The 37 Hour Day

July 27

My day started early this morning. I woke up at 5:45 and took a nice lukewarm shower in the hostel bathroom. After that, I did my best not to wake up the others in my room as I took my two suitcases and backpack to checkout. Shortly thereafter, I arrived at the bus station and purchased my ticket with no problems. The first hiccup came when the guy taking tickets asked which terminal I needed to go to. My itinerary that I had printed out did not have that information on it. He asked, “mea guo (United States)?” and I responded, “dui (correct).” He then told me to go to the second terminal.

However, on the ride over I was second guessing that because I knew that the second terminal was for international departures, but the first terminal covered many Asian flights. Since my first connecting flight was in Tokyo, I thought that I might be taking off from the first terminal. Luckily, I stuck with the second terminal, which turned out to be the correct choice.

In the airport, I saw a few other Americans. After listening to a group of them talking for awhile, I decided to go over and join them. I found out that one of the guys I was sitting with took 4th place in the power-lifting competition at the World Games. It explained the massive upper-body that the guy had. One of the other guys worked on the medical staff at the events. I am really mad that I never got a picture with them. They were nice guys.

On the plane, I talked to a business man who travels to Taiwan on a regular basis. One of the things that I brought up was that I had a little visit in the Philippines. His eyes started to light up and he asked, “How did you like it?” When I replied that I hated it, he asked where I had stayed. When I replied that I stayed in Manila he understood why my experience was so bad. He told me that he had done quite a bit of traveling, and Manila was without a doubt the worst city that he'd ever stayed in. However, some of the other areas in the country were some of the most beautiful that he'd ever seen. It confirmed what I already believed: to fully experience the Philippines I need to explore other areas before I can judge the place.

On the flight from Tokyo to Seattle, I sat next to a mother who visited one of her children in Japan. She was nice, but kind of weird. I was kind of happy once the movies started so I could watch those instead of talking to her. Still, there are much worse passengers to sit by on an 8+ hour flight.

Upon arrival in Seattle, I discovered that my flight to Chicago had been delayed. There was a mechanical problem on the flight before mine, and the plane hadn't even arrived yet. It made me very antsy because my connection in Chicago was only 40 minutes to begin with. By the time we departed, it was at least 40 minutes past schedule.

When we landed, I borrowed the phone of the woman sitting next to me to make a call to Emilie. I told her that I was likely going to miss the flight, as the departure time was about 5 minutes away when I called. She gave me a glimmer of hope when she told me that the flight to Kansas City had been delayed an hour. However, after running to the gate, I discovered that the plane had already left. I would have to wait an additional 3 hours to get home.

It was at this point that I had one of my “Welcome to America” moments. I needed to call home to inform everyone of the flight change. Since Emilie and I traded phones for the summer, mine was only good in Taiwan. I walked up to the last group of people waiting in line at the customer service desk and asked if I could borrow one of their phones. One of the men reluctantly agreed. After a quick call I gave back the phone and thanked him. His response was like I had burdened him a great deal by using his phone. I thought about the woman the previous day that helped me find the hostel and realized that I was now back into a different environment.

Once I finally boarded the last plane, I took my seat next to two girls about the same age. I found out that they were arriving home after a couple of months in Ukraine. They described the process of constantly being interrogated there because there is little reason for Americans to ever want to travel to Ukraine. They said that they could tell they were back in the United States because the people here were so much nicer then in Ukraine. I laughed and explained that I knew I was back in the US because people here were so much meaner to me. They gave me one more reason to not want to travel to Ukraine.

After all of the adventures, about 28 hours later, I finally made it...home.

Last Day in Taipei

July 26

Today I had my journey from Kaohsiung to Taipei to prepare for my flight back to America tomorrow. When I woke up, I still had no plans on where I would stay in the evening. I had talked to Sabina (Indonesia) and she said she had a friend that lived in Taipei I might be able to stay with. In the morning, I found out that her friend was out of the area, and that would not be an option. Luckily, I talked to some other staff members and they were able to help me find a cheap hostel that was also really close to the train station.

Leaving Wenzao was really weird. When each group of people left the school, a group of the other students would help to send them off. However, I was the last student from the Wenzao program to leave. Once one of the staff called a taxi for me, I began my journey by walking to the back entrance of the school by myself. It was an eerie feeling and it made me realize how little time I really have left in Taiwan.

Upon arrival in Taipei, I had some problems finding my hostel. At the train station, I talked to the information desk and they showed me what to do, but I still had a few problems. After walking around the area I knew was close to the hostel, I still couldn't find it. I stopped and put down the luggage that I was dragging down the sidewalk. After trying to see if I could get any visual clues for about a minute, a woman came up to me and asked me in English if I needed any help. I showed her the address I was looking for, and she said she would walk me to it. Luckily, it was just right around the corner. Not only did she walk me to the building, but she even went up the elevator to the floor I needed, just to make sure that everything was alright. Can you imagine many people doing the same thing in the US? The Taiwanese are easily the most hospitable people that I've met in my life.

After I got settled at the hostel, I called Sabina and tried to arrange plans for the evening. We settled on meeting at the Taipei 101 at 7:30. I decided to take a nap and just relax for the rest of the afternoon until then. A left for the Taipei 101 a little bit earlier than I needed to because I wanted to run by the bus station to see what I would need to do in the morning. One of the disadvantages of Taipei is that the airport is actually a little bit south of the city. In order to get to the airport, the most common way is to take a 45 minute bus ride. Since I need to leave so early in the morning, I wanted to make sure that I knew how to find everything ahead of time. Luckily, the signs were easily readable, and I am confident that I will make it to the airport tomorrow.

