Greetings my Canadian (and one American) hommie's and hommiette's!!!
So I have slightly procrastinated on the writing of this for a few days but I noticed the details (the little ones) of my amazing weekend are starting to slip so I better get on this now!

Wow what a weekend!!!
So Friday I was invited to a lunch meeting being held by the hospital for a bunch of my colleagues and friends that were leaving this weekend. What I did not realize is that this was a fancy lunch with consulate ambassadors and what not from various countries. Well being that I thought it was just a lunch I showed up to the formal event in Jeans and having not shaved in oh I don't know 3 or 4 days. Yup CLASSY! we said good bye to our new friends and it is awesome I have contacts in so many places, I look forward to seeing them again in there hoome countries.

From the lunch I went directly to the train station to head down to my friend’s town called Hsin Chin hmm or something like that. My friend has Myasthenia gravis and RH and receives bee therapy so I was able to see the bee's and watch some video's from national geographic on this treatment...very interesting. Had some amazing Thai food than off to bed as we were heading to the southern tip of the island the next day.

Morning arrives and Molly and I go for a quick walk around. Their area is pretty cool, it is super old and was an original village so the streets are hella narrow. There is also rice farms scattered around so we went and checked them out.
Off to the south, all was well until POP....CRAP....there goes a tire, we blew a tire on the side of the highway and if you know anything about driving out here that is scary as hell. No-one avoids you, in fact they get mad at you whizzing by and honking for the fact that you are blocking the side of the road. 2 hours later and 2 new tires we are on the road again.

*On a side note I no longer want to buy ice cream with the garbage trucks I just want them to SHUT UP!! Yes one just drove by again with the wonderfully cheap serenade of do’s and da’s.*

Now let me get re-acquainted with the keyboard and my mind back on track as the music is finally passed us by. So being that we had a few rather small bumps in the road we arrived a little later than I had planned, however it was just in time to watch the sun set over the beach which of course was beautiful. We found out some information about diving for me and it was determined being that there was a typhoon of the coast it was a little dangerous for a first timer to go, and after seeing some waves the next day I am glad I took their advice and stuck to snorkeling. We found ourselves a quaint little hotel that was old but had a killa view of the ocean and then headed out to the night market.

The night market in this town was defiantly the best I have seen so far, maybe because it is a party surfer town and you can feel that energy from the crowds. We walked and saw and ate (some good some bad) I had this one thing that was similar to a custard pudding battered and deep fried, I never knew pudding could be so friggin good sober!!! I came across a challenge from one of my friends on a previous post and true to my word I decided to try it after a little self convincing. What you may ask could be worse than the chicken testie I had last weekend? How about congealed pigs blood BBQ on a stick dipped in peanuts!! Yes the grossest thing I have ever put in or near my mouth.....luckily all I could taste was peanuts, and the texture was similar to that of a very moist muffin.

After dropping off my friend and her daughter at the hotel we went back out, apparently I had to have a massage by the blind people. This my friends was the most painful experience! I had locals calling me superman and watching as I took the pain, a shoulder and foot massage. My muscles were so inflamed the next day, and the dorsal aspect of my feet still hurt 2 days later. After the massage we hit the beach bar which was well deserved. We had a few coronas while looking over the water with a temperature of 30 degrees at midnight, all of this with live music, and then back to the hotel as this was a great way to end the night.

Ahhh morning! Sun is shining, the weather is sweet,(lil marely reference) I stand looking through the window, I open the screen and look over the ocean, and green mountains of this little tropical paradise. What a great day and I didn’t even know the adventures to come! We headed out to the very southern tip where the light house stood, which was built in 1867. I found this pretty neat solely based on the era, and the things this structure must have endured. From here we headed down through the lush vegetation into the semi junglish area’s heading to the ocean water. Of course I found a path that perked my curiosity and as we know I always follow that little voice telling me the unknown path is always a good choice. Lost again, this time with my friends and their daughter, we ask for directions out and get really bad advice finding us further in the park. Luckily it is not big so we know eventually we will find our way. However when we came across the two path arrows that one would think would lead to the exit, but were just pointing at each other, things seemed a little frustrating(frustrating in a fun I love adventures in a foreign country kind of way). This path of course was still fully worth it as we ended up climbing between huge rock walls on either side of us, and when we finally came upon people they did the typical ‘hello, what's up' MTV hommie talk that the teens out here always seem to pull out....oh American music and TV how you have failed miserably us on so many levels.

