Alishan- Taiwan

Jamie and I decided to take a trip to the mountains. Again it was a long bus ride, but much more bearable than a ferry ride. It was sort of a last minute trip, we were able to catch the last train that would get us to the last bus on time.

When we arrived we set out to find a hotel. We thought it would be easy, but it seemed like all of Taiwan made the journey to Alishan. We went to every hotel in the area and we were turned down by every single one. At the very last hotel Jamie asked if there was anywhere the had a free room, so the lady made some calls and told us we were very lucky there was 1 more room for 2 people. We could not believe our luck, 2009 was already shaping up to be a great year! The lady from the other hotel came to get us and led us to her tea house, where she rented out her extra rooms in her house. It was even better than a hotel, it was a homestay, and I love homestays!

Alishan is famous for their sunrises. So Jamie and I woke up at 3 am and stayed outside until 7:05 am waiting for the sunrise. Somehow I didn't think it would be that cold, but the top of a mountain with no sunshine was miserable. I thought my toes were going to freeze off. I saw some kids and it looked like they had turned blue from the cold. When 7:05 came the sun rose in a matter of 3 seconds, I have never seen the sun move that fast before.

After we watched the sunrise we took a well deserved nap, and took a hike in the forest. The signs were crazy. The map would keep turning so it pointed toward north, instead it caused lots of confusion for us. Supposedly there is a sacred tree and a giant tree but we saw at least 20 trees that were labeled as "The Sacred Tree" or "The Giant Tree" after a while it didn't really matter which really was the one, because we had taken tons of pics with each supposed tree.

A 3 generation tree, 3 different trees were growing from it. Taiwan was nice enough to make signs for each. Love tree!Sacred Tree #224

Sunset!

Taiwan NYE

So I decided to save some money and take a taxi->ferry->bus->plane to get to Taipei. Everything went smoothly except for the bus to the airport. The travel agency told me to look for a bus with a certain sign on it, I couldn't find the sign so I walked up to a bus driver and pointed to my airplane ticket he "hao" (yes in Chinese) so I got on. After 5 mins the bus stopped. I asked the bus driver again if it went to the airport and he gave me a blank stare, eventually answering "hao." When the bus didn't seem to be going anywhere any time soon I decided to disembark but I had no Taiwan money, because I was going to get it when I got there. When I tried to get off the bus I told the bus driver I didn't have any Taiwan money, after some hesitation he said ok I will exchange it for you (turns out he spoke some English!). So I gave him 20 China and he gave me 100 Taiwan money. I had no idea if he cheated me or not, but at that point I didn't really care. Then I told him my plan to taxi to the airport. But he said it would be really expensive, and he promised I would get to the airport if I stayed on the bus. So I trusted him, and he went on his break, but before he went he tried to give me his rice krispie treat but I refused. After 10 mins and 40 mins until my flight he came back, and we were off. I saw the signs for the airport and felt reassured. But then we started going in circles, 20 mins until my flight I was convinced I was going to miss it and be forced to spend my NYE in this unknown city, with no way of contacting Jamie (my college friend I was meeting up with) that I missed my flight. Miraculously I got to the airport with 5 mins to spare, I ran through the check-in line in about 2 mins and made my flight! Amazing.



My last picture with Jamie in 2008.

Ok, I stole this picture. But that is how it looked. It was amazing! They shot fireworks out of Taipei 101, one of the tallest buildings in the world. It looked like it was exploding. There was another fireworks show to the side of this one. Both were so spectacular I didn't know which to look at. The guy next to us kept yelling "WOW!" so whichever wow was more enthusiastic was the show I looked at. These were one of my favorite fireworks I have ever seen, that and Disneyland. I love fireworks, one main reason I still like Disneyland!
There were so many people, this is like an 8 lane street, and it was packed with people!Jamie and I wanted to find a sparkler so we saw a man and his family doing them so we tried to buy some from him, but he gave it to us for free. Taiwan people are so nice!

Christmas Presentation

Before our trip to Thailand me and the other foreign teachers had to make a presentation about Christmas in the US. We divided into 3 parts: What's Christmas, Christmas traditions and a reading of "The Night Before Christmas." I was in charge of the reading.
After we did a gift exchange that used the words left and right, when they heard each word they would pass the gifts accordingly. Given that the students are not all the way fluent in English the game was a bit challenging. Especially since there was a shortage of gifts.My co-worker Lauren and I preparing for our gig. We have 3 Lauren teachers at the school, all American, except one is a boy.Sam agreed to dress up as Santa for the kids.
They're a tough crowd. Looks are deceiving!

