Mountains 101

The mountains have been calling our names!  We finally experienced them in a very unlikely spot, Taipei - the  nation's bustling capital.

James promised he would post about his substitute teaching experience so I will keep my fingers from typing anything more!  I enjoyed observing classes and look forward to teaching, especially my 7 year old class.

A disclaimer before I really start this blog: I plan to keep this blog honest.  With adventure comes it's struggles.  Often times adventure is not glamorous, however, it always involves the unknown.  An adventurer must always be prepared for highs and lows and pretty much a wide range of experience and emotions.  I am keeping this blog honest because - 1. I am an honest person.  2.  A few friends were ready to quit their jobs and move to a foreign country to teach English.  I want to paint a real pictures and not only share the stories of rainbows and butterflies.  3.  I want everyone to understand why the next time you see James and I that we are changed individuals.  There is no way anyone can return home from an adventure the same! :)

So, after James finished subbing his last class on Friday evening we packed and left on a train to Taipei.  We planned to stay at the recommended hotel by our school through the following Friday when our teacher training ended.  We arrived in Taipei around 10pm.  We exit the train and go to the incredibly awesome MRT station in Taipei.  A foreigner sees we are a bit confused and offers his help.  He's from Michigan and has lived in Taipei teaching for a few years.  I just rolled my eyes.  Ohh...another person from Michigan.  You Michiganders are EVERYWHERE!!!!!!

We arrived safe and sound at our hotel.  We were hungry so we searched for food and came back to our room around midnight.  One problem...there are small cockroaches all over the walls.  GROSS!!!!!!!! The whole hotel was pretty nasty and as most of you know, we stay at hostels all the time so we are pretty lenient about where we stay.  Confession...we slept with the lights on.  I think we both got about 2 hours of sleep.  Why would this be the recommended hotel?  We don't understand this one. At 6am we were out the door calling every hotel and hostel in Taipei in our guide book.  The cities here are more crowded with visitors on the weekends so most places are booked.  We finally found a room that was twice as much as our cockroach hotel but we would have paid 10x as much to get out of there.  We grabbed our bags and headed to the new hotel!  Success and relief!!!!!!!!!

Later than anticipated, we headed to Yangmingshan National Park.  Taipei is awesome for public transportation! We walked to the train station and hopped on a bus that took us straight to the National Park in less than 40 minutes.  Riding through Taipei made me fall in love with the city quickly.  There are tons of well-maintained green parks.  The city streets are kept clean.  A 25 mile (one-way) cycling and running path runs along the clean river that divides the city.  There are signs for the public transportation in English!  Several locals speak English and they don't stare at the foreigners because there are foreigners everywhere.

The park was gorgeous.  The pictures do not do it justice.  The mountains are all GREEN!  The park is quite large so it would have taken a week to cover all the trails.  Walking towards the visitor center, a Taiwanese man offered his help.  Of course, he had like 5 English maps of the park just so he could help people out.  We asked him his favorite trail.  He suggested the trail to the highest peak in the park at 1120 meters.  The Rockwells can't turn down a challenge so we started up the 2.4k trail of stairs.

Stairs?  So the forests here are so thick that cutting a trail ain't so easy.  Also, to avoid switchbacks, the trail makers use stone stairs.  Apparently, a lot of the hiking in Taiwan is stairs so don't challenge either of us to a stair stepping contest when we get home.  We will be pros by then!  We headed us the steep, slick stairs.  The 2.4k took us one hour to reach the peak with no resting.  On the way up, we were literally surrounded by beautiful butterflies on numerous occasions.  The first time I giggled like a school girl.  James loved it.

From the peak, we were supposed to be to be able to see for miles.  However, a thick misty fog came over the mountain so we could not see much.  Ohh well!  We headed down to another area of the park with a swinging bridge and a milk pond (the sulfur makes the pond look like milk).  The views cleared up a bit by then and we could see the Taipei 101 building.  It's by far the tallest building in Taipei standing at no other than 101 stories.

