Here’s the video of the fireworks from the Taipei 101 in Taiwan! Enjoy!

Our little road trip adventure starting on Thursday night. Amanda taught till about 9 pm after which we took a bus back to the dorm. We quickly went for dinner at an Taiwan Aboriginal restaurant just down the street. I had sweet and sour chicken with rice and of course a Taiwan Beer. The rest had a spicy noodle soup. We left early from the restaurant, packed up the last of our things and headed to the bus stop for midnight.

We took the Aloha bus line which would take us down to Kaohsiung (the 2nd largest city in Taiwan…about 1.2 million people). This bus was kick ass. Picture vibrating Lazy-Boy sofa’s with your own TV and video games. We stayed up for about an hour playing video games and then tried to get a few winks. We were woken up just after 3 am and were told to get off the bus. We weren’t really sure where we were but were assured that it was Kaohsiung. The city was quiet so we found the closest hotel we could find.

Low and behold it was right across the street. Asking the front desk lady how much, she indicated $800 NT (about $25). Why not right? Well for future reference to people traveling - the more you pay for a hotel room, the better (and cleaner) the hotel room. It wasn’t too bad. The bed was rock hard, the comforter was dirty, plus you could see “hairs” underneath the sheets. I quickly put it to the back of my mind. We took out a sleeping bag and used it as a comforter instead of the dirty one and went to bed.

The view from the hotel room window in the morning was a pleasant surprise. To the left, you could see the street, but to the right, you saw broken concrete and wires. Not the best of views. We headed downstairs and grabbed a pamphlet from the front desk of tourist attractions in Kaohsiung. We decided to head to Lotus Lake. We found the train station a few blocks from the hotel room and a short train ride and taxi ride later we were at our destination.

Lotus Lake is a small lake surrounded by pagodas. We walked along the lake, visiting various pagodas. It’s amazing all the small details that were put into some of the sculptures. We also each got a fortune from a machine. It’s all in Chinese so I can’t really tell you what it said.

After walking around for a bit, we headed back to the train station. We wanted to head to the pier. After talking to information at the train station she informed us to take this bus which would take us there. A 1/2 hour later the bus dropped us off at the opposite side of city to where we wanted to go! We finally got on the right bus and found the pier.

In order to get the island, you have to take a 5 minute ferry ride ($10 NT) across the pier. At the bottom of this ferry, people would take their scooters and at the top were seats for normal passengers. At this time in was nearing sunset. Like Taipei, it is smoggy here. So smoggy that everything in the distant is just a blur.

After getting to the island, we walked through a little market. There they were selling all kinds of crap (as per usual), plus all the local seafood you could think of. There Amanda made friends with a pot belly pig. Most likely to be used for food someday, it was more then willing to receive a belly rub.

After walking through the market for a while and looking at a few temples, we decided to make our way back to the hotel. On our way back, we were trying to find a place to eat dinner. For nearly 2 hours we walked the streets, but couldn’t really find anything except for side vendors who were either selling squid, chicken heads, or things I couldn’t really tell what they were. We finally headed back to the train station where there was a Starbucks. We each grabbed sandwich and then headed back to the dirty hotel room for the night.
…more to come

As nobody has to work on the Monday (New Years Day) we decided to take a little scooter ride to the Shihmen Reservoir. As everybody slept in from the night before, we didn’t really take off till about 3 pm. Like home, it gets dark at about 5 pm and so after the hour scooter ride (after take a wrong turn) we only had about an hour of light before it got dark.

On the way, Amanda took a few pictures from the back of a scooter. What’s interesting is that the Taiwanese people (maybe Chinese as well) bury their dead in the side of mountains. Amanda says that once a year there’s a holiday where it is custom to go into these burial sites and clean them.

Once at the Shihmen Reservoir we took a boat ride which cost $100 NT ($3). This boat ride took you throughout the Reservoir and took about 1/2 hour. The boats they have there are pretty shady. They kind of looked like they have been doing the same tour for the past 40 years. By the time we got back it was pretty much dark already. We quickly walked up some stairs to a statue, and then grabbed some coffee’s from a local vendor (bottom right of the pic).

On the way back to the dorm, we got calls that some other people from the dorm had found a T.G.I.F.’s. I guess having been in Taiwan for so long, everybody WANTED to go there badly. To me it didn’t matter, as I could easily get that kind of food at home anytime. After a little searching, we finally found it. I had some delicious ribs while the others had fajitas.

