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At the end of May we were graced with two consecutive days off - thursday and friday, which was very pleasant indeed :-)  Me Simon and two friends got on our scooters and drove in the gorgeous sun with a breeze blowing through our helmets for a couple of hours towards a place called Guanziling.  We found an AWESOME camping spot - down this tiny lane that makes you seem like you’re in a jungle we drove until we saw a tiny green ladder and a rope, and after hauling ourselves up a few metres (obviously laden with the essentials - tent, sleeping bag, cooler filled with beer….) we camped under a climbers overhang. 

Guanziling is famous for its ‘firewater’.  An unusually large amount of natural gas is omitted from the centre of the earth, and if ignited, can keep burning itself.  It is surrounded by a pool of water.  It looks kind of cool, you can see the bubbles come up out of the water, and the the rock in the fire, and at night it was very pretty, however the recreation of it shown in the village using a gas bottle under the water and a lighter makes exactly the same effect….

On the friday we revisited Dave’s waterfall, this time taking swimming stuff with us.  Soooooooo much fun - we swam through the first pool and climbed up the mini waterfall, entering a previously unseen world by us - it was stunning.  The main waterfall was huge, and fell into another absoultely beautiful pool.  Swimming in that pool was immense - the strength of the waterfall caused a wonderful wind, meaning we could finally escape the eternal humidity of Taiwan.  Using a floating umbrella as a bar was also an excellent idea! After many attempts at acrobatics into the water, we drove back after an awesome two days not working.

A few weekends ago we climbed Jade Mountain, aka Mount Yushan, the highest mountain in North-east Asia.  The peak stands at 3952m high.

The mountain is permitted, and the majority of people climb up to a lodge which sits at 3402 on one day, sleep, then ascend the rest of the mountain early morning to catch sunrise.  They then leisurely descend.  Unfortunately the permits worked against the foreigners being allowed to do this on a weekend, and not through lack of trying, however we were left with only one option.  Go up and down in one day.

We camped in the car park outside the main entrance to the area.  Then at the joyful time of 3am we were woken by our alarms.  Packing up the tent in the dark, we set off with food, water and waterproofs up the 45 minute walk to the start of the trailhead.  At about 4.45 we reached the start of the actual trailhead and started the long walk up.

The sunlight quickly lit up the path, although the sun was behind the looming mountain in front of us, so we didn’t get to see the renowned beautiful rise. However, there was a sea of mountains below us, offering a stunning sight in itself.  The path climbed slowly higher and higher, and there was never any possibility of getting lost - the path was clearly carved.  We got to the lodge, had a quick rest stop, then continued on to the summit.

The last part of the trail was definitely the hardest - the path became very steep and although the clouds came rolling in, you could still tell how high you were by how stark the surroundings were.  We had left the lush forests behind and now all there was were rocks and broken shale.  The occasional flower however looked stunning as a beautiful contrast.  At one point in the trail, we had to walk through a cage which had been built to stop the rocks falling on the heads of the hikers.  That was interesting to look above and see what had been blocked from impact! The peak was finally reached, and we were rewarded by an excellent view of white clouds all around us.  The time was just just before 10am.

The descent we did slowly, watching our step and not wanting to fall down the steep mountain slopes.  We made our way back into the land of shrubbery, and then progressed to being surrounded by trees again.  Many people passed us on the way and it’s always nice to be greeted with “hello nice to meet you” in their best english accents. 

At just before 2pm, we reached the start of the trailhead again, a total of under 8 hours in total.  We were greeted by rain, and ambled back getting wet to where we had camped.  Unfortunately, none of us had more than a fractional amount of petrol in our scooters so we half rode, half coasted down the steep mountain roads in the pouring rain.  To add to the drama, thunder and lightening could be heard and seen, and the occasional rock fell warningly into our paths.  We left the mountain as quickly and as safely as we could, with only one person’s scooter succombing to the lack of fuel.  With a mixture of walking, leg pushing each other and a petrol run, we finally all made it to the petrol station, and then a further 2 hour drive home. 

Success!

I booked a day off work, and me and Simon decided to treat ourself to a 3 day weekend in Green Island.  It’s a tiny island on the east coast of Taiwan, nearer to the equator than we are here, which meant it was lovely and warm :-)  By tiny I do mean pretty tiny - we could drive all the way around it on our scooter in about 30 minutes.

We got on an overnight coach late thursday night, which took us to the other side of the island.  Early morning, we boarded our ferry and the rocky seas and sounds of people throwing up wasn’t the best start to the day :-S However we made it safely and were shown to our temporary home.  It was beautiful.