View near the peak

What the view from the peak in supposed to look like...

What the view from the peak actually looked liked!

The sweaty Americans at the peak!!!

Our trip to the other side of the mountain into a valley

Swinging Bridge in the valley

This video will give you a good view of the park.  I did not know that James was recording so I am walking really slowly and being funny :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSYJJzuAwbI&feature=youtu.be

After a long hike back to the visitor's center, we headed back to the hotel.  Dinner turned out to be eventful. Every place was closing by 8pm.  This is common in Taiwan for restaurants to close much earlier than at home and also to be closed on Sundays.  James found a place called "Veggiejoy."  By the way, there are tons of vegetarian and vegan restaurants in Taipei!  I memorized the Chinese character for vegetarian and vegan.  Now James acts like I can read Chinese and asks me to read other things...Anyways, we went to Veggiejoy and an athletic American man with his 7 year old son were the only people there.  The boy helped us order since the menu was only in Chinese and he is bilingual.  The man offered for us to sit and eat with him.  James commented on his shirt that was for a Taiwan Trail Race.  Can I say instant friends?  The man runs ultras all the time in Taiwan and gave James the scoop.  In the mean time, I thought his son was so nice and polite that I asked him to be our tour guide for Sunday.  He would have if his dad wouldn't of reminded him he had dance lessons in the morning.  Ohh... and the man is not from Michigan!

We received a much better night's sleep.  I had a breakdown on the way to catch the bus to Yangmingshan National Park.  We could not find a place I wanted food to eat for breakfast.  Since it was Sunday none of the traditional markets were open so we could have fresh fruit.  I kept getting more hungry and we were wasting time.  I whined about how everything is so hard here...blah blah blah.  I am learning patience here and that 7/11 has some great food to fill you up for a healthy breakfast for relatively cheap.  We did a good job to thrash our calfs a little more today.  I can barely walk down steps right now they are so sore.   We rode the park's bus around the park and got off at one of the last stops to check out the other side of the park.  Apparently the hike was too easy for us so we decided to take the path that had this sign:

Climbing up the rope was actually pretty cool.  It took us about 30 minutes to do about .5k.  Wow...  once we were closer to the peak it turned into an overgrown trail.  Can you say spiders, insects, and snakes ohh my! It was time to turn around and make our way back down this mess.  We were defeated by the trail today but we will be back when we are more prepared :)

This picture gives the treacherous climb no justice :)

Another area in the park we hiked to

We start our teacher training tomorrow.  Wish us luck!  We look forward to many vegetarian dinners this week in all of the restaurants that have been recommended to us and taking runs to the city parks.  Also, we are now in a hostel next to our school's headquarters.  We like it here :)  It's clean, fun and the people are friendly.  Also, I look forward to doing a bit of shopping here to complete my work wardrobe for teaching.  The clothes in Taipei are priced well and are quite stylish for Taiwan.

As a side note, we were very proud of our day last Thursday in Hsinchu.  We rode the free shuttle towards those green hills we can see from our apartment window.  We went to Green Grass Lake that has a quiet pedestrian designated paved trail around the lake.  It's only a 20 minute ride from our apartment.  Then, later in the day (yes, all this before going to school...I love the teacher's schedule here!), we took another free shuttle to the RT Mart (like a Wal-Mart). We have hope and promise we will figure out Hsinchu at some point this year :)

Running pose at Green Grass Lake...should I submit this to Runner's World? 

One of our fruit obsessions - the mini-banana.  There are 14 different types of bananas.  Who would have thought?!

We are foreigners in a foreign land.

As Moses once said, "I am a foreigner in a foreign land," I know exactly what he means!  It's tough being different.

The last few days have been good!  We have been readjusting to Hsinchu and learning a bit more about the city as well as observing some classes at our schools.  The classes look like fun and involve a lot of games and energy.  James returned home elated from his his observation day.  Maybe he's meant to be a teacher?!  He also returned home with his first Taiwanese haircut.  The guy did pretty good but James does not have as much hair on his head as normal.  It will keep him cooler!

