close brush with death
kb had a close brush with death today. it's my second last day in taipei and i almost got killed by a rock. yes you saw right. a ROCK.
was at taroko gorge today. for the benefit of those who have not been to taiwan, it's a mountainous area in hualien. famous for it's marble cliffs and spectacular views. but those of you who have visited would know that the place isn't really very safe because besides marble, the cliff rocks are made up of mainly limestone, which makes the rocks really brittle. that causes the rock to chip off rather frequently especially during heavy rain, typhoon or earthquakes, large boulders can actually come crashing down.
our guide said one of the really beautiful old bridges was broken by one such rock slide and at the top entrance of jiu qu dong, we could see this portion cordoned off with loads of rocks that had crashed into the hand rail.
towards the end of the entire tour, we were walking and we saw an ambulance zoom past. so we were guessing whether it was because somebody uphill got hit by a rock. that we never found out.
anyway, enough background, back to my own story.
our last stop was at eternal spring shrine, which was nearer to the foot of the hill. it has a really beautiful underground spring that flows down to the main river like a small waterfall, and the spring water is used by the locals to brew really nice tea. the shrine was built to commemorate the workers who have died in accidents while building the road that now links the city and the mountain range in taroko gorge 47 years ago. ironically, the shrine itself was damaged twice before by heavy rock fall and the current building, is actually a third one.
we were leaving the shrine and i was taking photo for the rest on the foot path, when suddenly i heard a very loud crash behind me. dione and i thought that the guys dropped the umbrella. (it really sounds very much like how the plastic handle of the unbrella hits the ground when you drop it. just that it was 2 times louder.) but when i turned around, i found to my horror that there was a big white marble rock, about 1.5 times my clenched fist, lying less than a step away from where i was standing.
i can tell you, i freaked out, i started talking incoherently, screaming at the rest that we should get the hell out of there. i ran into the tunnels that were dark and gloomy and i avoided when we were walking in (the tunnels and the foot path lead to the same place. imagine small mrt tunnels without lights.)
after we left taroko safely, i was telling dione, either the poor souls there really blessed me, or they found my offering of 10NT (50 cents sing dollars) too little and decided to play a prank on me. hahaha. or maybe they could see that i was just trying to get rid of my irritating 1NT coins. =P
whatever it is, i am just glad that i can still be sitting here typing away rather than lying down in a hospital bed, or worse, in the mortuary. yikes. i shudder to think that.
wow, this post was much longer than intended, but anyway, more to come when i get home. i just needed to get this out of my system while it's all still fresh in my memory. now it's 3.3oam and i need to wake up at 7 to get ready to go for breakfast and then do last minute shopping before we fly.
to all my dearies, don't miss me! be back in 20 hours~! ;)
