winter break trip part 2

the next day, we set off towards the west side of kenting national park. amanda was driving while i rode on the back of the scooter. a short stop at the main visitor center for the park gave us a chance to pick up a nicer map of kenting and gave me a chance to demonstrate my ability to drive the scooter. i didn't think i did that bad and amanda had nothing negative to say, but i think we silently agreed that she would be doing most of the driving that day. a peek at the map confirmed our route to wanlitong and we very shortly found the only dive shop with an english speaking divemaster. his name was john. i remember he had strange looking eyes behind strange looking eyeglasses. there was no time for a dive that day, but we scheduled one for the next.

the whole day was suddenly free and not knowing where to go, we pointed the scooter up the coast towards shuchungsi hot springs. as we went along, there were a lot of beautiful views of the ocean, each one more inviting than the last, but we'd never get far if we stopped at all of them, so on we went, enjoying each one if only for a moment.

eventually, the road we took started to turn away from the ocean and towards the center of the park. climbing a little bit into the hills. we arrived at shuchungsi a little before lunch time. there wasn't much town to see but we turned off the main road, parked the scooter, and wandered around hoping to find some outdoor hot springs. it seemed as though all the places to soak were inside hotels. not wanting to miss the beautiful day, we took a path up a hill instead. the path had seen better days, with broken planks in the walkway and fallen trees that had to be climbed over. taking random turns, we made our way to the top of one hill and found we unwittingly interrupted an old man and his lover. we immediately turned around and took a different route, making our way to a more peaceful hilltop.

back at the town, we had lunch in the only place that seemed prepared to serve it to us. whatever it was, it had pork, bean sprouts, and noodles. much better than fish sausages. in addition, the owner brought out some vegetables he had grown himself, and a big piece of tofu with two "thousand year eggs". it was a veritable feast compared to our earlier attempts at finding food in off hours. there was another american in this shop named dave. another chinese language student on holiday this week, i learned he had studied chinese for three years at university before coming to taiwan. despite that, he was unable to convince anyone in kenting to rent him a scooter and had to hitchhike to get here. more warm feelings at our good fortune.

already well into the park and not wanting to retrace our steps, the plan grew more ambitious. continue northeast, out to the coast, come down south to see the inland corals, turn west to see the grasslands, get back to the southwest in time for sunset at baisha beach, turn around to see the natural gas fires at chuhuo after sunset, back to kenting for dinner. our haphazard methods had worked well enough so far. we could do no wrong.



the ride northeast went higher into the hills. sharp turns with mountains off in the distance and steep dropoffs perilously close. wind rushing past, cars and trucks appearing out of nowhere, construction workers chewing betel nut shouting at the foreign girl driving the scooter and the foreign guy clinging to the back. the ride was exciting for me, with no responsibilities, with no means to do anything about anything anyway.

at the highest point of the road, we could see the ocean again and what looked to be a huge fort at the top of a hill. as we descended down, barbed wire fences appeared on the right hand side of the road. i remember thinking, if we should crash, i hope we steer off to the left because a face full of barbed wire would ruin our day. fortunately, no such crash happened here. instead, we stopped at one of the most amazing beaches i've ever seen.



is it a beach if it doesn't have sand? whatever you call it, it was full of perfectly smooth, dark gray stones, perfect for skipping if they were the right size. the waves were crashing in as they were at the southern point, but here you could wade out a bit without fear of having your legs sliced by sharp rocks and coral. everywhere i looked were these perfect little stones.



further down the beach, we climbed out onto some bigger rocks and found some golden rays of late afternoon sunshine. it looked like the end of the world lay just beyond the horizon.

in my greed, i picked up at least five rocks to take back with me from this beautiful beach. we got back on the scooter and continued south. within a few minutes, we could see the sand dunes at gangzai beach and pulled over for a look here as well. i do like sand dunes but i couldn't ignore the ocean. i walked some way and found a big tree limb stripped smooth of all its bark sticking out of the sand.