James is actually substituting teaching on Thursday...I mean tomorrow!  Eek!  The teacher he has been observing at his school had a medical emergency and the school could not find subs to cover all of his classes.  Prayers for James please for confidence and authority :)

Today, Wednesday, is the Dragon Boat Festival.  Schools and government employees recognize today as a holiday.  We were adventurous and took a bus to the coast of Hsinchu to partake in the festivities.  The Taiwanese race crew boats that look like dragons.  We watched the foreigner teams compete at noon.  One of the teams was named "The Foreign Devils."  Then, we rented bikes and road the 17km bike path down the coast and crossed three rainbow bridges.  First of all, the rental bikes were terribly uncomfortable after about 10km.  Somehow, James had a great ability to ride a road bike!  We rode the full 34km on the bikes.  Our bums will most likely be bruised tomorrow!  Sorry we don't have any pictures but the camera battery died as soon as we arrived.  I figured no one would believe James rode a road bike that far and now we have no evidence to prove it except our word....

Here's a couple of pictures from online from the Hsinchu races

Rainbow Bridge

Coastline Bike Trail

So we've been jotting down a few notes about...well about random stuff that we should put in our blog.

• Dogs - The dogs here are way different than the dogs at home.  There are stray dogs everywhere in every city we have been to.  Normally that paints a terrible picture of dogs chasing you while running or begging for your food, etc.  Well, not here.  The dogs are quite similar to the people.  They are super chill and always minding their own business, extremely different from the dogs in the US.  James keeps approaching the dogs with such words as "Hey puppy puppy." The dogs look at him like he is crazy!  You do need to watch your step though...  So far, I've only stepped in it once and James hasn't at all!
• Garbage - The first few days we were here we thought we were hearing ice cream trucks all over the city.  It was not just wishful thinking in the heat.  Rather, it is the garbage truck.  Instead of leaving trash by the curb, the garbage truck plays a musical tone.  People run out to the street and throw their garbage into the truck.  Somehow, I find it amusing to stand at our window and watch people run to street all at once to toss their bags in the truck.  James constantly whistles the musical tone.  I think the garbage truck driver must be either deaf, wear earplugs, or an overly happy individual.  Apparently, James and I are lucky that our landlord takes the trash out for us.  Some of the teachers take their trash to school since they are not at home when the truck drives by. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0C6W_CCI0U - Check out the tunes!
• Beds - The beds here are rock hard.  James said it's like sleeping on a piece of cardboard laid on top of hard ground.  Guess there must be a good market for mattress pads here...
• Q-tips - I believe the Taiwanese population has the cleanest ears in the world.  There are Q-tips everywhere even when other toiletries are not offered.  Every hotel, hostel and the gym has Q-tips available.  Also, the hotels all have a ridiculous amount of "freebies" like shampoo, soap, shower gel, toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, Q-tips, water bottle, razor and condoms.   
• UV Umbrellas - It is quite common for locals to carry an umbrella on hot summer days. Turns out the umbrellas are not meant for rain or even necessarily shade, but they are lined with UV protection.  Why waste money on sunscreen when you could have an umbrella? 
• Awkward times at the gym - Every time I go to the university's gym across the street, it is something awkward always happens.  The first time I entered the pool and everyone was swimming SO slow.  I did my normal swim routine.  While walking back the the locker room, one of the lifeguards who spoke no English got really excited. He started giving me thumbs up and was motioning a fast swim stroke.  I think he thought I was fast...well at least comparatively to the other swimmers around me.  Then one of the other times I go to the pool and there is about 25 college guys having a PE swim class or something.  I asked the lifeguard if I could still swim that spoke a little bit of English.  He walked over and had four guys exit the far left lane.  He told me I was VIP.  Nice! 
• Most Helpful People in the world - The people in Taiwan are above and beyond helpful.  Part of the culture here is to provide the best service possible.  We had a 17 year old girl walk us all the way to the train station once and attempt to help us rent a scooter.  We had another middle school girl talk to the bus driver and translate what bus stop we should use.  We did not even ask these girls to help!  That is only a couple of the many many stories we have of the helpful, nice people here. 
• Taiwan vs College - We have found moving to Taiwan to teach English is quite similar to the beginning of freshman year in college.  You have entered this new and exciting place, however, you really have no idea what is going to happen or what it is going be like although you have been thinking and fantasizing about this place for months.  You are constantly meeting new people.  Everytime you meet someone new you have to wonder if they are going to be one of your new best friends.  Also, you walk everywhere and really don't know how anything works.  You don't know how to ride the buses yet and really you are quite confused in general but everyone seems to want to help you out.  Then, you start classes and think "what in world have I gotten myself into."  
• Safety is not our first concern -  There is virtually no crime in Taiwan.  It's ridiculously amazing.  No one locks their bikes in the middle of big cities!  Shops have an incredible amount of merchandise sitting outside in the "sidewalk" where hundreds of people can walk by in a matter of minutes.  Most amazingly at our favorite vegan restaurant, there are baskets of coins at the cash register.  You get to take your own change for the meal!
• First Raindrops - We had heard that it constantly rains in Taiwan.  We almost made it three weeks without seeing a drop.  On this past sweltering hot Monday morning as James and I were running home from 18 Peaks park, the sky began to open up.  It reminded me of when you want to cry really badly. Everything keeps building up inside of you. Finally, one day you just burst into tears and then you feel much better.  I think the rain has been building up with all the heat and the sky finally burst!
• 104.7 The Fish saves our sanity - If you go to www.thefishatlanta.com, you can listen to the radio live from your computer.  I have been obsessed with Kevin and Taylor in the morning on this station for years.  This has kept us sane while being in the apartment.  It's so nice to hear constant perfect English.  The TV has Chinese commercials on the few English channels.... 
• Male English Teachers who stay in Taiwan  - We have found that a decent portion of the single male English teachers marry a Taiwanese lady, stay in Taiwan and start a family.  A fair amount of them never learn much Chinese.  Just thought that was pretty neat! 

