week 4 - sun moon lake, part 3

the next morning, we had our breakfast in the lakeside dining room, with the usual eclectic taiwanese breakfast buffet fare.  something that e thought might be plain yogurt turned out to be salad dressing =p  ben experimented with several mixtures of coffee machine settings and dairy products before concocting a satisfactory cup.  i was a little sad that we hadn't gotten up early enough to take advantage of the hotel's complimentary bikes, but as it turns out, when my cousin came to meet us, she suggested that we all do just that.

so off we went, on two parent-child bikes (a fantastic invention with an extra seat and footrest for a child in front of the adult) and four single adult bikes, one sporting a babe-in-bjorn:

it was one of my favorite parts of the trip, and definitely c's favorite, despite the 'noooo!' emanating from her bike as daddy teased her by going crooked or too fast or off the sidewalk or.. ;-)  the views of the lake were beautiful, and there's something refreshing and wholesome about being on a bike.

nearly crashed trying to get this pic ;-)

we, of course, stopped to take pictures ;-), and here you see the first one of my cousin.   we had a lot of opportunity to talk in the car, and i think we were both pleasantly surprised at how easy - and enjoyable - it was to get to know someone who was essentially a stranger.  we laughed at how my mom had tried to get each of us to contact the other, which had never happened since we both felt at a complete loss as to what we might say.  i'm glad i had this chance to change a name and a title - 表 姐 (older cousin) - into a friend.

all the good pictures are p's ;-)

we didn't visit the aboriginal villages this time, so the girls' memories of sun moon lake won't be of dressing up in funny clothes and taking pictures in front of wooden boats.. at least, not this time ;-)  it was starting to rain as we left, so my cousin had to do some quick thinking for our afternoon destinations.