i lay on it with my feet on the ground as if on a bench press and stared up into the sky. the moon was already out and there was maybe half an hour of daylight left. even little rocks cast long shadows. there was no way we could have made it through the rest of our itinerary, but it didn't matter.

leaving that beach, we knew there wasn't much daylight left and although amanda had done a superb job driving all day, neither of us were very comfortable with driving at night. we headed for chuhuo, skipping the places in between. as the sun was setting, the air became colder and the wind seemed to pick up. the sharp turns were unsettling enough in broad daylight. we had to go even slower around them now. we came down out of the hills and the sun had already set. bugs had started to come out and were pelting amanda in the face. no sign of chuhuo yet. we pulled over, some way outside of hengchun, thinking we ought to be near chuhuo. amanda had to blink and clear out all the bugs that had hit her eyes. after figuring out where we thought we were, we got back on the scooter and started off again.

and this is where we crashed.

winter break trip part 1

my adventure in south taiwan began with a seven hour train ride from taipei to kaohsiung. i bought my train ticket the day before and showed up an hour early at taipei main station to catch the second slowest class train in taiwan. for less than $25US, i was on my way to the south.

kaohsiung:

seven hours later, with not much happening in between, i arrived in kaohsiung and met up with amanda, who had been in town long enough to book us a room and get what sounded like a painful chinese massage. my first impression of kaohsiung was that it was a sparser, slower city than taipei. the weather was nice and cool, the skies were clear, and i congratulated myself on deciding not to take a raincoat or a sweater. we got back to the room, i set down my bags, and off we went again in search of dinner. after much wandering around, we found our way to the liuhe night market (六合夜市). i was starving from the train ride and ate like a glutton. among the things i had were:

spicy crab claws
bbq squid balls with eel sauce
potato cheese filled bread
kiwi yogurt smoothie

we also played a carnival game where i impressively shot a whole bunch of balloons with a pellet gun, missing only one shot. for our display of skill, we were each rewarded with a small keychain led light.

after the night market, we went looking for more sights. we spent an excessive amount of effort in search of love pier only to find ourselves on a dark street somewhere near fisherman's wharf at the last stop of the mrt. eventually, we made our way back to central park. a little walk led us to a labyrinth in the making, a rock climbing wall, and a jungle gym set. the rock climbing wall was conquered, the jungle gym scaled, and the labyrinth escaped.

kenting:

we caught a bus to kenting the next day. it was a two and a half hour ride, passing by what i thought to be fish farms, rice fields, and plantations, before driving alongside the ocean. the weather was beautiful, warm, and clear, a much welcome change from the beginnings of winter in taipei. the air was unexpectedly crisp and fresh, not much hint of salt in it and not the slightest bit sticky feeling.

we got off the bus a little past the main part of kenting town, found a hotel for about $1000NT/night that also rented us a scooter for $300NT/day with minimal hassle because amanda had a new zealand motorcycle license and was able to complete a driving test that put the woman renting us the scooter at ease. almost immediately, we set out on the scooter with no particular plan of action and found ourselves at the entrance to a path towards the southernmost point of taiwan.





the coastline here is treacherous with waves crashing onto what looked like a fossilized coral reef. not really prepared for this, amanda and i walked out onto it anyway. the nooks and crannies proved to be good hiding spots for little crabs and fish while the sharp points proved cumbersome for my delicate feet.

after going out as far out on the reef as reason would allow, the rest of the afternoon was spent in search of food again. four o'clock in the afternoon, being too late for lunch and too early for dinner, is not a very good time to try to find food in kenting. the first place we found served us the worst food i've had in taiwan in three months. a dish of "fish sausages" covered in mayonnaise with a little bit of rice came out while the chowmian i ordered never appeared, despite patiently waiting for almost twenty minutes. this pathetic dish also cost almost three times as much as a decent lunch at the school cafeteria. still hungry, we found a nice thai food restaurant where we had a decent meal of bbq shrimp and curry beef.