Even though the island is small, there was loads to explore.  We went to see the lighthouse, and thinking we were walking a back way to it, ended up seeing it a lot closer than we were meant to - we got shouted at and had to leave.  Good old “I’m English and stupid” card! The whole island is made from volcanic rock, so some of the shapes of the rocks are pretty awesome, although they have names like “sleeping beauty” and “confucious” which you have to use your imagination A LOT to be able to see! We managed to find two caves that were tiny, but they were interesting to see.

One of the best things we did was go to the hot springs.  They are one of the only 3 naturally occurring salt water hot springs in the world.  Some of the pools were almost right in the sea, and because it was a friday, it was pretty empty.  Me and Si had our own private one, and we made the most of it by staying in there for 2 hours until the sun had gone down.

Another of the best things we did was snorkelling.  We went with a group of Taiwanese people, but quickly we were treated as individuals - the guide didn’t speak English so kind of left us to it - didn’t ask us to wear life jackets, or have to hold on the the group buoy the whole time.  Thank goodness! We went off and saw some amazing fish.  This was all right next to the shore.  The coral was so colourful too.  One fish bit my finger and it actually really hurt!

Talking of fish - the seafood served in the restaurants was very very tasty.  One evening we treated ourself to some, and then a group of Taiwanese people came in the same restaurant and insisted we tried everything they had bought too.  Unfortunately this also included drinking Kaoliang which tastes absolutely disgusting.

Green Island is famous for it’s prisons.  It has one on there now which is still active, and it also has another prison which was used for political prisons in the 1950s, until it closed in 1987.  We were allowed to look inside it, and it was eerie, seeing the cells and things. 

The middle of the island is mountainous and green, and again really beautiful.  One morning we got up ridiculouly early and watched the sunrise.  We also did a hike across the island. It was amazing because lizards kept running across our path, there were so so so many of them!  Unfortunately there were also spider webs crossing our path which we kept walking through.  What made this worse was that we saw a few of these spiders, and they were the biggest ugliest hariest spiders ever - bleurgh! Very scary.

On our last day, we got the ferry back, and then got the train all the way around the island back to our home.  This took about 6 hours, but at least it was daylight most of the time, so we got to see more of the island.

Good holiday

A few weekends ago 7 of us went off on our scooters, and camped at a place called Sun Moon Lake.  It’s a tourist attraction as it is the biggest lake in Taiwan.  It really is beautiful though.  We drove around it once or twice, looking at the scenery and temples.  One temple had a massive gong that you were allowed to whack, that was pretty fun.  Another was really tall and gave a stunning view of the lake.  We decided to avoid to campsites as they were full of taiwanese people, so we found our own campsite which was perfect - just us, a fire and right next to the lakeside.  Beautiful!

We went back to Changhua on Saturday, to see the parade go through there again.  I’m so glad we did, it was the best evening ever.  As it was the last time they were going through Changhua, the festivities were a lot lot bigger than the previous week.  The amount of people crowded on the streets was insane.  What was more insane, was the fireworks.

Firecrackers and firework boxes literally lined the street, and when walking past a temple or nearing any of the temple parades, you have to be wary incase a sudden BANG BANG BANG goes off and you’re in the midst of a firecracker explosion.  The parades themselves were pretty cool, there were people dressed up in God costumes, some of whom threw sweets into the crowd, and there were trucks covered in colourful LEDs, and playing tunes of some sort, or people on them with instruments.  There’s also the occasional truck with a pretty pole dancer girl on the back, singing.  It’s for entertaining the Gods.  Obviously.

The highlight of the whole evening was the display at the intersection we were standing at.  Remember that this happens at every intersection though.  There was a truck, and on the truck were MASSIVE canisters full of fireworks.  There were also the firework boxes all over the floor.  This was all about 8 metres away from the crowd.  When Matzu came through, it started off with a string of fireworks above us being lit, and glowing on the string.  Then the fireworks came.  And boy how they started.  They went on for about 10 whole minutes, and this wasn’t just one after the other, there were so so many going off all at once.  The nose was insanely loud, it was such a rush.  And the colours were so pretty!  It went on and on and on, not only little ones, and firecrackers, but massive massive fireworks that were beautiful.  The best ones I saw were like a fan of fireworks shooting out, leaving trails behind them, making patterns in like a semi-circle shape.  It’s hard to explain, but man it was so awesome!

When it had finally all finished, they lit a massive bundle of firecrackers in the middle of the street.  So loud! And so much smoke!  Mental.  What also struck me as amazing, was that the crowd was so densely packed, with hundreds of people fighting for a tiny amount of space.  But everyone seemed to look after each other in some way - a man next to me kept sayin “don’t worry, we are in Taiwan, not in Iraq” - interesting sentence, i guess he must have noticed me jump at the really loud noises!

Such a fun evening.  Gotta love them fireworks.

