There’s a quote I remember; I’m pretty sure it was on a paperweight my mom gave me for Christmas.  It says, “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”  After some very preliminary research, I now know they are the wise words of Benjamin Franklin. But the last few weekends, I had the option of staying in on the computer and writing, or going out and experiencing more of Taiwan, knowing that I’d have even more to write about next time. And I chose the latter.

Well, now it’s raining!  So, I have a lot to tell you about.  Here are some of the highlights from the last two months.

Torrential rain turns three-day weekend with Howard into a different adventure

Howard and I planned to go to Keelung, Long Dong, Jiufen, and Yilan over Taiwan’s birthday weekend (10/10).  It started off according to plan… Howard picked me up and we were off to Keelung, the first stop on our journey.  We went to a scenic overlook saw an amazing view of the Keelung port area.

We also looked out on an extinct volcano, a monolith in the ocean.

Afterward, we sat on some rocks looking out on the water.  I watched a young mom playing with her daughter right near the water’s edge.  An adult, she tiptoed onto the lapping shore with the hesitance of a child learning to walk.  It was a really beautiful moment.

After we people-watched and took in all the views of the coastline, we headed to a fishery museum… with no fish.  Turns out it was just about the fishing industry.  It was a comical trip because all the interactive parts of the museum seemed to be broken.

It was raining pretty hard when we left, but we still went to the Keelung Night Market, one of the biggest and most famous in Taiwan.  I had multiple servings of braised pork over rice (love that dish), and an iconic Keelung Night Market sandwich with a boiled egg, mayonnaise, tomatoes, and a bunch of other strange things in it.  And I bought a puzzle of a path lined with Japanese cherry blossoms.  Saving it for another rainy day 🙂

The next day we had planned to go snorkeling in Long Dong, but it was raining, so no such luck.  Instead, we checked out a local art exhibit and got to meet the painter, so that was pretty neat.  Here are some of his paintings.

Then we headed to the Gold Museum because we thought it would be mostly indoors.  Turns out it’s mostly outdoors.  It was raining, and it kept raining.  Then it was pouring, and it kept pouring.  Then the wind kicked in and it was full-on typhoon weather.  Did I mention the Gold Museum was halfway up a mountain?  The waterfalls flanking the road were gushing into the street.  Water was coming down so hard and so fast, it was almost like it was surging from a bathtub faucet.  It was loud too.  We figured, we’re here, there’s nowhere else to go, and we’re already completely soaked, so we might as well stay and explore a little more.

There was a sign for a shrine just up some stairs, so we decided to see what the shrine was all about.  Fog had set in and you couldn’t see too far ahead, so we weren’t sure how far away it would be.  We kept ascending the stairs, rainwater flowing over them in a steady stream.  The farther up we got, the more quiet and completely alone we realized we were.  And with the rain not letting up, we decided we better go back down.  We didn’t make it to the shrine, but we did see a cool archway amid the hazy fog, and it was a pretty neat sight to see.

And we got to touch a world-record holding, 220.30 kg pure gold brick at the museum which was also pretty awesome.

From there we had to decide whether to go down the mountain in the waterfall-rain or brave it and go up the mountain and stay at the accommodation we had booked for the night.  We decided to stay.  It was dark, foggy, and the mountain roads were incredibly narrow.  Once we were near the top, many of them were too narrow for two cars, forcing one car to backup up or down the mountain.  It was pretty scary seeing the massive waterfalls around each twisty turn of the one-lane mountain roads, not knowing if our car was even going to fit through the passageways, or if we’d run into another car and have a standoff– who would backup to let the other car pass?

We finally found a place to park along one of the skinny roads, next to a waterfall.  With our bags, we ran up some stairs and into the hostel office.  A man in a poncho walked us to our building.  We still hadn’t eaten.  Howard was basically a hero and braved the storm again to bring back some food.  Finally, we hung up our soaking clothes, showered, and sat on the bed in our dry clothes, with food, watching action movies as the ran pounded on the tinny roof over our heads.

The next day, the storm was still raging, but at least we could see.  We decided to head back.  Our weekend full of outdoor activities had been a bust, but it was very memorable!  On our way down the mountain we saw that some workers had blocked off a section of the road motioning cars around it– a muddy section of the cliff had fallen into the lane.

We finally got on the highway and felt so lucky that we were safe and on the road to civilization.  In Taipei it was just sprinkling, nothing like the crazy storm we just experienced.  Although it wasn’t what we had hoped for, it was very exciting and definitely a bonding experience.  It’s amazing we both stayed calm through the whole thing!