James #2

It is Sunday afternoon, 3:15pm and I am sitting in our apartment enjoying the air conditioning.  We have a wall unit air conditioner that does a good job, but I think it uses a lot of electricity.  We have the luxury of seeing our electricity meter every time we go in or out of the building so we are always thinking about the electric bill.  We have tried to open the windows and use a fan, but its just not comfortable.  We haven't been cold in weeks!

Anyways, guess I can write about the last few days and what is coming ahead.  I think the last post got us to Wednesday while we were still in Kenting?  I will pick up from there.

We spent Wednesday afternoon at the prettiest beach we had found during our stay in Kenting.  We brought a few books and rented an umbrella & chairs from the beach vendor.  It was a very nice, relaxing way to spend our last afternoon in the southern tip of Taiwan.  We read, played in the water a bit, and took a few pictures.

Two women came and talked to us, asking where we were from, etc.  She was originally from Taiwan but now lives in Ohio.  Her English was perfect and she informed us that this particular beach was the location of the final scene in "Life of Pi" where the tiger walked from the boat in to the forest.  That explains why there was the "Life of Pi" boat/tiger replica up near the beachside bar.  Kinda cool.  We hung out till the sun began setting then drove (or scooted?) back to our hostel.

We, of course, went back to our favorite restaurant for dinner.  Our friend Darren (the fruit guy from Michigan) met us there and he came barring gifts.  He brought two Abiu for us to take home (weren't ripe yet) and - to my pleasant surprise - some Durian for us to try!  The durian season is just starting and this was the first one Darren saw in Taiwan.   Perfect timing!  It smelled like onions, kinda bad onions, but tasted amazing.  Sweet and creamy, just like a dessert, unlike any fruit I have had before.  Rachel didn't like it as much as I did, but she thinks it was o.k.  We bid farewell to our friend Darren and went back to our hostel for the evening.