Matzu is a goddess of the sea, and in Taiwan (i think because it’s an island), there’s a massive festival that celebrates her.  In our area, a procession is carried around the county for about a week.  People line up in front of the procession in single file crouched on the floor - if she passes over you then you will be blessed.  We went to see it in Changhua in the evening, man it was mental!  There were so many people, and although we tried to queue up to be blessed, the queue went on forever!

The best part was that at any big intersection, they set off a load of fireworks.  The firework boxes are just laying out all over the floor, and suddenly you look down and think “huh, I should probably move soon…” and then all of a sudden they just all go off.  It’s so loud! And so bright!  Absolutely insane.  Ash kept falling on our heads.  Crazy.  Exhilerating though!

A few weekends ago, we went camping by a waterfall - it was great to get away from the pollution of the city.  On our way back we were being shown where a hike was where you can see monkeys, when we found outselvs amongst a massive temple celebrations.  There are temples everywhere in Taiwan, and they are all absolutely stunning, however this one has just been renewed or something, so there were hundreds of people in costumes and dancing.  The strangest and weirdest part, was that some men and a few women, were walking slowly towards the temple, with maces, or swords, or sticks with spikes on, and hitting themselves on their own backs.  It was insane to watch.  They ended up with blood everywhere.  Apparantly they believe that the Gods take over their bodies, so they can’t feel the pain, and they do it to show sacrifice. 

Another weekend we went camping again, in a huge park thing.  We did some hikes, and the paths are made out of logs.  As steps.  So everytime you tread you have to balance on a tree log.  It was fun!  The path goes along a ridge top, and at one point you can see where an earthquake made the path disintegrate and fall down the mountain.  You can see it disappearing.  Thankfully they’ve built a new one.

DAY ONE - got up at ridiculous a.m. and met people in McDonald’s at about 6.  The planned route was over the mountain to the east coast, down to the south, then back up the west coast to where we live.  However, there was news of snow and rain and general freezing cold-wet-ness that maybe would have made it too dangerous, so we decided to follow the good weather and reverse our planned route.  We couldn’t go on the freeway as our little scooters weren’t allowed on it, but that meant we went the scenic route instead.  It was a bit mountainy and we saw a massive resevoir and was general pretty all around.  We met more people on the way, and went in a massive convoy of 9 people on 8 scooters (me and Si were the only ones sharing a scooter, the reason being it’s not that comfy on the back…) to our campsite.  Apparantly we were the first westerners to ever go there.  crazy.  The campsite was lovely though, and after a massive and yummy yet very cheap meal at a restaurant, we made the most of having the place to ourself and drank and played silly games around our campfire.

DAY 2 - We split from some of the others, and 5 of us headed further south.  It was a fairly long drive, but hitting the coastal view was awesome, and before too long we were sitting on the beach with a beer, watching the beautiful beautiful sunset.  Kenting is the farthest southern town on the island, and the day we arrived it was nice and empty.  We wandered through the main street (basically the whole of the town is on one road) had yummy thai then watched loads of people set off fireworks on the beach.

DAY 3 - Woke up, and it was so nice and warm!  We wandered around, then scootered a little bit up the mountain, and drank out of a coconut whilst looking at the view :-)  Did a little walk and saw some nice mini gorges and rock formations, then ate the most tasty sausages ever, whilst stroking the pigs next to the sausage stand :-s We then chilled out on a gorgeous beach for the afternoon.  Heaven.  The evening was hilarious, we went to a place where they give you your own barbeque and meat, and you cook it for yourself.  The funniest part was that we asked the waiter to try and translate the menu for us, so he started performing for us - beef was ‘moo’ lamb he pointed to and started ‘baa-ing’ it was awesome.  The town had suddenly become ridiculously busy, a zillion people had arrived, and the pavement become one way each side of the road.  There were also tents squeezed in between our tents.  I don’t think the Taiwanese have the same issues of personal space as we do.  Anyway, we ended the day by setting off our own fireworks on the beach.  That was ace.

DAY 4 - we found a very rare but spectacular place for breakfast - it served a full english!!! yum yum yum and it was right on the sea with the sun on our backs.  The drive took us up the east coast.  It was stunning - mountains on one side, and the blue crisp sea on the other.  Wow!  Unfortunately the day wasn’t perfect….. a crazy driver decided to drive into the side of us so we both fell off of the bike and onto the floor boo.  We were both ok, apart from simon got a swollen elbow and we both got cuts, scrapes and bruises.  However we made it to the next campsite, which we made ourselves in some palm trees next to the beach.  The stars were awesome.

DAY 5 - We drove north until we got to Toroko gorge.  A-MAZ-ING!!!!! Such such such spectacular scenery.  No longer nice and warm, we were in the mountains now, but the steep mountains and the gorgeous river, the windy road, the cute temples and the sun shining down made it fantastic to be there.  We met up with the others, and had a happy fun evening wandering around.