Design Expo with Tammy and Xania

The Taipei Exhibition Center has different shows come every so often.  Tammy’ sister, Xania, teaches design, so she was particularly interested in the Design Exhibition that was in town.  There were lots of different, unique styles of various functional objects, like dining ware, tables, chairs, lamps, signs.  I’ve never been to anything like it, so it was pretty interesting to see a creative lens put on something as simple as scissors or a watch.  Here are some of the chairs on display from a chair design competition.

I also ran into an old friend, Sonia, while I was there!  She recognized me and said, “…Allison?”  I looked up, and low and behold, it was Sonia, another friend from the TUSA program in Tainan.  She’s also living and working in Taipei now, so I hope we can get together sometime.  Small world!

Halloween in Taipei

Halloween isn’t celebrated by everyone in Taipei… it’s definitely a minority of the population.  Kids dress up, the more foreign-inclined Taiwanese might dress up and go to a bar, and of course there’s the actual foreigners who go all-out.  This year I was a panda.  I convinced Tammy to wear her costume out and come to the bar with Kristina (another TUSA friend) and me.  We went to a foreigner bar called Brass Monkey and lots of people were dressed up.  It was great music and I had a really fun time dancing, seeing everyone’s costumes, and meeting people.

Halloween in school was pretty adorable.  All the kids dressed up in things ranging from the conventional bats, vampires, princesses, and witches, to the offbeat firefighter, Pikachu, and egg.  My class is mostly 4-year-olds.  The parents stayed and watched them parade down the street in their costumes, shouting, “Trick or Treat, Happy Halloween!” over and over as they collected candy from nearby shops.  Very cute.

Indians in the World Series!!!!

The Indians made it to the World Series the same year the Cavs won their first championship ever, and Cleveland hosted the Republican National Convention.  Even though they ended up losing, it was still an impressive run.  I bought the post-season package and watched all the games from my computer.  It added lots of excitement to an otherwise typical workweek.  Most games started at 8 am here, so I had breakfast in bed while watching.  Sad they lost, but maybe next year!

Company trip to Yilan

Apparently the “area” (including mine and several Hess branches near me) takes a day-trip every year, but last year they didn’t do one, so this year they did a two-day, overnight trip.  We went to Yilan, which is great because as I mentioned in the weekend trip with Howard, we never got there.  The best parts of the trip were stopping at the first lake (Wang-Long Pi), very scenic…

stopping at the second lake (Meihua Lake) and bike riding around it a bunch of times…

and then staying at the awesome hotel that was way nicer than I expected!  Our hotel room had two floors and an amazing view.  I wish I took pictures of the room, but I didn’t think to because I was relaxing and enjoying it so much, I guess.  It was really fun to reconnect with all the people in my training group who are in my area.  And the breakfast and dinner buffets at the hotel were on point.

We also stopped at a port area, which was very pretty.  And we went to a bubble tea museum.  There were about 100 people on the trip in total.

Sock-tastic

On an unrelated note, sometime in the middle of all of this I went on a sock-buying spree and bought a ton of socks.  Very happy with my purchases.

Yangmingshan with Julia

Last weekend, Julia and I took a bus from Taipei Main Station (after getting an incredible brunch, of course), to Yangmingshan, a beautiful mountain/natural area about an hour outside of Taipei.  The visitor’s center was being renovated, so we were kind of on our own.  We were on a mission to see the “Flower Clock” because we thought it sounded cool.  So we looked at a map and it told us the 9 bus would get us there.  We waited for the 9 bus.  We boarded the 9 bus.  We were sure we would get to the Flower Clock via the 9 bus.  But then, the bus driver stopped somewhere else, everyone got off, and the bus driver seemed to be telling us to get off in Mandarin, so we got off too.  Then we were like, “Noooo, the Flower Clock!”  So we decided to walk around where he dropped us off because it was pretty, but we still wanted to get to our destination before it got dark.  So we asked some Taiwanese people who were luckily very good at English and they told the next bus driver to tell us when to get off.

The Flower Clock

Alas, we made it to the Flower Clock!  It wasn’t as cool as we had hoped, but there was a pretty awesome waterfall near the Flower Clock, and we walked around and saw lots of pretty trees and monuments.  Then we saw the most amazing sunset, right before we took the bus back to Taipei– the perfect way to end our time in Yangmingshan.  Afterwards we got Mexican Food at a sit-down Mexican Restaurant.  I got fish tacos– delicious.

