Silver River Waterfall in 30 min. or less

Hey Everybody,

It's been a while, but I'm gonna see what I can get done here in thirty minutes. That might not seem like much of time commitment in an entire day, but that beats showering, checking facebook, and non-work related English usage in my daily life.

I have a new roommate named Hannah. She's from New York and she's studying Chinese just like me and Tom. We're all getting along well, Bagels too.

Last week she mentioned that she had heard about a really beautiful waterfall with a small temple behind it up in the hills above our university. She invited me to go hiking to trying find it, it was an easy thing to say yes to.

We left our apt. about 1:30 and I honestly thought we'd be gone for two to three hours. I was very tired when we got back five plus hours later. But I was also elated because it had been a gorgeous, fun, comfortable hike. Most importantly, we'd had a good time and I got to discover some new areas in the hills that I'd never been to before.

For anyone in Taipei I'll provide some brief directions. Starting from the hillside section of ChengChi Daxue (my university) find the longest steepest stairs you've ever seen. Go up them and go past the courtyard area at the top until you come to a pretty big road. Cross the road and keep going up the trail until you come to ZhanShan Temple...welcome to 貓空 MaoKong. Go to the left of the temple right to the road. Follow the main road for about 15 minutes and start looking for places to turn right. There are a few places that work because they all lead up to a ridgeline you'll need to cross over. There's a trail on top of the ridgeline. Travel along it checking the arrow signs for 銀河 瀑布 - YinHe PuBu - the Silver River Cave. It's a fairly comfortable 30 minute walk once you cross over the ridge.

Some photos from our hike:
1.) That's Hannah, my new roommate with Bagels.
2.) That's a hillside orchard I go past on my morning runs, same direction as the waterfall.
3.) That's a ridiculous "bridge" we went past on our hike. I swore it was straight out of a Monty Python sketch because a bridge was completely unnecessary there as Hannah shows. And if the bridge isn't necessary I guess there's no reason to worry about functionality or safety.
4.) That's Bagels playing in a small side waterfall.
5.) That's the best shot of the waterfall - always a hard thing to capture by camera. Waterfalls are better in real life.
6.) That's a view of the temple built into the cliff behind the waterfall. I think a guy lives there. He certainly spends a lot of time there at least - he was very friendly to us, even with the dog.