We planned on all taking a holiday to Kenting. Luckily Anthony, Greta, and I were all able to get the time off work together. We left on the HSR Wednesday night, which took us down to Kaohsiung, and from there took a taxi the other 2 hours down to the very south part of Taiwan. We tried to take a bus, but it was not as easy to find as we had heard, and apparently the last one left the station at 7- we got there a bit after. The crazy thing about taxi's, among many other things, is how cheap they are to take long distances. It was 1,200 NT which equals about 40 US for a 2 hour ride.
Once we arrived we checked in to our hotel, and then hit Kenting Street which is just a huge long Night Market type street with hundreds of vendors and little shops selling all sorts of stuff. We found many different things to eat, and Ariel got to experience a lot of Taiwanese style foods. She liked mostly all of it.
Air waiting for some grilled meats, and a stand of Frying Milk, which we actually tried, and tasted like marshmallows.
The best thing about her trip was how funny it was to see all of the people here react to her. Of course she's Asian, but doesn't look Taiwanese at all, still they immediately tried to speak Chinese with her. They completely ignored all of us and just looked straight to Ariel. One lady at a restaurant seemed just appalled when trying to talk to her when Ariel said she couldn't speak Chinese. What's wrong with you, they all were thinking! So it was great to see their reactions and confusion. Some people started talking to us at the beach one day, when they asked where we were from and I told them I live in Jhongli and Ariel said America, I don't think they believed it. What's even better is that Ariel really tried to pick up as much Chinese as she could while visiting. She also tried not to let the shop owners know that she couldn't speak Chinese, so she just wouldn't say anything, and nod at them like she understood. I cracked up one day after coming home from work and she told me about how she had gone out shopping in the afternoon.
"I was too proud to let them know, so I just smiled, they probably thought I was a huge bitch not talking to them. Or I would just nod and say 'she wan.'"
"What's 'she wan' mean?"
"I think it's 'I like.'"
"So you were just smiling like a crazy person saying 'I like' to everyone?! I'm sure they thought you were nuts."
Although from her saying just those few words in Chinese to them, I'm sure they could tell right away that she didn't speak Chinese. So I'll really miss having things like this happen every time we go anywhere now.
Back to our holiday, Kenting was beautiful. Of course the forecast was for rain the whole time we were there, but it wasn't bad at all. It rained every day, but usually just in the morning for a little while, and then cleared up later in the day. Oh, and we did rent scooters. I don't think it even mattered too much that I did all the work to get my license!! We could rent them right from our hotel, and after breakfast the first morning we went to inquire. The guy wanted to see my license, so I said we'd come back as I left it in the room. Well when we got back there was another guy, who didn't speak much English. He was trying to ask something, so I showed him my license. He seemed really shocked and gave it back right away. Then he tried to get me to rent a car. Clearly he didn't examine my license too closely as I'm not licensed to drive a car here! No, no I told him, just scooters. He gave me a set of keys. I said 2. He gave me another set. Then he walked us outside to show us where they were, demonstrated how to turn it on and operate it.... and we were off!
Thursday we went to the Kenting National Park and walked around for a few hours enjoying the nature and fresh air. It started raining a little while we were there, but the canopy of trees made it ok. Also, there were some caves in there, one of which we noticed was full of bats hanging at the top after a few of them started flying around us while we were inside. Needless to say we scrambled right out of there!
The bat cave!
After that the sun came out and we went to the beach. There was a beach right across the street from our hotel, and we spent the next few hours laying in the sand and bopping around in the ocean. This was a fabulous day, until the waves started to become violent and thrash us around. There were big rocks near the shore too! Greta cut her foot and my knee got cut and bruised. None of our injuries were as tragic as what would happen to Anthony though.
First, you need to know that before we left for Taiwan he went to get new glasses in Vermillion. After getting his eyes dilated he couldn't see too well, but didn't call me to come help him pick out frames. So he just tried some and picked ones that he thought might be cheap. Wells, turns out they were Armani glasses, and not cheap. He was wearing those same glasses at the beach, and wore them into the water. Remember how I said the waves started to get violent? The Pacific Ocean was a bitch and came and took those glasses right off his face! We spent some time trying to find them in the sand.. but it wasn't happening. Anthony was sad, not because he really liked them or anything, but because he also hadn't packed any contacts. So here he was on the first day of vacation, with no glasses to see anything.
Here's another amazing thing about Taiwan. We went back to the hotel, showered, and I set off with him on the scooter to find a glasses shop. These stores litter the streets, everywhere. Kenting really didn't have much in that area though, and the hotel told us to drive about 20 minutes to find one. I drove for a while, and as Anthony couldn't see very well, and I was driving, I was worried we wouldn't see one. We came across a store not too far away and Anthony went in, and the man spoke English quite well. Within 20 minutes he got an exam done, picked out frames, and the frames put together with his prescription! All for under $100 US! And I think he's super cute in his new specs :)
After this fiasco we went to see some natural burning fires. It's just gas leaking up from the ground, it needs to be ignited like after it rains, but it just burns, all the time.
Anthony "roasting" and egg, and Ariel popping some popcorn over the flames!
Friday we set off for another beach. This one was said to be waay less crowded and have white sand. It's called "Baishawan" which means "white sand beach" and Happy Panda was the name of the area. It was super neat with a boarded porch area with a bar and lots of food places. It was a bit cloudy, but very hot, and dammit I wanted to spend the day laying at the beach! We had some drinks and even began to (try) and play beach volleyball.
Our next plan was to scooter down to a harbor and get some super fresh fish for dinner. Along the way we made a turn that led us into who knows where and the next thing you know my scooter has a flat tire. Uh-oh. I pushed it a little ways and there was some small houses/shops and though the people spoke almost zero English, they were sooo friendly and willing to help us. They called one of the blue trucks to come and patch the tire! Yippeeeee and we were back (on the right path, this time) to get to the harbor and eat some yummy fish. And we did.
Air with my Chinese phrase book trying to find "flat tire." I'm pretty sure they figured that part out though. The people had this little girl who was quite intrigued and hung out with us. They took photos while I was busy back there with the scooter!
At least we finally got our fish!
Then we went back to Kenting Street and had some more treats and Ariel and I got henna done!
Me with my tat artist. I got a bicycle!
Saturday was our departure from Kenting, but not the end of the holiday. We went back up to Kaohsiung and got there early afternoon. The rains followed us and it was a constant on and off of heavy downpours. We made it outside to see some things for a while, but didn't get a chance to walk as many places we would have liked.
The next morning it was still torrential rains, so we decided to head back north to Jhongli.
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| Ariel taking her turn as grill master. |
Wednesday Ariel came to Kindy with me, but sadly it turned out to be a performance practice day so she didn't get to see my teaching routines with them. At least she still got to meet my kids! That night we went to the night market here, did some more shopping, ate more.
Doing my job and serving the children some banana's (not corn). Look at Evan cheesin' with Ariel!
Oh, and we saw this Panda Dog that night, too.
And then it was Thursday morning, time for Air's departure :( Now it's lonely coming home to no one living on the couch, but my mom will be here in just over a month!!
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