Thursday morning we went for a run, ate a bunch of fruit, and took a cab back to Kaohsiung.  Kaohsiung was just so-so, we probably should have just gone all the way back to Hsinchu from Kenting, but we made the most of it.  We grabbed some lunch at a restaurant near the hotel then borrowed the free bikes from our hotel.  We rode to check out two different vegan restaurants we found online (planning ahead for dinner) and did more touring of the city.

After a few hours of riding we went back to the Buddhist vegan restaurant and created a commotion just trying to order food.  The wait staff eventually got an English speaking person on the phone to act as the interpreter for us.  Always creating a ruckus, Rachel and I...  The food was ok and the people were extremely accommodating.  Friday morning we did an easy workout in Central Park before catching the 11:00 train back to Hsinchu.  I love travelling by train!  So comfortable, so easy.

It has been nice being back in Hsinchu, it now feels like our Taiwan home.  Saturday was a big day: It was Rachels birthday (29 yrs old!), we had to be to Rachel's school to observe a lesson demonstration (basically a sales meeting for the students teachers), and had social plans for lunch afterwards.  We found a Facebook group "Hsinchu Foodies" where they discuss different restaurants, etc and meet up for meals every now and again.  We met at a pretty hip vegetarian restaurant and there were about 12-14 of us.  Was nice hanging out with a bunch of English speaking people and making new friends.  We got a lot of good information about living in Taiwan / Hsinchu that makes us confident things will be getting easier with time.  Back at our apartment I put together a BIG salad for Ray Rays birthday dinner.  I am probably the greatest husband ever.

That brings us to today.  We got up early, did separate workouts, then took a cab to a 9:30 English speaking church service.  We had high hopes to take a bus, but quickly realized we have no idea how the bus system works.  At all.  We will be going to the Foreigner Assistance Center first thing tomorrow morning to get the bus routes in English.  The church was nice and extremely welcoming.  There were about 75 people at the service comprised of about 50/50 Taiwanese / Caucasian.  We had so many people introducing themselves to us, giving us their contact information saying to call if we needed help with anything.   We stayed after and spoke to a few people more in-depth and exchanging contact info.  One girl we met has lived here 4 years and does a bunch of running and triathlon races around Taiwan.  I think we will be getting along just fine ;-)  It has been great meeting with other people and having the opportunity to make friendships here in Taiwan.

So this past week has been MUCH better than the week before.  I have been looking forward to getting in to a schedule, having commitments, and meeting other people.  Our schedules should be full from this point moving forward as we have a week of classroom observation at each of our schools, a week of training in Taipei the week after, and real work beginning the week after that.  We should have our ARC (Alien Residency Card) in the next few weeks too so will be able to purchase a scooter.  We are EXTREMELY (can't stress that enough) excited to get a scooter as that will open up the opportunity to explore more of the areas surrounding us.  We are like 5 miles from the coast and we haven't even seen it yet.  And all the people we keep meeting tell us about all these great spots around us, just too far to walk.  Learning the bus schedule will help but getting the scooter will be huge.

This is the type of scooter I have my eye on.  150cc, windshield, trunk
mounted box, and backrests on both seats.  Good for
Rock n Ray travellin!  

I think that is all I have to ramble about for now.  Hope everyone is doing great back home!!!

Southern Sun

We have changed from being solar powered to shade powered!  Apparently the 'feels like' temperature reached about 115 degrees here yesterday.  Wow!

We look like we belong on Baywatch now with our tan skin even though we were forced to avoid the afternoon sun due to fear of being terribly fried.  Just to show how Taiwan is the opposite of the US, we found "whitening cream" for your skin at the store.....

It has been a few days since we have blogged because we have been enjoying the southern peninsula.  We are looking forward to starting our jobs and having a set schedule.  We feel refreshed and ready to go!