kenting doesn't really start to come alive until after sunset. after our late lunch, we sat out on the the second story patio of our hotel room reading and enjoying the fresh air as the kenting night market started to perform it's daily assembly ritual on the street below. about an hour after sunset, the night market was in full swing and a steady stream of tour buses seemed to be dropping off one busload of students after another. a line of junior high students four blocks long walked past our patio towards the main part of town, giving us reason to believe that this was the right time to find dinner. among the things i had this time were:

mulberry yogurt
stinky tofu
nougat candies
roasted corn

the stinky tofu was exceptional. i'm no connoisseur, but it was the best dish of stinky tofu i've had in taiwan this time around. it had a nice texture and good flavor without being overpowering.

after getting our fill at the night market, we went a little way out of town to try to find a street side bar. it wasn't open, but a little further along, drawn by the sounds of some lovely jazz music, we found a set of stairs down to a beachside bar in front of caesar park resort. the beach here was more inviting than the southern point, sandy with waves slowly rolling in. under a clear sky with a half moon, we drank a few coronas feeling incredibly fortunate for being here.

reflections on this year

right around this time last year, i was sitting in a laundromat on a bright, clear, chilly afternoon in colorado waiting for my laundry to finish drying. the year before that, i was in my brand new car driving a hundred miles an hour through the desert in west texas. at any of those moments, i would have never believed the previous year that that was where i would be, and so it is again this year. how i ended up here is very much the same way i arrived at those moments: on a whim, with sheer hope, and blind confidence.

in a few short days, i'll be twenty eight, a disgusting age as one friend described it, and once again, i have the opportunity to go off, on a whim, and travel somewhere for a week, as my semester has finally finished. my first plan proved impossible. my backup plan is no plan at all, simply get to kenting. i don't know what's there. i don't know what the weather is like. i don't know what it will cost. and as a new feature this year, i don't speak the language. i hope tomorrow i'll know a little more about it.

fall in taipei has been beautiful, but short-lived. in that time, i've managed to let my studies slide and enjoy the city and enjoy the freedom of being a student without work. i realized today that the last time i was unemployed was nine years ago and that i had done five years of school while working. no wonder i had worn myself out. i suppose i should be thankful that houston and austin weren't any more attractive or else i'd have been a dropout for sure.

i've had quite the odyssey this year. really for the last several years. who knows when it began? am i in control or just along for the ride? i have no idea where i'll be next year, physically, spiritually, but wherever it is, this moment will be a hard act to follow.

fall in taipei

the days have really started to fly by. fall has arrived in taipei and it's been surprisingly lovely. a few days ago i went out sightseeing on a sunny afternoon to the confucius temple near yuanshan station. it was a quiet, green space and having gone on a weekday, there were only a few other people there.





a little way down the street was the livelier baoan temple. here there were many more people visiting the gods, carrying sticks of burning incense. i wish i knew more about the traditions in visiting these temples. i only know that you're supposed to enter from the right door and walk counterclockwise.

i've started to try more of the restaurants around my studio. i had my first slice of pizza in taipei yesterday at a restaurant nearby. not bad. better than the spaghetti i've had here. my appetite continues to get better, especially now that i've started to swim more. i'm happy that i've been able to resume some of the routine i had while still in houston.

there's one more month left of the fall term with a one week break before the winter term starts. i'm pretty satisfied with how my chinese is going. i've noticed within the last two weeks or so that things are just starting to click. yesterday i was in a taxi and after going the wrong way a bit, i explained to the driver that we wanted to go in the other direction. speaking was the easy part and i did it without hesitation, but when he replied, i didn't really catch it all. luckily amanda was able to figure out what he was trying to say. listening and understanding are the slowest things in coming, but i can definitely tell that i've made some progress. kung fu club has been pretty good too. i've learned how to say a few useful words related to body parts, but haven't learned the characters for them.