From here we drove along the cliffs overlooking the ocean and this was unbelievable. Words really cannot describe what nature has to offer us. It is truly amazing that we as people spend all our lives researching, inventing, building, creating, and with everything we do nothing can even come close in comparison to what nature does naturally. I find not only is this beautiful to see, but one can learn so much in just a moments observation if you really pay attention. I sat above the oceans and simply was, and I loved it!!

We ended up at some small town with a suspension bridge, paid 10 bux (like 30 cents) and went across into a mass field of coconut and banana trees and then headed back to go Snorkel. On the way back we found these quads on the side of the road and decided to stop and see how much it was to go quading. It was super cheap and the view was awesome along the cliffs, above the ocean, so of course how do you not!! We saw some deer and they ran alongside of us as we rode along the hills, also really cool.

All of this and it wasn’t even lunch time yet! Could it possibly get better you ask? We arrived at the snorkeling place and I was slightly nervous now overlooking the mass amounts of water I was about to submerge myself in. They were really good about it all though, took us into a shallow area of the ocean teaching us how to breathe and float and move, you know all the things that I suppose are deemed important for human survival. Eventually we headed out to the ocean and OMG!! I saw thousands of tropical fish. There were some out there the size of my torso that where all florescent colours of blues and yellows and reds, I saw trumpet fish, and puffer fish, and tons of different types of corral. The dive instructor brought out bread and crushed it around us causing hundreds of different types of fish to come out swimming all around us. I think I have fallen in love, the ocean is the most surreal and amazing place I have ever experienced and now feel that I need to get my diving certification and travel to dive.

My friend bought us a package which included some crazy activities down the road so we piled into the back of a sketch truck with fold down walls, still in our wet suits, and headed to the next stop. Neither of us had a clue as to what we were to endure next, but I must say I am thankful to be alive after that experience! We get onto this couch like contraption attached to a seadoo and head out to the ocean. Now one would think after seeing how drivers are on the roads I may think twice before letting someone pull me behind a speeding sea vehicle, ya umm no. His whole mission was to try and launch us off this thing and being that we were in wet suits I think he really wanted to, I am glad I had a helmet I must say. He would go as fast as he could and then pull a hair pin U-turn causing us to get serious air while being whipped around. I screamed and screamed yet didn’t let go, and my arms still feel the burn. I went out twice and that was enough for me, by the end of it I had used all my muscular energy and hands were shaking, in fact I was barely able to open my bottle of water. I am glad I did it in hind sight though, it was a total blast and no I never fell off!

Finally we headed back to Kaoshung for the night which was about a 3 hour drive. We stopped along the way at the apparently famous restraunt for bbq pig leg and continued the journey. Arriving in Kaoshung we relaxed for awhile and then I was shown around the city a little bit being brought to love river, the harbour, and the old British embassy residence. Very nice city looks a lot more modern than others and I found out it was due to the past president, most of his voters came from this area so of course most of the money was spent here.

This brings us to Monday, and unfortunately I had to be back at the hospital in the north for 1:30 so my time was limited. We headed quickly to a mountain where we did a short hike in so I could see wild monkeys. That was rad; just saw one though as it walked around inspecting us, more so looking for food. I have heard they will swarm you in large numbers if they discover your packing food with you. He was a lot bigger than I expected. I had 15 mins to get to the High speed train station, I honestly didn’t think I would make it, but I did with 5 mins to spare. Found my way to the train and off I went. This high speed train is the same they have in Japan and goes faster than 300 km’s and hour, It really didn’t feel like it, but did get me back to Taipei in 90mins just in time for me to change and head to the hospital...........tanned, amazed, and with a new outlook on everything!!

Now usually I have been ending these with some persons inspirational quote that I like, today I am not going to do this because I think the most valuable thing I can say comes from personal experience this weekend. I spent all weekend with great friends that speak very limited English and their child who really does not speak any, we had an amazing time, I spent the weekend having fun with them, bonding, playing, and communicating with them and their kid.......I realized how language can really be a barrier that we have placed on mis-consumptions due to our own ideas of what communication should be. I spent all weekend laughing and playing and never once did I feel that language really could have made this more of a valuable experience, when you rely on the person you see them for who they are and truly rely on the connections felt as one human to the next. I have re-read this and tried to figure out how to explain myself better, leading to the perfect example that language can sometimes just complicate things......the only way to understand what I speak here is through experience.


Much love,

Chris