I’ve lost count of the days.

Today was a good day.  :)

Started off the morning at the Taroko Gorge.  We strapped on our safety helmets and walked around for about an hour.  The view was beautiful and awesome.  We were surrounded by tall lush mountains and marble rocks – in between, the Liwu (sp?) river sliced through.  As I was standing there, I was able to just marvel at God’s beautiful creation.  I’m not one to like the forest/wilderness but standing there and just taking it all in – it was beautiful and amazing.  The photos from the camera do not capture the beauty of the place.  It was nice.  I was also able to drink some iced coffee made from the mountain spring water.  It tasted normal.  Ha.

Oh yes, prior to that, a couple somehow got their important things (I’m assuming passports) stuck in the safe deposit box in the hotel.  They couldn’t get it open forever.  Finally they did – I’m assuming the hotel has a way to mass “reset” “reboot” it.

Anyway, then we had lunch at some restaurant.  This was a better lunch than most places.  The fried dumpling (guo tieh?) was the best I’ve tasted.  We also had seafood salad, chinese hamburger, green onion pancake, shrimp spinach soup, drunken chicken, fish, asparagus, watermelon, and pumpkin taro mochi.

Then we were off to shop at a bunch of little dessert/goodie shops – mostly mochi, pineapple cake (popular from Taiwan), and various candies.  I saw a shop and was able to get a 2nd boba of the trip.  However, I was so freaking full I couldn’t drink it all.  It wasn’t as good as 50-lan.  However, it was so freaking cheap.  It was the size of a large in the states and it was less than $1.  Crazy.

Hopped on a train to head to the hotel.  Hotel Royal Chiao Hsi.  This has been the best hotel so far.  This hotel is so freaking cool and it’s so pretty.  It’s got 4 outdoor hot springs where you have to get naked – that I did not participate it.  It’s got a water therapy pool, jacuzzi, and swimming pool area.  Doctor Fish – have you heard of that before?  I got the dead skin eaten off my feet by fish…lol.  Sounds nasty.  I was so afraid to put my feet into the water.  And it was so unbearable that I couldn’t leave my feet in for more than 10 seconds at the beginning.  It felt so weird having fish biting you!!  And it was so freaking ticklish I almost died.  Finally, after awhile and many tries, I was able to leave my feet in.

Oh yeah, talk about weight loss problems.  So, I hadn’t tried on my swimsuit in a long time because I don’t really go swimming because I don’t like water.  So when I put it on so we could go to the pool/jacuzzi, I realized that it didn’t fit because it was too big.  Fail.  And so the only alternative was a sports bra I had.  I have never worn anything besides a tankini top before.  It was the first time I ever just wore a sports bra out.  It was weird and I was so self conscious.  Plus that part of my body is like a totally different person’s body because the color is so different lol.

Anyway, back to the hotel.  It has 3 ping pong tables, 2 pool tables, foosball, all these computers, reading areas with bean bags, and more.  It’s gym is pretty nice and you can even rent gym shoes lol in case you forgot yours.  And each room says what time it was disinfected!!!  Crazy.  Today, I would have actually been able to use the gym but I after the first day in Taipei, we had to only bring 4 days of clothes for the tour part and so I didn’t bring any gym clothes.

Dinner – I was weary about having a dinner buffet.  I don’t really like buffets that much in general so I was already not really excited about it.  Turns out this is one of the best buffets I have had.  The reason why it was good was not only because the food tasted good but that they had so many different kinds of fancy things in small portions.  It was high quality food in small portions so you could get a taste.  They had escargot in brandy sauce, hainan chicken, rib eye steak, sashimi, lamb in red wine sauce, fish mousse with green tea jelly (I didn’t try this), and so much more.  The fruit was good, the dessert was fancy, and all around a great experience.

Now I am really sleepy.  The end.

Oh yes.  Observation:  Taiwan has a lot of random steps everywhere, sometimes down and sometimes up, I almost ate it – only 3 times.  :)

Yeah, I need to work on my titles.

Every night at dinner, I want to pass out.  I get so tired and then start feeling sick.  That happened again today, but I got a second wind which is how I am still awake right now.  I also stepped and almost slipped on someone’s vomit.  It was so disgusting and then the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to throw up.  ::gag:: literally.

Anyhow.

I am now realizing that most of this tour is visiting the indigenous tribes of Taiwan.  Normally, I would actually find learning and hearing about these cultures quite interesting, but since I can’t understand half the things people are saying – it is less interesting.