Thailand 3- Ko Pha Ngan

The trip to Ko Pha Ngan was long. It was Christmas day, we had just been dropped off at the ferry after a 3 hour car ride, only to find the next boat wasn't for 3 more hours because of rain delay. So we sat, while the worse possible Christmas music blared in the intercom. When we finally caught the ferry it was a 3 hour ride and the taxi companies were trying to scam us to get us to our desired beach. After a long day of travel we decided to call it a night and camp out and move on in the morning.

This is K and I at our Christmas dinner. Even though we hadn't made it to our final destination, we couldn't have asked for a better Christmas dinner.


The Sanctuary- K wanted to go to another beach to stay at a resort that was vegetarian and offered yoga throughout the day. The place turned out to be pretty cool. Even though it rained one day it was fun to hang out at the common area to eat and read. I tried some yoga too, it was difficult but fun.
On sunny days the beach was beautiful.

Thailand 2- Koh Sak

Koh Sak was a nice getaway from the chaos of Bangkok. The taxi ride was 3 hours from the airport. It is so amazing that someone would actually be willing to drive us for $30USD.

Our jungle house was a straight up hut. The walls were weaved like a heavy duty basket. Inside we had a mosquito net, thankfully and an outdoor shower and toilet. One night we left the soap outside and a little animal came and ate it and the wrapper. Oops, I didn't see any dead animals outside though, so it must have survived. The next day we signed up for a one day tour that included a cave, and a jungle trek.

This is a picture of the area. It use to be hills but Thailand decided to make it a man made dam instead. The landscape was beautiful. Yes, I was the only person on the boat wearing a life jacket. Doy (the tour guide) gave it to us for a reason...

Our first stop was animal watching. We took a longtail boat around with our tour guide and he took us to a secret location to see animals. If you look closely, that blob is a monkey. We were lucky and saw a whole family swinging from the trees.Next was the cave. I was petrified at the prospect of meeting a snake in the cave. I had secretly been mentally preparing in case I saw one, luckily we only saw huge spiders and bats. It was pitch black in the cave and only had 3 flashlights for 5 people. Most pictures had to be guess-timated.

This one is a shell but I saw others this size too.For lunch Doy knew of this brand new floating restaurant and wanted to take us to help bring it good luck. It was owned by one of his friends so all of his friends were there. It was cool to see natives in their actual native area. Actually this is their "new" homeland. They were recently given back the land that was taken from them decades ago. Instead of living in the hills they are now a river village. Two Aussies who were part of our tour group. They were cool guys.

After the jungle trek we took a dip in the water. It was a refreshing change. When I was jumping off the boat onto the raft I jumped right on top of the patched part on the raft. The workmanship of the patch was high quality, so instead of falling straight into the water I just made the dent deeper. So dumb on my part. Doy- the REAL jungle man. He was a character. When we were hiking in the jungle he carried a huge machete. I asked him if he had to use it on any animals, he danced around the question and answered he needed it for bushwhacking. He only pulled it out once, it was a bit scary to be the one following him. You never knew when he would whip it out. On our ride home he ran into his house and grabbed this pic to show us, he was very proud. He said he takes his gun on longer trips to scare the animals. We also switched from his nice truck to his Jeep so that we could go off roading for our 7 minute trip back to our hotel. That 7 minutes was crazy. I felt like we were on a hardcore jungle safari in the pursuit of lions or something.

Thailand 1- Bangkok

Thailand was amazing!

1. Bangkok
Not my most favorite place. We arrived at night after a long delayed flight and found ourselves in tourist central.



The next morning we shopped our brains out at the weekend market. Haggling was not our strong point. After spending a while at one stall we would decide to move on without buying. Needless to say, the sales people were not happy with us.
After a long nap, we treated ourselves to Condoms and Cabbages. The proceeds from the restaurant went to help educate the public about safe sex. The tree behind us was decorated with condoms. As was this super-hero of a man. They were pretty cool, but they were a bit smelly.
The next day was the Grand Palace and other famous sites. The palace was one of the most ornate sites I have ever seen. Everything was gilded in gold and covered in jewels. The walk and sites in itself were visually exhausting to look at. So K and I breezed through the rest and treated ourselves to a tuk tuk ride. For dinner we ate at an all vegetarian restaurant. The owner was so cute. She put on a performance for no one in particular and explained her cooking process.