Sunday Evening-

Dinner at our favorite spot - Organic Salad with passion fruit juice dressing

Flaxseed with Organic Veggies and Rice

Fresh Organic Beet Juice

We went to the HUGE Sunday Night Market.  James played a carnival game to try to win me a Hello Kitty stuffed animal but apparently the game was much harder than it looked.  We had our first whiffs of stinky tofu.  It was very offensive and I am not sure how anyone could eat it.

Nice Try James!!!!!

We enjoyed another Buckhead Church message.  It's so great that we can watch church online to help us out while we are traveling.  We are looking forward to attending an English service on Sunday morning in Hsinchu.

Monday -

We did a run at Sheding Nature Park.  I was pretty scared of snakes and spiders but we did not see any...  We went through these crazy gorges. The walls of the gorges are coral.  The park is known for the large amount of butterflies and deer.  No deer sighting but quite a few butterflies and another monkey! Rachel had her first scooter lesson in the parking lot and received an A+ from James.

After avoiding the afternoon sun again, we did a walk down the Eastern coast line in Jialeshuei.  It was completely awesome and gorgeous as expected.  We avoided paying to go on the Chinese tour bus however we could not figure out which pieces of coral are supposedly shaped like animals!

Of course we ate dinner at our favorite restaurant, New Century.  There was a curious foreigner who came in the night before.  He spoke with us this time.  He's in his early thirties and from outside of Detroit.  Figures!  Everyone is from Michigan!  He has lived in different parts of Asia for about 11 years.  He is friends with the restaurant owner and she lets him buy organic fruits and veggies from her and use her kitchen to cook.  Sounds like a great setup to me!  Interestingly, he claims to be a hermit and has not spoken that much English in quite some time.  We enjoyed getting to know him better.  His knowledge of the fruit in Asia is phenomenal.

Tuesday -

Seriously in my opinion, snorkeling at Syunguangzuei Beach has been the best part of the trip.  We were surrounded by turquoise waters, brightly colored fish and coral.  We kept quoting the line from the movie Napoleon Dynamite, "Picture yourself surrounded by seahorses..."  We pretty much took every piece of gear the lady at the shop offered us to rent.  We wore these stylish leotards, goggles, flippers and a lifevest.  It only cost $10 USD/person for as long as you wanted to keep the gear.  We came back to shore for some water and a break.  I desperately wanted to feel more free so I dropped the flippers and lifevest.  I felt much better.  Amazingly James dropped the lifevest.  He can swim with flippers on!  It's a miracle! Too bad we did not have an underwater camera for this...  Also, I have a whole new respect for scuba divers.  There is NO way I would want to explore the ocean more than snorkeling.

Stylin'!

Rental Shop - The showers afterwards were perfect!

James said this is a picture of what we saw while snorkeling :)

The bay where we snorkeled

It sounds a bit creepy, but we met up with our new Detroit friend to jump on the only trampoline in the Kenting area that evening.  It was pretty fun and interesting to get to know him better.  For those of you that have read "Born to Run," we have nicknamed him Caballo Blanco.

Wednesday -

We completed the hottest run of either of our lives this morning.  I had nightmares about snakes attacking us in the woods last night sooooooo we decided to run the roads.  We had people take pictures of us, received some thumbs ups as well as a few honks!

That's about it for now!  We plan to enjoy a relaxing afternoon at the beach, eat our last dinner at our favorite restaurant in the world (beside my mom's kitchen!), head back to Kaohsiung tomorrow for another run at Monkey Mountain and a romantic evening at Love River, and then back to Hsinchu on Friday.

We have a friend that says "Everyday you should do at least one thing that scares you."  I am now making up for all those days that I did not.... This is definitely an adventure!!!  Love y'all!