Our first stop this morning was for about 10 minutes at the Tropic of Cancer.  Nothing too exciting to look at.  Snapped a few pictures.  Done.

Fataan Wetland in Hualien (I think)
This was our next stop where we learned about the Amis people.  These people are quite interesting as they are a matriarchal society, where women dominate.  Men get married off, not women.  If the guy goes and gets married, and him and his wife have a lot of kids, but they don’t have any girls, the wife can force a divorce. The way the guy finds out is actually quite interesting.  Every night, when the man sleeps, he puts up his sword somewhere.  If the woman decides to “divorce” him or kick him out, she will wrap all his belongings and his sword and toss it outside the front door.  If the man wakes up and sees that his sword is gone, he knows that he has been kicked out.

We spent some time learning about how they fish, which they create some crazy contraption made out of bamboo, sticks, and some leaves.  They just leave it in the water and they can catch 3 kinds of creatures.  One section will catch fish without scales, one with scales, and one for shrimp and other smaller animals.

The village they live in also contains tons and tons of different plants – reminded me of the hunger games.  The lady knows all the different plants there are and which ones can be eaten and which ones can’t.  We ate a meal with a lot of these random veggies that grow only in that village.  I didn’t know what half the stuff was.  All of the vegetables we ate were picked fresh that morning from the village.  They don’t go to the “supermarket”.

Then we also got to “make” mochi.  They had a gigantic mortar and pestle and we got to take turns pounding the crap out of some sticky rice.  A dip in some peanut crumb stuff and yum!  They also had a wasabi mayo dip that F. might like.  :)  It looked and sounded strange, but people said it was good!

Taroko National Forest – Taroko Gorge
Our next stop was heading up into the Taroko National Forest.  I had no idea this was the type of tour we were taking!  Another tribe comes from here, I think it is called the Taroko people.  Anyway, we didn’t do too much here today – I think we’re doing more in the morning.  I’m actually staying at a hotel in the forest now.  There are all kinds of crazy creatures here – I haven’t seen too many ones in real life – just the video they showed.  Oh yeah!  The noise of the cicadas here is crazy loud.  It’s so loud!!  I did see a lot of different butterflies and 3 really really large nasty spiders!  Large like the size of my hand large – not kidding.  Tomorrow we will be sporting some helmets and walking around and sightseeing.

There’s a pool and Jacuzzi on the rooftop of this hotel – it’s pretty nice.  The view of the stars is beautiful.   I was just starting up at the stars and was reminded of God’s magnificence and how He is everywhere – even here in Taiwan.  :)

Let’s see – other random things.  There are dogs everywhere!  Most of them have collars and they just chill there.  So calm and harmless.  They don’t even care about the people walking around them.  I have 5 large mosquito bites on my left knee – some mosquito had a field day.  How’s that American blood taste?  I miss hearing and speaking English.  When I see non-asian people, I want to talk to them – but I don’t.  The weather is gross but not as gross as it was when I was in HK and Japan.  You still sweat doing nothing here lol but not as much.  I get to come home with a luggage full of sweaty clothes – gross!

I guess I should sleep now.  Peace.

This is about Day 1.

The plane ride over to Taipei was long.  It was 13 hours and 45 minutes from LAX.  By the time we arrived at the hotel – it was super early, like 6am.  They don’t let you check in until 3pm so we had to kill time, a lot of time. We stayed at Palais de Chine which is in the city right next to the Taipei Railway Station.  We went out to look for some breakfast and mostly everything was closed.  They told us there was a breakfast place nearby so we walked until we found it.  Along the way, we also passed by 85C!  It was tiny and looked nothing like the ones in the states.  I stared at some of the cakes, snapped a picture, and that was that.  Finally we found the taiwanese breakfast place.  We ordered soy milk, milk tea, two buns (meat & veggie), and a sesame flat bread with pork in it.  All that for $5.  It was yummy!!  Then we walked around some more to find something to do but nothing was open.  We saw a mcd so we stepped in to have a look and also stepped in to have a look at starbucks!  Starbucks was pretty much the same but in chinese.  MCD had some different sandwiches but I didn’t study it too much.  Then we started walking back and saw this fried dumpling place and decided we would eat some more!  We had fried curry dumplings, pork dumplings, spicy shrimp wonton like things, and fishball soup.  All very yummy and all super cheap!