DAY 6 - We did a few hikes and saw more prettiness, but the highlight of the day was most definitely the hot springs.  Natural hot springs, just in the middle of the river, in the middle of the gorge.  It was the most amazing thing ever ever ever.  The path was meant to be closed to the public, however we risked going down (past signs, through a locked gate, and over a barrier) and boy were we glad we did.  It was pure heaven.  The water was boiling boiling hot in one pool, yet freezing freezing cold in the river, so someone had set up a channel system using rocks which made it the most pleasant thing in the world.  We sat there until it got dark, fully relaxed.  Ace.

DAY 7 - We did another hike to a waterfall, but it involved walking through unlit, pitch black tunnels, which was interesting as our torch didn’t work! fun though.  The best part was the one where you had to take off your shoes and socks, put on a plastic waterproof, and wade through to the other side!! We then drove out the other side of the gorge, and over back to the west coast.  This route involved going over a mountain.  A big mountain.  With two of us on one scooter, we did struggle a litte, and at points I had to get off and walk It got colder and colder, until the view beyond a few metres was purely mist, and there were actual frozen waterfalls on the side of the road.  Mental.  Hard to imagine we were on a beach in the sun only a few days before.  Our clever little scooter made it to about 3200 m.  We warmed up in starbucks (apparantly the highest one in the world, although i’m not sure) and then made it home after a funtastically filled week

We arrived here on the 5th January, and the first few days were spent sorting ourselves out.  We had a medical check and things like that for the visa, then we went flat hunting.  We saw some weird weird places.  A lot of them were one room open plan places, maybe with a bathroom in the corner but no kitchen or anything.  We saw one which the block of flats had been converted from an old shopping centre, in the lobby there were escalators which was quite funny.  Another one, the entrance was through an old shop - our door was the shutter, and then you walk through the empty shop to some stairs at the back.  Crazy.  We were going to settle on one of the one room places as it was cheap and new, when we saw the last place we had booked to view.  It was cheaper than all of the good ones we saw, had a massive lounge, 3 bedrooms, a kitchen and a balcony.  It’s on the 14th floor and has awesome views.  It’s pretty sweet.  It also came fully furnished, all we’ve had to buy so far is a toaster! We nearly didn’t get it as we thought it was too big lol, but then we came to our senses.  We moved in pretty quick and I love it

The following week I went to Taipei (the capital) for a week of training.  It was ace to be around people all in the same boat, and we had a good time, as well as learning, obviously! We went up the tallest building in the world, Taipei 101, saw a gorgeous temple, went to night markets, ate snake soup (tastes like chicken, has the texture of dry tuna and has a zillion bones) and drank lots of beer.  Twas fun.

The next week was back here in Yuanlin.  Started working! Simon found a school in a nearby town so he started there, and I started teaching too.  My schedule is pretty light at the moment, they’re introducing me slowly, but it was still a bit nervewracking.  Kind of fun though once the stress goes away, you just get to play loads of games in class!!  There’s 6 teachers there in all, but there’s also a lot of other schools in the town, so lots of other english/american/canadian/south african people to socialise with. 

Then came Chinese New Year - a whole week off with celebrations, hurrah!  I randomly got presents from the school - some money, and some red pants!!!! apparantly i’m meant to wear them when I gamble as it’s good luck….

New Years Eve was spent on the beach, it finally stopped raining, and we bought a ridiculous amount of seafood for a ridiculously cheap price.  The evening basically involved barbequeing and eating a lot of yummy food, whilst drinking and looking out to sea.  At midnight we had bought some of our own fireworks and we set them off on the beach.  New Years Day we decided that because the squid we had eaten was so delicously yummy, we bought our own to cook ourselves.  However, they must have done some preparation that we didn’t know about the day before, and for the few days after our culinary adventure, we felt very very ill :-S.  I don’t think we’ll be doing that again.

The Island was fairly good in the end.  It’s covered in a million banana trees, and the ones that are fallen on the floor you can take no problem.  We went for a walk one day and returned with 70.  Yum, free food! It was also easy to wander around the island, along the coast or along the footpaths, so we saw a few coves and volcanic formed beaches which looked pretty cool.  It also got a bit warmer and drier, so we even managed to sunbathe a bit, relaxing and doing nothing was lovely, and definitely appreciated after the slight stresses of moving around a lot.

We then headed back to Hong Kong.  The sleeper train there was mental, not only did they put up a few extra beds at the back, there were people sleeping in every single aisle.  We, unfortunately, were right at the back, and had no chance in hell of ever getting off or going to the toilet or anything like that.  Every space had a person in it, snoring!  Hong Kong was nice, again we got away for a day and went to the island of Lamma.  That was serene, gorgeous sandy beach and sparkling blue sea.  We also went to see a French electro band, who were quite entertaining.

Finally we got on the plane, the last time for a while, and headed for Taiwan!