei with our friend Michael Turton and his wife, and camp out over night for the event. At the last minute the situation changed due to a family emergency and we weren’t able to camp out.

When Hui-chen and I left on Saturday morning our front left tire was almost flat. We took the car across the street to the shop where we have our car work done.

The boss patched the tire and found that it was still leaking.

There was a nail in the tire. No wonder it was going flat!

The Culprit.

With the tired fixed we met up with the Turtons and went in their car up to Yangmingshan where the event and the geocaches were.

Here we are walking to the first cache.

This is where the cache was located. The Yangmingshan mountain area is very active with lots of geothermal areas.

The smell of rotten eggs was pretty much everywhere in this place. It wasn’t too bad and gave the area a sort of ambiance.

Without giving away too much, this is the geocache after we found it.

We met fellow geocacher Jerry and his cute girlfriend Kimi at this cache. They were also hunting it and we were just a few minutes ahead of them. More shots of the geothermal area:

OK, this shot has nothing to do with the area, but its my blog and my wife is cute.

We drove up higher on the mountain to find the next cache on the list.

I was surprised to learn that some people find scenery like this to be “boring.”

Even so, we pressed onto the next destination. Here you see our intrepid group hiking toward the next geocache. Well not really as it was a very simple walk to the place where it was hidden.

This place is called “milk lake” because of this cool geological feature. We weren’t able to hike down close to it though.

We found the cache and signed the log as we did with the first one.

After these 2 caches we went to the “base” which was a private home owned by Mr. and Mrs. “X.”

We meet up with the other cachers.

We meet again!

Mr. “H”, one of the cachers, acted as our official photographer and set up this outdoor group shot (one of many).

Here we are in the parking lot of the restaurant. Mr. X and his wife took the entire group out to dinner at a local restaurant. I feel bad because I didn’t get a chance to thank Mr. and Mrs. X for their gracious hospitality.

Mr. H sets up his camera for another group shot.

Enjoying conversation about the day’s activities. Seems that just about everyone knew who Michael and I are from our previous geocaching adventures.

“How many caches did you find today Jerry?”

“Its not how many one finds, its how much fun one has doing it!”

I’m just kidding around with the photos I took. I found the geocachers to be a very nice group of people. I would like to do more activities with the geocachers in the future.

Now you know that I’m going to show some of the food, right?

Fangyi gets ready to throw down. I was right behind her, I’m telling you. The food was good. Hui-chen and I would go back to that place anytime.

Outside of the restaurant was a pretty cool antenna farm (which has nothing to do with the event of course).

Suddenly, we had to leave for some reason. I didn’t realize that we were going until we got into the car and I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to anyone. So, please accept our apologizes. Hui-chen and I wanted to hang out with all you geocachers but it was impossible.

Originally we had planned on spending the night there, participating in the Sunday morning event and then attending the grill party at noon. Disappointed, about not having attended the morning treasure hunt, and not wanting to spend more than 4 hours in the car driving up to Taipei and back on Sunday morning for the afternoon party, Hui-chen and I decided to have our own private party on the roof of our home.

Here we are under an umbrella out of the hot Hsinchu sun. The wind was blowing and it felt nice and cool. There is a bottle of Thai rum hiding behind the Coke, and we polished off the whole thing ourselves.

As usual, Hui-chen laid out a great assortment of food for our private party.

Hui-chen likes to grill as much as I do.

Uh-oh! A major problem! Our drink cups began to give out due to the strain of such heavy drinking!

We had to switch to plastic cups! Problem solved! Disaster averted!

You can see a lot of interesting things from our rooftop cabana:

A ship in the Taiwan Straight (300mm).

Beautiful trees….

Thai men on bicycles….

The little girl who lives down the street….

This is the look that I get from Hui-chen when I’ve taken too many photos of her.

After about 3 hours of drinking, the sky looked threatening.

It didn’t rain during our private party though. The storm clouds just created more wind and cooler temperatures. It was perfect.

Today couldn’t have been better, with perfect weather and the perfect woman.

I want to thank RJT for organizing the Geocaching Woodstock event, and Mr. and Mrs. “X” for their generosity in opening their home to the event. Mr. X treated everyone to dinner and I feel embarrassed because I didn’t get a chance to even say “thank you” afterward. Please accept our sincere apologizes and thanks.

technorati tags:Taiwan, Hukou, Taipei, geocaching, wookstock, Yangmingshan

Blogged with Flock