To kill more time we went into the Taipei Railway Station.  This place is crazy cool!  It’s a central hub for the train, high speed rail, MRT, and buses.  I guess maybe they have these in the east coast or places where public transportation is more of the norm.  But it’s so neat.  It’s also a bit confusing cause I can’t read anything.  But you can pretty much get any where.  Also, on the 2nd floor is the craziest food court I’ve ever seen – there must be like 50-100 places to eat.  And for those of you who like sweets – my gosh – it’s like sweets galore!  Pastries, cakes, ice cream, donuts, and more desserts.  I was thinking about how cool it would be if Exodus had a place like this to eat lunch…haha.  There’s a whole section of beef noodle soups where there are like 6 shops selling them.  There’s a whole section of curry!  There’s just all kinds of foods and drinks.  Pretty awesome.

After that, we met up with my parent’s old friends and we took the MRT to go eat dim sum.  Things learned – stand on the right side of the escalator if you want to stand and go on the left if you want to walk.  Very organized, unlike the US.  Also, I saw that nearly everyone carried a bag of some sort – doesn’t matter if you’re a guy or girl!

Then, I was pretty much dying of not enough sleep so I had to take a nap.  Then in the evening we met up with my mom’s old friend and we went to some giant shopping center to walk around and eat.  She kept saying we were at Taipei 101 and I didn’t think so.  I STILL don’t think so lol.  It did not say Taipei 101 and it was totally a shopping mall.  We kept asking her if she was sure but then we felt bad cause what do we know?!  But I still don’t think we were there.  =P  After that, we decided to look for the night market/shops but to our surprise, it was closed!!  What the, it was early.

I also had to get my boba.  Turns out the place that F told me to go to, 50-lan was right down the street from the hotel.  Super tiny shop.  I ordered a boba milk tea with half sugar for like $1.20 or something ridiculous like that!!  And man, it was good!!!  I want more.  I’m kind of disappointed because our tour has been on the countryside and I haven’t been getting any boba or street food.  SAD.  :(  Once the tour is over, we’ll be back in Taipei for 1.5 days before I head home.  I told the parentals we must get boba, shaved ice, and go to the night market!!!  Else, I’m going to be very disappointed.  =

I passed out after getting boba.  So tired.

I definitely like the city much more than this countryside touring we’ve been doing for the past 2 days.  I totally wish we had just stayed there!

I’m actually blogging so I can remember things because I know I’m going to forget.

More about today later.

Spent 4.5 hours on a train this morning traveling to the countryside of Taiwan.  Totally didn’t know we were doing that.  I kept asking…uh, where are we going?  What are we doing?  What’s there to see?

Oh…side note.  I woke up this morning with CANKLES.  I am not kidding you.  I’ll post a picture later.  The area around both of my ankles were super itchy this morning because I got bit overnight – at least that’s what I suspect.  Anyway, so then I was looking at my ankles and noticed that they were swollen both on the inside.  Upon further inspection – my right ankle is also swollen on the outside.  They are both pretty swollen which is kind of weird and a bit concerning.  I know my right ankle has been swollen on the outside for awhile because I injured it but I always thought it was weird that it was always the inside that hurt even though it was swollen outside.  Now it’s swollen all over and is really nasty.  Hope it’s nothing serious.  =

Now, where was I?  Countryside of Taiwan.  They like to call it the backyard garden of Taiwan.  It’s filled with crops and greens – not a lot of people or cars.  Our first stop was this old train station I think – we weren’t there very long.  Second stop – wow I can’t even remember now.  Oh, second stop was boring haha – that’s why.  We were at some park or something?  There were mountains and plants?  BORING.  Haha.  Third stop was in Luye, I think.  We went countryside biking.  They showed us these cannon things they made and used to hunt with.  That was kind of neat.  More biking to the “green tunnel” where we laid on our backs in the middle of the street – random.  More biking, ate a mulberry popsicle.  Almost crashed the bicycle because I was trying to take pictures while biking and my bike seat kept falling lower.  I thought that bike was going to break.  Anyway, here we are at the Papagoda Resort.  We just had dinner – it wasn’t very good.  I really need to sleep some now.  I always start feeling sick and then it starts feeling like motion sickness when I don’t get enough sleep.

Yesterday was better, I think I like the city side of Taiwan way better than the countryside.  =P