Formosa - Beautiful Island

When the Portuguese discovered Taiwan in the 16th century, they named the island Formosa meaning beautiful island.  Today, James and I truly saw why they chose this name.  We experienced the famous beauty of the east coast.  Scenery that rivals with the most beautiful places I have ever seen - Wanaka, New Zealand, the Swiss Alps and the view from the summit of Mt Cascade in Banff.  I feel as though as I should just stop the blog there for this post but I will share the rest of the past two days. 

We took a VERY wild taxi ride with four other travelers from Kaohsiung to Kenting.  James and I were in the very back with sweaty hands and pale faces.  The bus ride (which will be taking back) takes about 3 hours.  The taxi took less than an hour and a half.  

We arrived at our hostel, the Surf Shack, by mid-afternoon.  The Surf Shack is owned by a Canadian surfer, Terry, who moved to Taiwan to teach English and married a local, Ee.  Ee speaks great English and has been quite helpful.  Since she was dressed like an American, I was finally able to ask someone why all of the Taiwanese women are always wearing so many clothes even though it is boiling hot outside.  The women wear all of the clothing so their skin won't tan.  I have been wearing shirts over my sundresses and leggings under my sundresses because I have felt so out-of-place and it is not comfortable!

We rented a scooter for the trip.  I am so glad that James has a motorcycle license.  He knew how to drive the scooter and follow the crazy driving rules immediately with no fear.  (James just said he was a little nervous at first.  For the record)  So we hopped right on and checked out some of the beaches before the sun went down about 7pm.  Side note: Have I mentioned the sun rises here at 5am and sets at 7pm?  James kept saying that we are like Clint and Laura riding on a scooter :) I got a coconut juice at one of the beaches which is a coconut (they are growing everywhere hear) with a hole in the top for a straw.  Delicious! The beaches are gorgeous.  The gray rock in many of the pictures is coral.  The island was formed by coral being pushed out of the ocean to create mountains.  Pretty wild. 

First look at the ocean.  Coral on the sandy beaches.  Life of Pi replica boat and tiger (this movie was filmed in Taiwan by a Taiwanese director).  Our hostel. 

                                                   

The whole area is much less crowded than the cities but very touristy.  We have seen a variety of nationalities here.  A lot of the prices are much higher than what we have seen so far.  There are tour buses everywhere.  The main tourist season will be starting in a couple of weeks so I am glad we are here now.  

Today was a jammed packed day.  We really get around with that scooter!!  We started the day with a long walk around Kenting Forest Recreation Area.  There are paved/stone paths that lead around the park.  You can not leave the main path because the forest is very dense with trees and scary living things.  I think half of the plants here will eat you alive!  We have some cool pictures and a video.  I was so scared in that cave!  Overall the park felt like Disneyworld.  It felt almost like this fake world made to walk around for a while and then go to the next area.  Only thing is that this is real!  As we entered the park, there were signs for the poisonous snakes and wasps.  Did I sign a waiver for that with my admission fee?  Of course within 20 steps this huge bug flies at James and he dodges it.  It runs smack into my shoulder and then flies away!  I think it left a bruise on me.  After we got over the shock, we were laughing so hard we couldn't walk.  I guess I have my mom's special luck of being attacked by animals!  We met a few people from a large tour group from San Diego who are touring the whole island of Taiwan.  I also saw a very large snake slither across the path...eek!!!!!!!!!!!!  We saw one monkey and a bunch of bats that are the stars of the video below. 

                                 

Some crazy trees

                                 

The view from a tower in the park

http://youtu.be/W-Nt_0nVRZU - Bats in the Cave

We were at the park for a few hours and left starving!  We went to the pricey food strip by the beach and picked a Chinese place...figures.  After communicating with the nice waiter that we were vegetarian (we finally said it right in Chinese!!!!!), he created a custom meal for us!  We have come such a long way in our communication skills.  

                                   

Custom Made Fresh Veggies with cold noodles

Next, we decided to head towards the southern most tip of Taiwan and just stop where we saw tour buses along the way.  It lead us to some pretty neat and pretty places.  We went to this lighthouse park, Eluanbi Park.  Then, we went to the southern most tip of Tawain which was pretty darn crowded but fun none-the-less.  Our legs were getting pretty tired by this point...

