Since the beginning of this semester, I have been hearing great things about Yangmingshan. Yangmingshan is the national park closest to Taipei ... actually, it's located in Taipei, just not the downtown areas. My teacher recommended very early on that we wait until late February to visit the park, when the cherry blossoms begin to ... blossom.

The weather has been very nice lately, in the mid-to-upper 70s for about 2 to 3 days of every week (don't be too jealous, the other days are downright miserable -- rainy and in the upper 40s and low 50s, which translates to the way the low 40s feel in NYC after the dampness is taken into consideration). So we decided to take an afternoon trip to Yangmingshan. Except so did half of Taipei, it seemed like. I believe the trip up the mountain is supposed to take approximately 90 minutes or so, but it took us about 3 hours going up and 2 hours coming down (by public transportation, of course) -- STANDING the entire time.