training camp

today after class, i attended the first day of kung fu training camp. most university students have finished their classes, so they were able to start at 8:30 this morning. i had to arrive after lunch because i have class for the next two weeks. when i arrived, we spent most of the afternoon doing some serious stretching. there was a whole set of stretches which required a partner. one that i did had me standing with my back to a wall while my partner slowly lifted my straightened leg to about an inch above my shoulder. most of the stretches were for a count of thirty and each count was probably about five seconds. my friend and i were wondering what we had done to deserve such punishment. maybe an hour or more afterward, we started something like our normal set at ntu. i noticed i was able to kick much much higher.

i left around 6 with my friend henry. he gave me a ride home on his scooter. i'm still a little wary of the things after my last scooter riding experience. now henry is a pretty calm soft spoken guy, but i've been led to believe that anyone who regularly rides a scooter drives crazier than a bank robber in a getaway. i've also been led to believe that people from kaohsiung are especially crazy. henry is from kaohsiung.

within seconds of pulling onto the street, we were tailgating a bus, about three feet behind it. coming to the first red light, henry steered into the oncoming traffic lane, passed three slowing buses, and pulled back in to the right side of the road stopping at the box marked for scooters. another exciting maneuver was trying to beat a semi through a right turn with the semi to our left and parked cars to the right. henry decided to let the semi go first, but not before squeezing far enough ahead that i could spread my arms and touch both the semi and the parked car. another new experience on the ride was that my eyes teared up, maybe because my eyes were being blasted with air pollution.

well, all's well that ends well. i made it home, had some dinner, and finished my homework. tomorrow is day two of the training camp. looking forward to it.

happy anniversary

i have a spare moment, and i'm too excited to wait... two days from now will be the one year anniversary of the last day i was a gainfully employed contestant in the corporate rat race. how to celebrate?

in recent days, the weather's been a little better, but i'm not sure where all the time goes. i haven't been out in taipei that much. i haven't been reading too much. swimming maybe... laying around daydreaming... i played pool for the first time in taipei last saturday. i won about $200NT that day. today i played again and lost about $80NT. not that i like gambling or anything. my classmates like to play for $10NT a game, which doesn't seem like much, until i realized each game was going faster and faster. i'm not in any hurry to play again. besides being stingy, the two places we went to have ten years of cigarette smoke hanging around in them, despite taipei being a no smoking city.

in a couple weeks, i'll have finished my second term studying chinese and will have a nice three week vacation in february. for the time being i'm not planning anything too ambitious. i'm planning to do a nice trip after i'm done studying. i just hope it won't turn out like last year in colorado where i was too tired to do anything except get home. maybe what's different this time is that there's not really any home to go back to.

i've been listening to a lot of new order lately. it takes me back almost ten years. i've been thinking about how i got here from there. some people are still in my life. others are long gone. still more i've just met. where will i be in another ten years? busy, busy, busy.

anyway, 2010 is off to a different start than 2009. no major plans. things aren't rapidly becoming worse, they're already pretty bad, hahaha. the only thing to do is finish what i started last year. maybe think about 2011...

pace of life

it's a saturday evening. as i write this, i'm eating seaweed and sea salt seasoned potato chips for the first time. they're quite delicious. i had a very late breakfast/lunch so i suppose these will suffice for my dinner.

i spent the last hour and a half in the library reading vonnegut's "slaughterhouse five". before that, i made a trip to taipei 101 to buy this book along with an english translation of "dream of the red chamber". in total, i spent almost $30US, about the same as what my chinese textbooks for a term cost.

i recently learned that taipei 101 is no longer the world's tallest building, dwarfed by some building, whose name i've forgotten, in dubai. i've also learned that the sears tower in chicago is no longer named the sears tower, having been renamed as if it were a sports stadium. so, perhaps names aren't really important.

we finally had a break from the rain in taipei today. the afternoon sky was bright blue. my clothes which had been hanging on the clothesline all week finished drying today. i've been living here for some five months now, yet i continue to see new things in places i would think should be pretty familiar by now. there's an apartment building on the next block with a not so interesting entrance which has trees growing on the roof. i just noticed them this evening. as i was walking down the alley, i noticed that somewhere there is a family who loves eating curry for dinner. i smell it at least twice a week. i also know there is a family somewhere, probably on the third floor of a building, who plays mahjong on the balcony after dinner, if i judge the sound of mixing tiles right.

