The top of our list... beach time! I'm always craving the sun and being able to actually spend time outside in it. Saturday morning we hit the train and were off for Fulong Beach. It's a popular beach in the Nothern part of Taiwan, and I thought it was pretty great. There are two sections, one that was crowded with people, lifeguards that apparently don't let you even submerge your whole body in water, AND you have to pay 40 NT (a little over 1 US). Then there's the other side where you need to walk down a bit further, but way less people, and it's free. The sand was wonderful, and the water was perfectly shallow so you can lay on the sand and still be in some water. There were also quite a few people out trying to surf in this area. The waves were pretty consistent, but rather small I thought. They stayed out there for a long time though, and more kept coming, so it must have been decent. I don't know anything about surfing.
The weather was great, so I don't know why the sky looks so cloudy above. You can see the beautiful blue in the others. It is Taiwan afterall, so of course there's a temple next to the beach. Anthony's stylin' and protecting his skin. Then after the beach!
We stayed at the beach for 4 or 5 hours, and faced the inevitable sunburn from the tropical sun. I put on sunblock, I swear! It's not too bad though, and my legs needed some serious color. The only part of my body that gets regular sun is my arms from driving my scooter. After Fulong we trained backed to Taipei, had dinner, got some cupcakes from the cupcake guy (thanks Steph!). There's this foreign guy who opened a small cupcake/cookie shop that's delicious, and luckily it was near where we ate dinner, so I got some treats. Anthony couldn't enjoy them due to this allergies and the guy said there's a chance things get mixed.
After supper we boarded a bus that took us to Wulai, where we spent the night at a Hot Spring Spa Hotel. It was kind of expensive, but the room was nice with a huge bathroom area. We got our own Hot Spring tub, a separate bath tub, and a shower area. The hot springs felt nice, but a little uncomfortable on our sunburns. Still, we really enjoyed it!
Sunday morning we had complementary breakfast, where we had our choice of Mexican Beef Roll, or Steamed Dumplings. We went with the dumplings. Then we started walking towards the waterfall area. We passed through a market area with pepole selling lots of things. Wulai is an Aboringal Village area, turned touristy. Their speacialty is some sort of millet wine, but we didn't try any. We hiked/walked around up a moutain road for about an hour until we reached the waterfall. It was pretty and poured into the green river hot springs below. We also took a cable car up to the top of the waterfall, which had a nice view overlooking the mountains and river. It was so peaceful and nice to get out of the city and away from the stinky pollution! Although it was hella hot out all weekend, it was an amazing time together. 
America also had a birthday this past week. Yes, it was a Wednesday, but you know what. We still needed to have a party and celebrate. Many of us foreign teachers also had Kindy at 9 am the following morning... that was not such a treat. But Wednesday night was fun. After listening to the awesome "I love America" playlist I put together (with great input from others) at our apartment, we went to our favorite foreigners bar The River, located ever so conviently just a few blocks away. You know, finding fireworks here was much harder than I thought. I mean, I guess I didn't look too hard, but I asked a number of people. Their response, "Fireworks are illegal in Taiwan, you can only find them during Chinese New Year." What a joke!! People are nonstop lighting fireworks off day and night around here. Allll the time. Seriously. Rainy was awesome and had some left over from CNY, so we could have some fun with snappers, bottle rockets, and things I don't know the name of. We went to the park across the street to light them off after we had been at The River for a while, and brought a slew of people with us. There were a few students from France there, and some guys from Germany, they all came to celebrate in blowing shit up in honor of America. I don't think we were really supposed to be lighting off fireworks at the park though... and after a while we heard police sirens and ran away, but we didn't do any damage or cause any harm!
Rainy and I wish our massive stash of explosives. Yaaay The United States! What's Canada doing up there?!
Austin's outfit. Just redic!
Another bonus factor to going out Wednesday night was that I had my Tree House semester performance show that evening. I was happy to be done having to reherse Snow White and the Four Dwarfs with them. I think the parents enjoyed it, they were all recording it on there iPads and Smartphones. Remember REAL video cameras? And how it was kind of a big deal to have one? The kids looked cute in their costumes, and didn't mess up their lines too much. We'd been practicing since April, but it was a bit hard for them.
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