When I leave Taipei, I see more animals, like birds, lizards and squirrels. One special animal I saw last week was a masked palm civet. At first, I thought it was a cat or even a monkey! It is actually a unique animal that lives in Southeast Asia. It is noctural, so it comes out at night, and it can be found in both the city and the country. Fun fact: civets can spray like a skunk! It was a good thing we were far away.
This week, I saw some cool rocks at the Heping Island GeoPark! A geopark is like a state park, but it is all about geology (what the earth is made of and how it changes). These rocks are called “Ten Thousand Piles", or mushroom rocks. See, Taiwan is an island made up of layers and layers of different rocks. The wind and the ocean have worn the soft rock away, leaving these "mushrooms" of hard rock behind.
Typhoons aren't so bad in Taipei, but on the east coast, they can be very, very bad. The last typhoon caused big mud slides that filled houses, schools and other buildings with mud. People from all over Taiwan have been going to Hualien, where the typhoon was the worst, to help dig and clean. It's awesome to see so many people helping!