i'm still surprised by how i feel at home here in a sea of people i can barely communicate with. yet, we humans are resourceful things. i managed to have a very nice haircut using broken chinese and hand gestures to describe what i wanted. my teacher has been teaching without using english all month. yesterday, i had lunch with my classmate and spoke continuous, if not always correct, chinese for almost an hour. i was practicing kung fu by myself this week and find i can't keep count unless i count in chinese.

not many exciting things going on. instead, life seems to be moving inch by inch, unnoticeable until i look at some substantial stretch of time and see i've done quite a lot here. it feels like just the right pace.

happy new year

happy new year!

it's been an exciting ride. i started my blogging project exactly one year ago on the floor of a tiny studio in colorado springs. one year later, i'm in an even smaller studio on the other side of the earth, but at least i have furniture now. i'm very thankful for the family and friends who have supported me, especially this last year. 2009 has been fantastic, but it had the potential to be disastrous. so, to whoever is reading this, and to many more who aren't, thank you.

i spent the last evening of 2009 in the warmth of my apartment, watching the fireworks at taipei 101 on tv instead of watching them in person. maybe this sounds lazy... it was. i don't regret it. out of all the places i've lived over the last few years, this one has really started to feel like home. maybe because i no longer have a true home in texas anymore. maybe i haven't had a true home in years.... now i no longer have a true house in texas either.

although this will be my home for the next eight months or so, in recent days i've started to think about what comes next. after being out of work, every day doing exactly what you want for the better part of a year, how do you fit yourself back into that monstrous machine of the 40-hour work week?

who knows? maybe it's not as bad as i remember it. maybe with a little bit more wisdom now, i'll be able to find some harmonious balance between work and real life. i hope such a thing exists.

winter break trip part 4

we sat for a few more minutes on the side of the road. most everyone had left, but i noticed there was a woman and a man a little ways in the distance sort of keeping an eye on us in case we passed out or something like that. it was decided that amanda was in no shape, physically or mentally, to drive, so it was up to me to get us back. i had lost one of my contacts during the crash, but fortunately, my eyeglasses were in my bag and still in one piece.

i tested out the scooter a bit by myself, getting comfortable with it and making sure the lights and brakes were working, then amanda got on and we were off. for the first few minutes i was shivering uncontrollably. i'm not sure if it was the cooler night air, the shock from our accident, or both. getting back to kenting was pretty straightforward. as soon as we got near though, there were a lot more hazards... like people walking on the side of the road, cars and scooters pulling out, buses passing by us. at one point, i had a big bus on my left, an old man half an arm's length to my right, and a stopped car fifty yards in front of us. i had to speed up to pass the bus, praying the old man wouldn't move at all and that my spatial sense was accurate enough to keep us from colliding with anything.

we got back and sat on the balcony recounting the accident and the other details of the day, sort of reassuring ourselves that everything was okay. we had a good dinner at another thai food restaurant and turned in early.

the next morning, we checked out of our hotel, ate breakfast, and went down to the nearby chateau resort beach. it was a nice sandy beach, much like the one where we had beers two nights before. amanda pointed out and caught a few ghost crabs, so named because their shells are transparent. she told me one of her colleagues at academica sineca was renowned for having devised an effective trap for catching these guys. however, she clearly demonstrated bare hands and tenacity were really all that was needed.

after the beach, we went back towards our hotel and arranged to catch a bus to donggang, a town famous for its seafood. an hour and a half later, we got off the bus near the center of donggang. the town was only mentioned in passing in my guidebook, and as such, we had no maps to navigate by. we spent about thirty minutes searching for a street that was supposed to have a lot of seafood restaurants on it. later we found out it was pretty close to where the bus had dropped us off.

we walked into the first open restaurant we found at about 1:30. much like kenting, there didn't seem to be a lot of restaurant business outside of normal eating hours. the one we went into looked pretty nice, but had only one other table with people eating. i asked about their bluefin tuna sashimi and found out it cost an incredible $2000NT for seven pieces. instead, the waitress recommend we have some other sashimi, shrimp fried rice, and crabs, all of which were delicious. the shrimp fried rice is a specialty of this town. after our lunch, we found a visitor center that was selling pouches of these little shrimp as souvenirs.

we weren't in any hurry to get back on another bus, so we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around donggang. we went to a handful of interesting temples. the second one we went to was donglong temple, famous for its boat-burning ceremony as part of an offering to ask for the protection of the fisherman of the town.





