The Spring Weekend-Plum, Cherry Blossom and Spider

Spring is coming, which means the weather is changeable (as people say “the stepmother’s face” ha-ha) and the best time to see cherry blossoms. Many Taiwanese like to travel to Japan where a wide variety of “ sakura” (さくら) are in abundance. Not wanting to go too far, I chose the shortest driving route to explore the spring flower sightings.

Taiwan Cherry, native to low-medium elevation broadleaved forest,hang like bells

One day ago, I got up earlier around 7:00 and headed to Mei-ling where just one-hour drive to my house. Mei-ling is famous for many crops of “mei” there (“mei”=“plum”, normally blooms in cold weather) and the top of the mountain is around 1,059 meters high. Due to a seasonably cold winter this year, some plum flowers are still vibrant on the hill in the end of February, kind of an added bonus!!More than that, it also has some different flowers such as Taiwan Cherry and the Common Melastoma bursting with the hillside at the moment.

Plum Flowers ="Mei"

Flowers growing alongside the hillside, I got into the seasonal spirit and soaked up brilliant colours of green, purple, red, light purple, pink and some lovely white.

Bees and butterflies undoubtedly match with flowers, but surprisingly, even the spider could not resist the attraction from flowers. Have you ever seen a spider spin its web to grab the flower? Is the flower an elf and be caught by the evil, black-and- yellow spider? I stood there for a while and still felt unbelievable about what I discovered.

I didn't dare to bother “the spider “fishing” a dying flower” in the wild nature, anyway, that is what makes the nature is, isn’t it? Birds singing, Spiders fishing, flowers blossoming…and nearly at noon time, people gradually surged to enjoy the beautiful scenery…the mountain is so so so alive!!! And it is about time to down the hill.


See more about Mei-ling:  
http://www.siraya-nsa.gov.tw/MainWeb/article.aspx?L=1&SNO=04000685