Well my Chinese New Year in Taiwan was a blast, it's nice to have a whole week off finally, when at Christmas time it was just a three day weekend. Well I went down to Kenting with Krista, Jill (Krista's friend from Vancouver), and Ivy (Krista's Taiwanese roomate). It's a 6-7 hour trip to get there from Taipei so we decided to take the new HSR (high spped rail) which just opened a couple of months ago. It's really fast, I think it's average speed is 300km/hr and it took us only 2 hours to get to from Taipei to Kaohshiung. Then another 2 hours on a crappy bus to Kenting. We stayed in an ar
ea just off downtown Kenting, as we booked our tickets like a week and a half before we went and it's a gong show down there at this time of year. But the good thing was that there was a bus right beside our hotel that shuttled us to and from the beach.Once we got there we headed downtown and went to a Mexican restauran
t that had a dance floor and semi-strip show later on. At first they were trying to charge us for the tickets, but as time past and we finished our burritos they ended up letting us in for free (power to the foreigner!). Anyhoo, we expected to find a couple of clubs down there, but in the end we ended up at that place three out our 4 nights there. It was fun, the music was very the bar a few years ago (back in my glory days). We ended up doing our pre-drinking outside as we walked around eating random food at the food stalls. Here's a pic of Jill and I after we had just bought some drinks from the seven eleven (my life revolves around that place I swear). I discovered some new street vendor food that I really like: deep fried giant mushrooms, grilled sq
uid with bbq sauce and black pepper, and strawberries on a stick that have been coated in a candy shell (all very tasty).
t that had a dance floor and semi-strip show later on. At first they were trying to charge us for the tickets, but as time past and we finished our burritos they ended up letting us in for free (power to the foreigner!). Anyhoo, we expected to find a couple of clubs down there, but in the end we ended up at that place three out our 4 nights there. It was fun, the music was very the bar a few years ago (back in my glory days). We ended up doing our pre-drinking outside as we walked around eating random food at the food stalls. Here's a pic of Jill and I after we had just bought some drinks from the seven eleven (my life revolves around that place I swear). I discovered some new street vendor food that I really like: deep fried giant mushrooms, grilled sq
uid with bbq sauce and black pepper, and strawberries on a stick that have been coated in a candy shell (all very tasty).I ended up not sleeping a lot during this trip, but I was able to have cat naps on the beach. The beach was fantastic, close to Hawaii, not quite the same, but for Taiwan really nice. Kenting is on the southern tip of Taiwan, so all year round it's tropical and beautiful. It was hot, but not summer disgusting hot like it was when I first got here. Mor
e like a comfortable hot, where you get hot suntanning and then jump into the water every hour when you need to cool off. Of course I was the whitest person there (I swear I'm the whitest person in Taiwan). So the beatle nut guys kept on coming up and putting there arms to mine and commenting in Chinese how white I am (yeah the beatle nut guys are the blue truck guys here who drive like maniacs and chew these beatle nuts that act like a stimulant kind of like caffine, they chew it until it makes their mouth red and then spit it out, it looks a bit like blood, very attractive let me say....kind of like chewing tabacco back home but grosser). Anyhoo, I was their entertainment. 
We did the touristy things, like we all bought matching flowers for our hair ("If you're going to San Fran..."), bought wrap skirts for the beach etc. We also met some boys, not really interesting ones, but as we were a group I had to tag along with the girls when we met these random guys. A group of them that Jill liked were Canadian helicopter pilots for the US army who were from Whitecourt Alberta and Vancouver (hello small world), yeah Dad they know Jean and John. Anyhoo, they were somewhat entertaining but major alcoholics. Ivy met a yoga instructor guy (very granola, he is a vegan who travels around learning new yoga techniques and writ
ing children's books..)Anyhoo, we hung out at the beach with him and his buddies one day which was fun. We also met a bunch of Taiwanese guys on the beach who all wanted a picture with me ("Whoa man look at the whitest chick in Taiwan, no seriously she's that white!", well I imagine they will have a conversation something like that when they show their vacation pics to their friends).
e like a comfortable hot, where you get hot suntanning and then jump into the water every hour when you need to cool off. Of course I was the whitest person there (I swear I'm the whitest person in Taiwan). So the beatle nut guys kept on coming up and putting there arms to mine and commenting in Chinese how white I am (yeah the beatle nut guys are the blue truck guys here who drive like maniacs and chew these beatle nuts that act like a stimulant kind of like caffine, they chew it until it makes their mouth red and then spit it out, it looks a bit like blood, very attractive let me say....kind of like chewing tabacco back home but grosser). Anyhoo, I was their entertainment. 
We did the touristy things, like we all bought matching flowers for our hair ("If you're going to San Fran..."), bought wrap skirts for the beach etc. We also met some boys, not really interesting ones, but as we were a group I had to tag along with the girls when we met these random guys. A group of them that Jill liked were Canadian helicopter pilots for the US army who were from Whitecourt Alberta and Vancouver (hello small world), yeah Dad they know Jean and John. Anyhoo, they were somewhat entertaining but major alcoholics. Ivy met a yoga instructor guy (very granola, he is a vegan who travels around learning new yoga techniques and writ
ing children's books..)Anyhoo, we hung out at the beach with him and his buddies one day which was fun. We also met a bunch of Taiwanese guys on the beach who all wanted a picture with me ("Whoa man look at the whitest chick in Taiwan, no seriously she's that white!", well I imagine they will have a conversation something like that when they show their vacation pics to their friends). All in all it was a really great trip, it felt like I was going out with all of you from back home. It also felt like I got off to the island to another place. I really want to make sure I do stuff like this more often because it shows that they're more to Taiwan than just Hsinchu and Taipei. Anyhoo I miss everyone, and I want to hear about all of your reading break trips, jobs etc.
-Lindsay
1 comment:
Hi Linds!
I'm glad you had a nice break. The vacation pics look great. It's good that you finally had a nice vacation!
I just got back from a vacation myself... went to Cuba, which was fantastic. I have pics up on facebook if you want to see them.
Everything else is ok. School's getting busy. I'm actually starting to like a couple areas of law though - finally - which is encouraging (tax and family - I think I could be a great celebrity divorce lawyer). I'm currently in an extremely brutal 3 hr long night class. Including last week's class, we have spent over 4 hours talking about document discovery. And yes, that is as exciting as it sounds.
Anyway, have a great weekend!
Christi
Post a Comment