it was a really nice place and full of life. what surprises me is how these temples are at once places full of tradition and yet firmly rooted in the daily activities of the town. just outside the entrance of the temple hung an led message board, scrolling what i guessed to be a calendar of upcoming events. meanwhile, between the temple and the main gate, a work crew was busy setting up a stage and testing a sound system in preparation for a concert. inside the temple, people were busy visiting each god and leaving burning sticks of incense. it was a nice place to rest a little until we were scared away by a hostile taiwanese man chewing betel nut, upset that i couldn't speak chinese or taiwanese.





we continued in a circle, hoping to see more sights before returning back to the bus station to arrange to get to kaohsiung. by the river we saw another temple, named dongxi temple, brilliantly lit by the setting sun. inside was a lot more peaceful and was a nice way to end our temple visiting after the encounter at donglong temple. we got a little lost on the way back, walking along roads that didn't seem very heavily frequented by visitors. on the way, we passed by a big set of the mysterious fish farms we had seen on the bus rides before. determined to find out what they were, i followed amanda into one where she asked the farmer what was in the ponds. it turns out that these ponds aren't fish farms but shrimp farms, one of which was the previous home of the shrimp we had for lunch that day.

we were a bit worn out from walking around all afternoon carrying all our bags, but we made it back to the bus station and arranged a ride to kaohsiung. after arriving in kaohsiung, we had a quick dinner at mos burger before getting on a train to tainan.

winter break trip part 3

what i remember was that the scooter motor sounded uncharacteristically loud as we started off. as we got onto the road, we started violently twisting from one side to another. i didn't panic, i didn't freeze, but i remember feeling as though this wasn't really happening to me, instead that i was watching this unfold not knowing if i should be laughing or holding my breath.

the soundtrack came back, the motor sounded loudly again, and the scooter took off without us on it. i don't remember the feeling of my head hitting the ground so much as i remember the sound of the helmet. it wasn't a thud, or a crack. it was high pitched, hollow, short, a pathetic sound for such a dramatic moment. my head bounced off the ground a little bit before falling back down. i rested there in the road on my back, arms at my side, legs out front for an instant before i sat straight up like some kind of reanimated zombie, thinking out loud, "we've got to get off this road."

amanda was off to my right, a little in front of me, in a daze but awake. i stood up surprisingly easily, went over to her, and said calmly but repeatedly, "we've got to get off this road." as soon as i saw her start to stand up, and maybe a bit too early, i grabbed her arms over her head and started to pull her to the side of the road. i remember seeing her half crab walk thinking, "why doesn't she stand up and walk normally?" not realizing i had her by the arms so that she couldn't stand up unless i pulled her up or let go of her.

we got off the road and i sat down on the grass. the effort had exhausted me. i lay down on my back for a moment, and when i looked up again, i saw amanda out in the road again struggling to get the scooter off to the side all by herself. i watched with horror, but had no energy to get up and do anything, only able to shout something like, "just leave it there!" fortunately by then, traffic had stopped on both sides. she came back with the scooter, but our bags had fallen out of the storage compartment and were still in the road. i lay back down again thinking, "all these people have stopped, surely someone will fetch our stuff out of the road."

and here, some of these people who had stopped came over to us, shouting in chinese, trying to tell if we were alright. the helmet saved my head, but i had flung it off as soon as i got off the road. not having a helmet on, and wearing jeans that had two huge holes in the knee, i think the man who was shouting at me thought i must be in terrible shape. i had scratches on my knuckles and a bruise on my lower right leg, but beyond that i was fine as far as i could tell. "還好還好!" i told him.

amanda got the worst of it. she had a scraped and bruised left knee, scrapes on her left arm, and a hole on her right elbow that was bleeding profusely. she had already soaked one wet wipe in blood. soon, the ambulance came. we both agreed neither of us wanted a ride to the hospital. even more worrisome was the arrival of the police. we weren't entirely sure how legal it was for us to be riding a rented scooter without a taiwanese driving license.

in the ambulance, the paramedics cleaned the wound on her elbow and bandaged her. the paramedics didn't seem to need to do much else, so i told them we didn't need a ride to the hospital. simple enough. i thought the police would be more trouble, but the only thing they asked me was who was driving. we gave them our names and passport numbers and told them we were okay. they checked to see if the scooter would still start. it did. after that, everyone left as quickly as they arrived and we were alone on the side of the road once more.

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.