People jumping off the Chuanfan Rock (Don't worry mom...I won't be doing this)

The lighthouse

The Southern Most Tip of Taiwan 

http://youtu.be/CaiuK-9V3k4 - Attack of the Bugs!

As soon as we left here, the scenery completed changed because we were officially on  the east coast of Taiwan.  We pulled over where we saw some tour buses and were wowed.  Turquoise water touching lush green mountainous cliffs?!  Is this possible and real?!  We found some non-crowded beaches that we plan to return to one day this coming week.  We watched a few of the surfers at one of the beaches.  

Then, we headed back for a much needed shower and dinner.  We made a quick stop at the Chuhuo Nature Fire.  The fire has not stopped burning for thousands of years due to it being above natural gas in the ground.  The fire was smaller than we expected and a local was cooking potatoes, eggs and popcorn over the fire and selling it.  A bit odd.  We resisted the urge to buy any of his food. 

The Chuhuo Nature Fire

Ee really seems to understand James and I.  We asked her about the local vegan/vegetarian restaurants.  She told us about one that is a dream come true!  A Buddhist monk greeted us at the door which is a good sign.  The Buddhist monks eat vegan and basically exactly how we eat.  They had an English menu and we wanted everything on the menu.  Everything is organic.  Words cannot explain how delicious our food was and how excited we were to find this place.  We plan to eat there for every dinner while we stay in Kenting. 

Well, since I never posted this last night I can give the scoop on surfing this morning.  Terry picked us up in a van with surf boards this morning.  He drove us to a not-well-known surf spot on the east coast.  After giving us a quick lesson on how to get up on our boards in the sand, we went into the turquoise waters.  Terry would hold onto the back of our boards, then tell us when the wave was coming and yell out "Paddle, paddle, paddle, stand up!"  The first hour of surfing seemed a bit brutal.  Neither of us made much progress.  We would stand up and then fall.  I had one very wobbly surf for about two seconds.  I discovered that getting up on my knees and holding the wave was much easier!  After an hour of being attacked by waves, we took a ten minute or so break on the sand.  The second attempt went great for James (figures...).  He could stand up and ride the small waves.  **James Edit: The waves I rode were huge.  Just huge**  I think I was exhausted by then and mostly enjoyed hanging out on my board in the water looking for more waves to come in.  We decided we had enough being attacked by waves and took a walk along the beach and watched the others surfers for a while.  We could not have picked a more gorgeous place to learn how to surf.  I am a bit thankful we accidentally left the camera at home.  I would hate to have pictures and videos of my continuous wipe outs!  Besides a couple of pink sunburned body parts and a couple of scrapes on the knees, we came out alive and are glad we somewhat attempted and learned the sport of surfing. 

We're hanging out inside for the afternoon to give our bodies, skin, and minds a break.  This is a vacation so aren't we supposed to relax?  That's not the Rockwell style.  However, being out in the sun all day when south of the Tropic of Cancer will fry your skin.  Terry laughed at our 30 SPF and gave us some 130 SPF (not joking) to wear surfing.  We are planning to stay here until Thursday or Friday before heading home to Hsinchu.  We still have a handful of activities we would like to do and a few more dishes we would like to try at our most favorite restaurant of all time before leaving.  

Also, a special thanks to everyone for the nice emails, blog comments, etc.  It makes me feel as though we are not so far away.  It also makes me stronger when we get frustrated or homesick.  However, everyday gets easier.  I am looking forward to having a set weekly teaching schedule so I can sign up for Chinese classes.  I need to learn a few more words and phrases just to get by here!  

There was an earthquake today in central Taiwan.  Some other people at the hostel said they could feel it and pointed out the the water in a clear jug was moving.  James and I did not feel anything.  I don't know anything else about the earthquake, damage, etc. currently.