Good Times - Baishawan Beach

Back to Sunday, June 15...

After a night out at Club 7-11 (No joke - going to a club, not actually going into the club, and drinking beers outside of the nearest 7-11 is quite popular here. I enjoyed it), Mike and I decided it was time for our first beach experience in Taiwan.

We took the MRT up to Danshui and continued via bus to Baishawan Beach, a beach on the Northwestern coast of Taiwan. The whole trip took just over an hour from my place. Not too shabby.

Once at the beach, we first enjoyed a lovely pasta lunch at Cafe de Mr. Robert. Maybe it was because I hadn't had spaghetti for over a month or maybe it was because Mr. Robert just knows his pasta, but it was damn good. A peach frappe was also delicious, but a bit too much.

While eating, we noticed most of the people were swimming in the middle so we figured we'd head to one of the edges of the beach. After waiting 30 minutes (of course), I made my grand entrance into the Taiwan Strait.

The sun was shining, the water was warm, and I felt like I could swim to China (under a flag of peace of course). Not even a minute later, a lifeguard was blowing his whistle at me. Apparently, all those people were in the designated swimming area and I was breaking the rules. At this point, I remembered reading somewhere that over 50% of the population can't swim despite the fact that they live on an island. Comical yes, but at least the swim area makes sense.

But there was one small problem with the swim area: the deepest part didn't even reach my chest. Seriously??? I know the population is generally shorter than me, but not THAT much shorter.

I was not pleased. I contemplated asking Mr. Hasselhoff if I could take a swimming test to prove that I could survive in more than 4 feet of water. But it appeared the only folks allowed any deeper were the surfers. Although I've never surfed, I thought about renting a board and just swimming alongside it.

And the funny thing about the surfers was that any and all waves were breaking in the swim area. Many times a surfer would just get up and have to immediately jump off since they reached the ropes and could go no further. Quite hilarious to watch their frustration.

But since we were stuck in the kiddie pool we decided to act like kids and just play in the waves. Good times indeed. But my marine invasion of the mainland would have to wait...