We left Jennifer's family in PinTung and flew to Kinmen Island, which is literally a stone's throw across China's coast. Somehow the republic of China (aka Taiwan) managed when they retreated from mainland China to keep this island and keep it ever since. They actually had multiple battles with China 60 years ago over this small island, but I guess China didn't try too hard and gave up on it in the end as it not being worth the trouble. On the flipside, Taiwan spent a lot of effort keeping bunkers, cannons and other armament on the island to defend against possible Chinese invasions.

Basically my understanding is that the nationalists who created the Republic of China (aka Taiwan) unfortunately lost battles in mainland china, had to retreat and eventually ended up in those two Islands and Taiwan. China actually went tried to take over the islands and after failing just bombarded them with hundreds of thousands of artillery shells, but thankfully Taiwan got enough external help to defend themselves and hold their position (through much personal bravery and sacrifice)

fat airlines :)

1h flight to Kinmen

Lieyu is the small island on the left

this is how close the 2 islands are from China

We got our rental car and drove directly to the Ferry to get to Lieyu. There, we rented an electric scooter that was kind of fun, and gave us about 25km of travel for two before its battery started getting somewhat low. We drove around the small island and visited some old bunkers that had been fixed up a bit to allow for visits

our electric scooter looked like this

We drove around the island, went to see some bunkers, nature, and temples:

millet

you could swim to China if you really wanted

the chocolate bird as Jennifer calls it :) (michoko)

looks just like Gi Joe :)

We finished by visiting a tunnel that goes from one corner of the island to the other to reposition boats and troops:

this tunnel didn't look like it was fun to drill mostly by hand

By 17:00, we were done with Lieyu Island and went back to its grandsister Island, Kinmen and saw a few sights before ending the day:

they collected shells thrown at them by the Chinese

We barely managed to get dinner that night since most restaurants were closed by 19:30 already.

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