Taroko Gorge is supposed to be Taiwan's top tourist destination, but it's taken me a while to get around to visiting it. Well, I did today, and I'm glad I did. The city of Hualien, nearby, where one stays in order to visit the gorge, has always been described to me as a "sleepy seaside village", but it actuality it's nondescript sprawl. Vegetarians are even thinner on the ground here than in Taipei, and that's saying something. So yesterday I didn't really eat anything since I couldn't find anything worth eating. This morning we rented a scooter and managed to track down a branch of French multinational hypermarket Carrefour where I gorged myself on multiple sugary pastries. All afternoon I expertly negotiated hairpin turns through Taroko Gorge and we ended up in a rainstorm. Silly us, we were not bright enough to have visors on our helmets or even ponchos so we ended up completely soaked. And then we learned of a vegetarian buffet of the all-you-can-eat variety located near the hospital, and I gorged myself on greasy Taiwanese veg food and had an ice cream bar for dessert (limit one per customer). Three gorges in one day! Zzzzzzzz....