Some friends invited us to go camping in Leofoo Village and participate in some traditional Aboriginal activities including fishing and hunting and culminating in a big cookup at night! So we packed the tent and set off for Gypsy's first camping experience!
Gypsy and I got a lift in a friends car, whilst Roh followed on the scooter. We got there hours before everyone else so set up a play corner for Gypsy and our friend's baby F (born on the same day at the same hospital!), whilst the boys got started on the beers.

Gypsy and F playing happily together.

Who needs a TV or a computer when you have a baby to keep you amused!?! Or pull and yank at your hair.....

The rest of the group came by scooter, and arrived hours after we did. Which, sadly meant that there was no time to go hunting or fishing afterall... sob sob...
So instead we headed to the river for a swim and to cool off before dinner.

Dinner was great! Lots of vegetables and veggie patties for us herbivores, and lots of meat prepared in the traditional style for the carnivores! Like all good camping trips, lots of drinking (except for us breastfeeding mums of course) ensued, followed by a game of "catch-phrase" and lots of random talking, joking and laughing. A wonderful night in the great outdoors with friends, a fire and lots of stars.

Gypsy was her usual awesome self and put herself to bed as normal, and slept perfectly in the tent! Such a dream baby!!

The next morning we headed back to the river to play in the natural waterslide, and to chill out from the harsh summer sun for a bit longer before heading back home. 
It was a short trip, but a nice gentle introduction to camping for Gypsy, and such a nice reprieve from the city for us!

Yeliu Geological park is somewhere I've always seen pictures of and wanted to go to, but, with it being literally on the otherside of the country and all, we have always found just as many reasons not to go. But with only 4 months left in Taiwan, we are determined to see as much as we can, and so, we got up super early and set off!
Step one - take a bus to Taipei.

It was even too early a start for Gypsy - she slept so snuggly in Daddy's arms the whole trip!

In Taipei it was simply a matter of changing buses. The driver then let us off on the side of the road and we walked about 10 mins through town to the park. The fishing port town itself wasn't very exciting - well what we saw of it anyway.

I'm always amazed to see convenience stores next to temples!!

Finally at the park!

It was actually pretty cool! The rocks are really interesting and the park has been really well designed.. They have gone a little crazy on the naming of them though.. Really? Pig? Fried drumstick?? Japanese Geisha??

They all looked the same to us.... So we just randomly chose one to pose in front of!

Meanwhile, the Taiwanese, Mainland Chinese and Korean tourists all queued up in the 35C heat to take their photographs with the "queen"..

We also found some fossils which we thought were pretty cool!

But wow, summer is definitely here! It was such a hot day!! Gypsy, it seems, has also unfortunately inherited Roh's sweat glands.. But she still had fun and was her usual smiling, happy baby..

Which, of course, caught the attention of the other tourists.. Fun experiences of the day included:
Random strangers poking Gypsy.
Random strangers trying to hold her hand.
Random strangers taking her hat off her so they could talk about her hair amongst themselves.
Random strangers passing comment about how she was too big for her age, or too small for her age etc..
Random strangers putting their fingers in her mouth to check for teeth.
Random strangers either blatantly shoving the camera in her face, or trying to take sneaky photos of her.
and our personal favourite, the Mainland Chinese lady who literally tried to take Gypsy out of my arms so she could hold her and take a photo with her......

By the end Roh was yelling "STOP TOUCHING MY BABY!!"

After the park we were all sooo hot, so we decided to head to the beach. The information centre people told us of one about 10 minutes away. Yay! We were excited for Gypsy's first swim in the ocean! Until we got there. Whilst it was a beach, it was one of those: you must pay to step foot on it beaches... And of course there were no trees or shade unless you wanted to pay more to rent an umbrella.. So instead we decided to take a dip in the pool. It was then that we realised:
none of us had swimwear
neither Roh nor I had a change of clothes
we didn't have a towel
we didn't have a swimming cap....

hmmm.. what to do..

no problems!
Gypsy can swim in what she is wearing minus the nappy! We can put her in her change of clothes for the trip home.
We can use the sling as a towel and just carry her.
We can buy swimming caps.

As for what we swam in?
Well... Roh went in his jocks.. And I went in in my undies with my "white" singlet pulled down as far as it could go... um... lucky there was noone else there.. Oh, hang on, it was packed!!

Yes, that's us.. The one's winning the embarrassing parents award!

It was Gypsy's first swim except for the baby swimming they did when she was one day old, and we were concerned she would freak out, but she LOVED it! 
(She doesn't look happy in the photo but trust us! We wouldn't lie - we just admitted we went into a public swimming pool in our underwear afterall!) 
She kicked and splashed and giggled, and just chilled out and loved it. She really is a water baby it seems!

I have a feeling we are going to be spending lots of time at the pool this summer!

Baby - check!

Dog in pram - check!

And so we jumped on the HSR and headed to Taichung - about 30 mins south from Hsinchu. With only a very vague map, and having never been to Taichung before, we relied on the kindness of strangers to point us in the right direction. Instead of getting off closest to the festival, we decided to get off a walkable distance away and explore on the way. 
We stumbled upon this gorgeous buddha!

Eventually we found the festival, found ourselves some seats in the shade, and set off to explore the food and drink stalls. Even just at the festival there was so much more variety in food than we get in Hsinchu. Unfortunately, there wasn't a great deal of Vegetarian though.. BUT, they did have sangria and Mojitos!! Yum..... Oh hang on, I'm still breastfeeding... 
That didn't stop Gypsy from getting friendly with the Taiwan Gold Beer mascot though!

The music was awesome. The local music scene is pretty funky here and we had a great time dancing in the mud. 

Poppy ran around like the nutter that she is.  

Roh enjoyed the music and the beverages.

And Gypsy and I danced, and danced and danced!!

Wow, I have missed the feeling of mud between my toes, whilst I dance in the sun and rain showers to awesome live music SOOO much! 

Gypsy seemed to enjoy the atmosphere aswell. She chilled out and danced around in the pram, or slept when not being cuddled or photographed by random strangers. And her trusty guard dog, Poppy was always by her side.

We were all exhausted by the end of the day, but it was alot of fun, and we can't wait for festival season to be properly here! 

We can officially cross Gypsy's festival debut off! 
Now bring on summer!!