Amanda had to work Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and I joined her for class on Tuesday and Thursday. On the Tuesday class we took a bus - $15 NT ($0.50) each to downtown Taoyuan. From there looked at some temples and grabbed a Starbucks and took another bus to her school. This school is kind of in a shotty neighbourhood. Well, at least I think so. Actually most of Taoyuan looks like a shotty neighbourhood if I think about it. It was fun to go watch her teach. These kids are super cute and its neat to hear them speak english. It was alot of repetition over and over again. They learn words and then repeat them. They also learn hand movements with words (it’s called something but I forget). I guess it helps them learn it?

The rest of the week was just spent hanging out at the dorm, and walking around the area. For breakfast (ok by the time we were up it was lunch already) we would walk to the local coffee shop at the corner by the dorm. There you could order egg and bacon sandwiches (which included cucumber in it..go figure), dam bing - which is kind of like an egg filled crepe (didn’t really enjoy it too much) and glorious coffee. The coffee from this shop was different. It was made with liquid sugar (fructose I think the bottle said) as well as condensed milk I think. Whatever the case, it was delicious and the coffee shop was frequented every morning.

…the adventure continues

I’m back! Words cannot describe the fantastic time I had in Taiwan. There’s many stories to tell. And over the next several weeks, I’ll try to get explain some of them in detail.

The first album that’s been updated is New Year’s Eve in Taipei. We took a bus into Taipei and then took the MRT in Taipei to a Thai restaurant we were heading too. The MRT is crazy - but in a good way. Everything works like a well oiled machine. You pay, get your ticket, get on the MRT, get off, put your ticket into the machine and your done. Simple. I should have taken some pictures of the crowds. I can imagine it being like that everyday.

Oh I forgot to mention, you can drink everywhere. You buy beer at the local convenience store (7-Eleven is on every 2nd corner), and then drink it where ever you like. And the beers are huge. There are normal cans at some stores, but most sell the big 900 mL cans. How sweet is that!

After working are way through the crowd and stopping for a pee at the Grand Hyatt, we finally sat down in a street. By this time, it was the best place to sit as the crowds were packed. Fireworks were constantly going off everywhere. Most of the time they were lit in the middle of the street where everybody was. Imagine the chaos back home if somebody did that?

After the fireworks were over, (I’ll try to post a video later) we ventured away from our spot. Now where Amanda lives is about a 1/2 hour drive from where we were on a good day. The only way to get home is by taxi or by train. We decided against the train as there were already 600,000 other people doing the same thing. So we walked for a little while, flagged down a cab, and 45 minutes later were were home.

Oh and the cabs. Most of them don’t care. They weave in and out of traffic. If you’re in their way, you better stop cause they aren’t stopping for nobody, especially pedestrians. There was a couple of times in the trip where I would start walking across the road only to get honked at and almost ran over.

There’s still more to come. Stay tuned.

-Matty

Hey everybody

Just wanted to say a quick hello from Tauyaun City Taiwan. The trip was long. Too long. For anybody that’s coming here, my suggestion would be to take a flight from Vancouver.Basically from San Francisco, you fly all the way back up the west coast anyway. It was a 14 hour flight from San Fran with a packed plane (about 90% Asian). I got maybe 2hours sleep, if that. It was only a quick 45 minute layover in Hong Kong and then just a quick hour and a half hop to Taipei.

And of course when I get to the airplane, Amanda isn’t there. So I wait around for a bit to see if she shows up. About 45 minutes later, I finally ask to borrow a phone from the informaton desk to call her. “Apparently” she looked up my flight # from San Fran and it said that it was cancelled. So after about and hour and a half she finally showed up!

New Years Eve was spent in the main city of Taipei with over a million people jam packed into downtown to watch the fireworks from the world largest building - the Taipei 101. It was nuts. I have a video on my camera of the fireworks to which I’ll put on later when I get back.

I will definately have more stories to tell later. I’m borrowing her dorm neighbour Brandon’s laptop while they’re both out working for a few more hours. Yesterday I sat in on Amanda’s Kindi class while she taught for just over an hour. These kids are cute. Hearing them speaking English and playing games was an enjoyment to watch. After class they would come over to you and play with you. Didn’t matter who you were, they just were laughing and smiling all the time.

Well I should get going. The plan is to leave on Thursday night for Kenting. It’s about a 5 hour bus ride to Kauhshing (The 2nd largest city in Taiwan) and then another 2 hour or so bus ride to Kenting. As we leave at midnight, we can easily sleep through the night and have the whole day ahead of us when we get there.

Take care.

-Matty