Go-Karts with Ali and Jessica

As if Yangminshan wasn’t enough for one weekend, then the following day I went go-karting with Ali, Jessica, and some of their friends.  I met Ali at a pizza shop near where I live, and he and his girlfriend Jessica are really fun people.  So we all took a bus to Taoyuan, about an hour outside Taipei, and as we walked up to the go-karting place, there were little race cars zooming  around the corners, going way faster than I expected.  Screeching sounds, smoke coming out of the exhaust, cutting other cars off.  The guys were so pumped about how fast they were going.  The girls were not.  So we got inside and asked if those are the cars you pay extra for or if those are the normal cars.  Turns out, in between the people who are just driving the normal cars owned by the track, they let people who own their own cars race each other, and they even open up the other half of the track, so that was pretty cool to watch.  The girls were relieved that we wouldn’t be out there with them; the guys were disappointed.  But we watched them go around the track in between each amateur round, and it felt like being at a real racing event.  I’m sure the real thing is much bigger and faster and this was the micro version of it all, but it was exciting enough for me.

Finally it was our turn and we all put on a head covering to go under our helmet, a big helmet with a pull-down cover to protect our eyes, and thick gloves.  We pressed the little, gray button to start the engines.  The cars were rumbling.  Then finally we were signaled to take off.  The cars were very low to the ground, so everything was so fast.  I’ve never gotten to drive a car as fast as I could… maybe a golf cart, but those don’t go very fast.  I pressed on the accelerator through the long stretches and eased up around the corners.  Other cars flew by me on either side.  I thought I was going so fast, but I guess I was one of the slower ones on the track.  At some point in the middle of our ten minutes, someone’s bumper fell off and it was sitting in the middle of the road.  It was thrilling to pass at least one person, though!  Jessica was even slower than I was, so I still got to zoom by her.  They waved the black and white checkered flag, signaling that our time was up and we drove back into the area we started from.  So much fun.  Then we went to the batting cages one building over, and after that got pizza and smoothies.  What a great day.

Game Night

Finally, I am up to writing about this weekend!  See how busy I’ve been?  Last night I went to a game night in Taipei, which turned out to be a Meetup group– I just thought it was a solitary event on Facebook.  So I went and we played Werewolf, much like Mafia, where there’s a villager team and a werewolf team and they both want to kill each other, but the “bad guys” are lying about their roles and the “good guys” have to weed them out.  There were about 30 people playing, so we even had enough players to add vampires, who are on their own team and want to kill everyone– werewolves and villagers included.  My very first game I was a werewolf, aka a “bad guy,” and we won!  I was pretty surprised people believed me.  Three out of five werewolves made it to the end and we “ate all the villagers.”  The next two games I wasn’t so lucky… I was on the villager team and got eaten.  Too bad, because the first game I was a bodyguard, which means I could protect people.  So it was a big enough loss that everyone went “awwwwww” when I revealed my card after they killed me.  But all the “dead people” in Werewolf went to a different part of the room and played another game called Avalon where you also have to lie about being good or bad, so that was fun too.

When the place closed, we took all the games and headed to a 24-hour McDonald’s and continued playing.  One group played Avalon and another group played Pix.  I played Pix, which was really fun.  You have a magnetic board with a grid on it and little black squares, or “pixels.”  Each pixel is one point.  You have to compete against your group members to “draw” the same object with pixels.  You also get one red square and one red arrow, which are more points.  The person in your group who “drew” the image with the least number of points gets to show their picture to the other teams first and they have two minutes to guess what it is.  Then, if they don’t get it, the next person goes and you continue guessing.  It’s a really fun game; I want to play again sometime.  The Meetup has game nights every Thursday, so I hope I’m able to make a few of those.

 Thanksgiving in Taipei

Of course, Thanksgiving isn’t really celebrated in Taiwan, but you can definitely find a Thanksgiving meal around Taipei at a western restaurant or a hotel if you’re looking for it.  And they’re popular!  I booked a reservation at Whalen’s, a Canadian restaurant doing American Thanksgiving, for the Sunday after actual Thanksgiving.  The restaurant had three Thanksgiving dinners, and they all sold out way in advance.  I was lucky to get our table in.  Of the people who went, there were two Brits and one Taiwanese Brazilian.  It was very fun to share American Thanksgiving with them tonight 🙂  And the food was delicious, as expected.