Travelin’ band

I’m playin in a…. wha! wha! Listening to CCR, in case you couldn’t tell. Well, it’s July 4 and I’m sore. Yesterday Josh and I climbed Wuoliaojian mountain, which we both concurred was the hardest thing both of us have ever done, physically. It wasn’t the typical neverending stairway type trail that we’re used to. It was straight vertical in many places, with ropes and in a few lucky spots, footholds. I have a serious fear of heights, and a distinct lack of upper-body strength, so it was definitely a challenge. But, I made it to the top. And afterwards I felt like I, well, really challenged myself. Anyway, it was super super hard, especially with the heat and humidity. When we got to the bottom we drank two giant bottles of water and gatorade-like beverage, and then some. Now I hurt all over, but looking at the pictures, I want to do it again some time.

Last weekend we made it down to Kenting, the national park at the southernmost tip of Taiwan. Thanks to the High Speed Rail and a speedy bus we were lounging on BaiSha (white sand) beach in about 4 hours. We paid 300NT for a beach umbrella with some chairs, cracked a few beers and spent all damn day relaxing, swimming, napping, sipping beverages and having the best day ever. Around 8 pm the beach emptied out and we set up our tent, then made our way over to the gleaming blue light of the best beach bar ever, where we paid about 400NT for a bunch of drinks and a dinner of vegetable noodles, plus some more pijiou generously shared with us by some Taiwanese businessmen gettin’ funky. We had left all our stuff on the beach with our tent, and at one point Josh asked “do you think our stuff is okay?” to which I replied “if this was anywhere other than Taiwan I might actually be worried about that.” And of course our stuff was fine. Basically no crime, camp anywhere, drink anywhere, friendly pijiou-sharing people, an aversion to tanning resulting in uncrowded beautiful beaches. Yeah, I’m really going to miss Taiwan.

I’m happy and sad we only have about 4 weeks until our contracts are up. But my overriding feeling is definitely excitement to be done teaching and looking forward to a month off with visits from friends and Josh’s family and more adventures, Taiwan-style.

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