this week has been pretty good for firsts. tomorrow i'll be going to my first club in taipei for a halloween party being thrown by the ntu school of management. i still haven't bought a costume, but neither have my friends. i'm not sure how late i'll stay as the last mrt train leaves at midnight, but in any case, it ought to be a fun night out. i missed out on halloween last year, so maybe i ought to make up for it tomorrow...

feeling better

i've had a much better time this week after getting over my chest cold. i've started to pick up my routine of swimming again. my appetite has also started to come back so that my lunch at the cafeteria is about $45NT instead of $29NT. i didn't notice it at the time, but i'm really surprised at how little i was eating.

last weekend i took a day trip with amanda to beitou to check out some hot springs. it was really nice and relaxing. we found a hot spring where you could stay as long as you wanted for $40NT. they had several pools of different temperatures with the hottest being 45C and the coldest being 20C i think. after that, we went to xindian to see a performance where her roommate/landlord issac was performing. it turns out that issac is the street performer i saw a while back who performs with the ring. the show also included a live band and a clown, who thought it would be funny to take some guy's big umbrella (it was drizzling that night), give him a tiny umbrella, and hand me the big umbrella to hold (although i had a raincoat on) until he was done with his performance. the show ended with three performers dancing and doing some stunts with fire.



afterwards, issac and his wife magda invited us to dinner at a vegetarian restaurant with many of the performers from the show. i don't remember all the dishes, but one that i really enjoyed was called 三杯素肉 (sanbei surou). i also sat next to the clown who had given me the big umbrella to hold, hahaha.

this week we had our midterm for chinese class. i half-heartedly studied for a day and a half before concluding that i was already well prepared for the test. i spent most of the night before the midterm making my first mashup with the lite version of ableton live i have, doing grizzly bear vs. cypress hill. i also made a cheap video with a picture of gizmo so that i could upload it to youtube. after finishing it, i was laughing so much that i thought i had lost my mind.

the midterm was okay and there weren't any surprises on it. i think many of my classmates were also a bit worried at first before realizing that it wouldn't be so hard.

the next day, our class had a day trip to 華陶窯 (huataoyao), a garden and ceramic studio, and 北埔 (beipu), a hakka village. it was my first time getting out of taipei since i've been here. i brought a book thinking i'd read to pass the time on the bus trip, but instead we had a tour guide who talked pretty much the whole way, keeping us entertained by playing bingo. i won a little key chain in the shape of taiwan with a map of all the counties on it. the bus ride was nice. looking out at all the green hills along the way, i couldn't help but miss my car a little bit. i would love to take a springtime road trip here.



華陶窯 was such a beautiful place. we learned a little bit about how they make their ceramics and were able to play with some clay ourselves. i was surprised when they told us that they would fire our clay pieces and mail them to us. a lot of the students made some really creative pieces. i saw a piece shaped like a toilet. i'm not sure if he intends to use it as a cup...

after 華陶窯, we went to a place in 北埔 to make our own 擂茶 (leicha), a traditional hakka tea. we were given a big bowl with sesame seeds and some other nuts to grind as part of making our tea. we had no idea about this at first, so we started to eat the nuts, thinking they were snacks to go with the tea. after eating some, we learned what the bowl was for and that there was a contest amongst all the students to see who could grind the bowl the fastest. our table tried very hard but somehow it didn't really work out for us. still, the tea we made was drinkable. later on, i was able to taste a properly prepared 擂茶 from a vendor on the street.

what a nice day. it was good to get out of taipei and even better to get out of class.

getting lost

the weather was very nice today for the first time in about a week. instead of eating the cafeteria food, my classmates and i bought some lunch boxes and sat at the field behind the main library to enjoy the weather.

following that, i went home for a little rest and then took a nice walk this afternoon. when i say walk, maybe trek might be more accurate, at least by my standards. i made my way to daan park for the first time today. it's a very nice place, reminding me of hermann park back home, in that it's this big quiet place in the middle of the busy city. some people were playing croquet, others were just out for a stroll. it would have been a nice day to fly a kite. there's a little pond and an amphitheatre with a view of taipei 101 from the top of a small hill. the walk from the south end to the north end was probably around twenty minutes.

