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.