Monday, April 25, 2011

The day that Aaron and I went up to the Gorge was my first and only (so far) day of rain. We had rented scooters and it rained like it rains in Hawaii.....only all day. On the good side, it's not cold!
Once we got up to the Gorge, however, it had stopped briefly so Aaron was able to see some pretty cool things. It was a quick trip that day because we had to get back to Aaron's apartment so he could go to work the next day. But, now he's seen it, met some cool people that work at the hostel and knows he wants to go back there again when he has more time.
For the next few days I stayed close to Aaron's place. My stomach was a little upset, so I didn't want to travel too far. But, I did gather the energy (desire?) to go to Aaron's new apartment and clean. It's a small place but it still took me over 4 hours. Ugh. But, it's done now, so I feel okay with Aaron moving in there. Imagine if I wasn't here? He would have just moved in and lived with other people's dirt. Men.
On Thursday I went to another small town called Lukang. It was a 2 1/2 hour train ride, then a 1/2 hour bus ride. It was Matsu's birthday (one of the Gods) so I got to see some goings ons at the temple. It was pretty neat. I have no idea what was happening, but I did enjoy the site.
The town was really cool with other things to see. I definitely like the smaller towns to the large cities. No one there spoke English, however. I did meet one lady at a restaurant that could count to 4, but I had her beat because I can count to 10. And, I know how to say 100. So, numbers I'm pretty good.....everything else? Suffice it to say that I still can't speak Chinese.
I stayed in a real hotel in Lukang! And, it had air conditioning! I couldn't make it go lower than 23 degrees, but it turns out that was cold enough. Imagine?! I now think that 23 degrees is cold.
On the weekend Aaron and I got some things together for his new place and just did stuff like that. I have rented another scooter for 10 days this time. I probably won't use it every day but it's sure handy having it.
After driving Aaron around on the back of a scooter in Hualien, I am not going to put him through driving me around again. Those scooters weren't made for the two of us!
That said, I took my friend, Chan, on her first scooter ride, and it was like nothing was there. She's very tiny, weighing less that 50 kgs, so it was a dream. She said I drove quite aggressively, which I took as a compliment. Compared to Aaron, I'm sane. She did get to hear my first rate Canadian though, when I started to screech at others on scooters. In the smaller towns they appear to have even less regard for others. I didn't think that was possible.
Today I am going to return to the Lotus Pond and take some more pictures. My camera battery ran out the first time, so I'm going again to take lots of pictures. I imagine that this time the trip will be much more pleasant. When I think about that first time I went there, I had only been in Taiwan for a couple of days and I remember having a bit of shell shock on the condition of the roads and the traffic, etc. Now that I'm used to it, it'll be much quicker.
This weekend we're going to Kenting, at the southern tip of the island. This is where the beaches are, so I'm looking forward to that.
Then, next week I'm heading back to Taipei for about 10 days to see all the things that are around there. There's lots to see that is easily accessible, so I'm looking forward to that.
Aaron was giving me some interesting facts yesterday. I'm probably going to get them wrong but here goes:
Taiwan has 24 million people in it
Canada has 32 million people in it
Taiwan is 1/274 the size of Canada
This tells you how crowded this place is. I quickly gave up my dream of not having people in my photos because it's virtually impossible to have happen.