after leaving the park, i headed west down xinyi rd. towards yongkang st., where both din tai fung and the lamian place are at. i got there a little early, around 4:30, so i bummed around the small park there and took some time to write a postcard. i had my dinner at the lamian place. the food is delicious and i thought i would treat myself after being sick all week.

after that, i started walking back through daan park towards school for my kung fu class this evening. i came out of daan park at a different spot and ended up going the wrong way. i walked all the way to national taiwan normal university, before realizing my mistake. fortunately, mrt guting station was close by and i was able to get to taida from there. in all, i think i walked close to 6km this afternoon. not too bad i guess.

our kung fu club is pretty small, with maybe 5-7 people showing up at any particular meeting. i did the best i could although i'm not completely over my cold yet. i learned another stance, two new sets, and another section for the liu he quan set. i wish i could remember all the names in chinese, but it's slow going. the sounds don't map to anything i can see in my head. i know 馬步 is the horse stance, simply because i know the word for horse. 弓步 is the bow stance, and then the other two i don't remember the names yet.

i've also found out that the club isn't free but has a very affordable fee. $300 for the club, plus $250 for pants, and $300 for shoes, for a grand total of $850NT (about $26USD). pretty good i think.

it's been a long day. time to get some rest.

mid-autumn festival

it's been two weeks since my last post. in the meantime, school is going along pretty nicely. we're about halfway through the quarter and starting to do more conversation in class. we're also starting to learn more interesting sentence patterns besides "i am..." and "i like..." and "i want...". as we learn these new patterns, i'm tempted to think of how i would say something in english and then try to do a direct mapping into chinese with the usual result being that the way i'm saying something is entirely too complex. the pattern seems to be omission where possible.

the rock band club has kind of been a bust. they seem more focused on guitar lessons than getting bands together. besides that, i found out that they don't have any dedicated practice rooms available, at least for new members. instead, i've been playing drums in one of two practice rooms which are open to all students. the first time i played, the drumset i sat at was the most pitiful one i've ever seen. the next week, the staff put new heads on and replaced the crumbling cymbals with new ones. i played on them for about an hour last week while someone in the next room was practicing their flute. hope i'm not making enemies...

i've also joined one of several kung fu clubs here with my classmate amanda. the style we're learning is northern shaolin long fist (長拳) which includes qin na (擒拿). we meet on monday and friday from 6:30pm to 9:30pm. we do a lot of good stretches for maybe 30 mins before we get into the main session. the main session so far seems to be sets of punches, kicks, then learning a section of a long set of movements named liu he quan (六合拳). when i showed up on monday, the class started doing some of this set and i couldn't really keep up. however, on friday, we were given more detailed instruction on the first movements for the set. finally, at the end of class, we learn some 擒拿 techniques or some two person fight drills. i've learned two ways for taking someone's wrist and putting them on the ground. i've also learned three two-person block and attack sets. i'm really enjoying the meetings. it's a lot of fun, good exercise, and a nice way to make new friends. many of the members are electrical engineering students, so at least i can chat with them a little bit about that.

besides clubs and school, the mid-autumn festival (中秋節) was yesterday. i spent yesterday and today staying home, trying not to aggravate the chest cold i have. the weather is starting to cool off and it's been raining lightly for the last two days. i also experienced a minor tremor last night. i was sitting at my desk when i felt the building start to swing around. the best way i can describe it would be like being on a small boat in light chop. at first i couldn't tell if the building was moving or if i was just going to collapse suddenly.

what else? that's been about all the excitement i've had so far. i've done the first extension of my visitor visa so that i'm good until the end of the quarter. after that, i'll need to extend it again until the end of the winter quarter. i'm still looking to take a trip outside of taipei one of these weekends. my language school is having a field trip in two weeks, although i don't remember where to.

that's it for now. until next time.