Double Ten Day

Monday night I bowled a 156! Holy hannah, huh? Awesome!

I know it ihs been a long time since I blogged so I'm not going to try and do it all day by day. I moved out of the dorm last week with Matt and Rooney. We now live in an amazing apartment right next to the park that we play frisbee at. The place is huge - two stories with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, two offices, a kitchen, living room, dining room, balcony. And best of all, an awesome view! It is a really nice place! We are loving it!

I was planning on going away for the weekend because it was a holiday here. They call it Double Ten day but it is their independence day, from the year 1911. That is when the dynastic reign was ended in mainland China. So it was their 100th year of independence! But since we moved in, I didn't want to leave Matt and Rooney with all the housekeeping.

So on Saturday, a group of us who didn't leave Taoyuan went to Yingee. I looked up a little hike in the area that we did. I was sort of the tour guide because I was the only one who had been there before! So we 'hiked' up to Eagle Rock. It is a little look out that looks over the surrouding cities. But Matt and I decided to keep going so everyone else did too. It was totally worth it! The view from a little further up was amazing! It was a nice, clear day!

After the hike we walked down to the "old" street where they do the pottery. We walked around the market area and then Megan and I found a place where you could make your own pottery. They help you and then they fire it for you and you can keep it! So a bunch of us made stuff. I'm excited to get it back and see how it turned out!

Sunday, Matt, Rooney and I went for a drive through the back roads. We drove up Tigerhead and then down the back side. It was awesome. We got out of the city really fast and then we were driving through the country. It is amazing how quickly it changes from overpopulated areas to hardly populated ones. And we almost got attacked by some dogs, but we managed to come through unscathed. It was pretty nice. Driving scooters is such a nice way to see things.

On Monday, Amber and I set out to go to some hot springs just outside Taipei. We didn't really know how to get where we wanted to go. We asked at the bus station and the lady gave us directions but she wrote them in Chinese....so that was helpful. We asked a police officer but he didn't know the bus number so that didn't help either. Then we decided to just to go Beitou because that is a stop on the MRT. So we hopped on that and about twenty minutes later we were at the last stop transferring to the line that would take us the rest of the way.

While we were waiting for that train, we started looking at the sign and matching symbols, deciphering the symbols and how to say them in Chinese. We were actually doing pretty well when I looked up and the train was sitting there. The conductor was standing on the platform staring at us, probably wondering what we were doing and if we were getting on the train. Haha. We sprinted over there and Amber's sunglasses went flying off her face and skidded to a halt, centimeters from the edge of the track. Haha. The conductor started cracking up and we boarded the train in a fit of hysterics. It was pretty comical.

We walked around Beitou which is a really neat area. The Japanese were the first to utilize the hot spring for recreation so it is heavily influenced by that. The buildings are all woodwork in Japanese style and so pretty. The hot spring there is a Green Sulphur one which only exists in two places in the world - pretty awesome. We wandered down to the river which was running hot - so weird. We put our feet in for awhile and then headed back toward the public bathing house.

We stopped at the Plum Garden first which is, suprising not a garden and has no plums. It is actually a house that was built for an important social figure. He escaped to there when there was political pressure. I can't remember his name at the moment but he is a revered figure.

The bathing house was right next door. It was pretty cool. The pools were tiered and each got progressively hotter as they went up. Not fully grasping this concept, Amber and I went to the top first. I put my feet in and found out that it takes about 2 seconds for my pain receptors to tell my brain that I need to be out of the water 2 seconds ago. It was boiling! I don't know how anyone was sitting in there. I literally couldn't get out fast enough.

After that we went straight to the bottom pool. No more experimenting at the expense of the skin on my feet. We soaked for awhile there. When we were at the Plum Garden, one of the workers told us about the celebration in Taipei by the river that was going on. So we headed down there after.

We set up shop on a lawn and preceded to wait about five hours, literally. We had such a good spot but it kept getting more and more crowded. It was unbelievable. By the end of the night I was sharing my towel with a bunch of people, involuntarily. Haha. It started to rain and we panicked that we wouldn't be able to escape so we moved to a spot that was much closer to the MRT. There were so many people that I was sweating from shared body heat - in other words I was living my nightmare. Haha. Talk about claustrophobic. Ugh!

But the firework show was AMAZING! So worth it! It was twenty minutes of bliss! I was like a little kid, oohing and ahhing at them all! They had some fireworks I had never seen before - they were awesome.

My classes are going great! A couple of my tougher classes are getting good! The kids are getting more comfortable with me so they are talking more and class is getting awesome! In one class, I always tell Leo to tell me that I am his best friend. He pretends to hate it but he actually loves it! I tell him that I am going to go home with him and watch TV and he always tells me he is busy. Haha. It's pretty funny. But now he always walks me out of class, downstairs. Haha. He loves it!

I am just loving it here! Such an awesome job! If I didn't miss everyone so much I don't think I'd ever leave!!

Oh yeah, and I finally got my ARC. I am officially an alien resident! Woo!!

LOVE