Taiwan 2024 - Chenjean's General Village Area, Nice Pink Flower

 

Taiwan 2024 - Chenjean's General Village Area, Seed Stalk with Contrast

This is another sight that you see a million times while traipsing up and down the mountain roads surrounding Chenjean's village.  The contrast is what drew me to the scene...

Taiwan 2024 - Chenjean's General Village Area, Grassy Brush

These abstracts are the Found Edges and Glowing Edges renditions of some grassy brush near Chenjean's village.  The colors that popped from the Found Edges effect were surprising, considering the dull brown of the grass itself.

Glowing Edges and original pics below:

Taiwan 2024 - Chenjean's General Village Area, Twisty Tree

A pic of this tree has already been posted here from an earlier trip, but decided to snap another one for comparison purposes...

Taiwan 2024 - Chenjean's General Village Area, Monkey Shot #'s 2-4

This little mama was especially noisy as she crunched away at whatever she was eating, dropping plenty of twigs and crumbs on the forest floor to betray her presence.  She was a little less skittish than they normally are, probably because it was high tourist season for the waterfall visitors and the monkeys were used to being in closer proximity to the throngs walking up and down the road.  I was able to snap away for a full minute before she decided to move on to higher ground.

And when she did I got a surprise.  Not only was she sitting there in plain sight, but further into the brush was her entire family!  In these pics you can see another monkey to her left, better hidden by the leaves in the jungle foliage.  There were no fewer than three or four that went crashing through the treetops as they retreated.

Through the weeks we were there I discovered that this particular family had a routine; they stayed on the higher ground late in the day to eat, while in the morning they migrated to the river below.

Couple of other shots here.  The clatter of the Bigger Cahoona evidently caught her full attention, as evidenced in the pic at bottom:

 

Taiwan 2024 - Chenjean's General Village Area, Monkey Shot #1

Whenever we head over to Chenjean's little village in the Far East, I am most eager to see the wild monkeys.  As explained in posts from an earlier trip, these guys are proliferating at a fast rate due to the protections in place by the government.  So on this trip I didn't have to look long before finding some, including this guy silhouetted among the tropical vegetation.

So how does one go monkey hunting?  I learned that, though they are everywhere now, you don't see them before hearing evidence of their presence.  They are messy creatures, and constantly drop seeds and husks as they are eating away at the nuts and fruits of the area.  All you have to do is look up when this is heard and it's either a monkey or a bird...occasionally we get lucky, as the monkeys are otherwise masters at hiding from prying human eyes.

Taiwan 2024 - Chenjean's General Village Area, A Hero

This man is one I've grown to respect immensely, Chenjean's father.  His history and a more detailed description of him is posted here already, but just wanted to post a pic of his morning walk up and down the mountain roads around his house where Chenjean grew up.  When this picture was taken he was 93 years, 4 months and 26 days old.  He uses a cane now, but hasn't slowed down much.  I saw him doing his morning pushups with my own eyes, 100 OF THEM, while we were there back in March.  The man is amazing.

How has he fared so well for so long?  Good genes, much daily exercise (part of his job as a doc doing house calls on foot through those mountain roads), excellent diet, and good sleep no matter how hot or cold it gets.  And it gets plenty, plenty hot and humid in this little town.

On our way back from this particular walk I got a pretty good picture of the hometown:

Taiwan 2024 - Waterfall Area Near Chenjean's Village, Green Snail

Here we are with another snail pic, from the same general area in which this one was captured.  Had to clean him up a bit, though.  Good for a bookmark later on, if I take that up again.

Next we're going to see some other random things in and around Chenjean's little village up in the mountain...

Taiwan 2024 - Waterfall Area Near Chenjean's Village, Distant Horizons Silhouette

This shot, and the one to be featured in tomorrow's post, are my two favorite pictures from the excursions to the waterfall.

There was so much jungle around, and so much cover for wildlife, that I looked in vain for monkeys, which were surely there.  Maybe next time.  Meanwhile, we saw some much closer to Chenjean's village, which will be posted in a couple of weeks.

Taiwan 2024 - Waterfall Area Near Chenjean's Village, Flowers With Rock

This is a view from the temple, some distance up the mountain.  Note the thin waterfall in the background, which partially feeds the larger one featured earlier.  These were live flowers; cropped in for a larger view below: