Which will probably be of absolutely no interest to you Northern Hemispherians whose backyards are no doubt already filled with the fluffy creatures, but to someone who hasn’t seen a live squirrel in over 8 years — and certainly wasn’t expecting to break the drought in a Taiwanese national park — it was pretty exciting.

Cute, right? Now I just have to forget that the protagonists in the book I’m currently reading eat squirrels for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Other highlights of today’s mountain hike stroll around Yang Ming Shan (阳明山) included being given directions by a strange local woman with clear intentions of usurping the park’s tourist information centre by declaring it to be filled with non-English-speaking imbeciles, crossing paths with a group of men who looked like local mobsters (an effect somewhat ruined when they abruptly broke into song), a ticket inspector slapping a fine on a scooter illegally parked on the mountain trail…

…and the green bean gelati vgag and I indulged in after the disappointment of realising it would take hours to get anywhere near some actual wilderness. And then there was the ride in the shuttle back down to Bei Tou (北投), which should really repackage itself as an extreme theme park ride involving heights, skidding, an endless snaking road and the requisite sensation of wanting to throw up said gelato.

Three hours, four metro line changes and a bowl of fried eggplant later, I realised I’d actually had a good day. But like everything in Taiwan, it wasn’t quite what I expected.