The journey to the 101 made me realize how much different traveling alone is than traveling with friends. Especially in an overcrowded city like Taipei, walking alone amongst all of the people can make you feel very insignificant. Once I made it successfully to the 101, I still had 30 minutes to burn. Even in the world's tallest building, filling those 30 minutes seemed to last forever.

When Sabina arrived, she had brought a friend with her. I was thinking that we were going to eat together, but found out that they'd already eaten. However, they were nice enough to join me in the food court while I ate. We had a nice discussion, and it helped ease my nerves of the traveling I have to do in the morning.

After dinner, they took me to a night market close by, where we sat down for some drinks. I had the last mango smoothie I will have for quite some time. It was well worth it. We also did a little bit of shopping for any last minute souvenirs, but I couldn't find anything worth purchasing. After that, Sabina helped me get back to the MRT station and I was on my own for the rest of my time on the island.

Back at the hostel, I spent a little bit of time interacting with a couple of my roommates for the night. One of them was a Korean high schooler that spoke decent English. He explained that he had spent the last two weeks traveling the island with nothing but a backpack of supplies. He only brought one pair of jeans, and each night would turn them inside-out to let them air out overnight before he would put them back on in the morning. It was pretty awesome to hear him describe the process.

The other guy that I talked to was a man from Kaohsiung. Unfortunately, his English was about as good as my Chinese. We ended up using his computer to translate for us. It was during this painstakingly slow process that made me realize how much I really want to learn Chinese. It really bothers me that I am only able to speak one language. Hopefully, within a few years I can become fluent in another language. Well, it's off to bed for me. See you in America!

Rugby 7s

July 25

When I originally booked my flight to Taiwan, my sister had already informed me of the World Games. Knowing that I would enjoy seeing the events, I left a couple of extra days in my schedule to allow me to see a couple of events. Since the Wenzao program ended on Friday and I wouldn’t leave for Taipei until Sunday, Saturday was left as the prime day to go to the World Games. The event that I wanted to see the most was the Rugby 7s competition. I had never watched a rugby game in person before, so I figured that this was an ideal time to do so.

I ended up going with Christine, one of the girls from Indonesia. We were supposed to meet up with the other two girls from the US, but that fell through. The games themselves turned out to be a blast. Neither of us really knew what to expect, but we both ended up really enjoying the games.

My favorite part was getting to root for the Americans. When I bought the tickets, I didn’t think that the Americans had qualified for the competition. When I checked the schedule the night before the games I was surprised to see the inclusion of the US in the match-ups.

Following an early setback to Argentina, the Americans came back to defeat Japan in a thrilling overtime game. Taiwan also lost the first game and won the second, meaning that the two would face off in the 5^th place game.

As the game drew near, I began to prepare by pulling out my flag and getting it ready to go. A minute later, I looked around me and noticed that there was a guy about my age doing the same thing with his Taiwan flag a few seats down. When the two teams came out, I did my usual screaming and waving the flag, fully aware that nearly every other person in the stadium was rooting for the other side. Seeing this, the guy with the Taiwan flag came over and tried to cover up my flag with his. Our brief encounter amused the crowd as they looked on.

When the game began, the US got off to a great start and scored a try (like a touchdown in American football). When the Americans then capitalized on a Taiwan mistake to take a 14-0 lead, I playfully taunted the crowd by turning around and waving the flag. The guy with the big flag came over and handed me a foot-long Taiwan flag for me to hold. When I sat down and started waving the Taiwan flag, the crowd started applauding.

That wouldn’t be all they would applaud at. Soon, Taiwan actually came back and took the lead in the game. Even though the US was losing at that point, it was still a lot of fun because the crowd was so excited. There is a different aura at games when national teams are playing, as opposed to local teams. It is much more exciting. However, the United States would regain the lead and withstand a last chance for Taiwan to win the game. The final score was 21-19 to the Americans.

After the game, I turned into a celebrity for a few minutes. People came up to me and asked to get a picture with me. It is the first and likely the last time that there will ever be a line to get a picture taken with me. While this was going on, the American team came around to high-five people. When they came around, I gave one of them my flag. Giving a flag to a national team is something I have always thought would be fun, so I can now cross it off my bucket list early in my lifetime (hopefully).

The US-Taiwan game turned out to be the last close one, as both South Africa and Fiji dominated their competition to take 3^rd and 1^st, respectively. Just a couple of minutes after the final game, the skies opened up and it began to downpour. About the only people that didn’t take cover were Christine, me, the guy with the Taiwan flag, and his girlfriend. Hooray for umbrellas.

For dinner, we picked up Seiko and went to a night market. We decided on a place that we were able to pick the type of meat that we wanted, along with all of the vegetables. They then cooked everything together and served it with unlimited rice and tea. It was a good dinner, and a good way to end my last day in Kaohsiung.

The Final Countdown

July 24

Today was the last official day of the Wenzao program. It is a bittersweet day for everyone as they realize that it could be the last day they will ever see some of these people, but also celebrate the fun times they shard over the last three weeks.

After breakfast, the morning activity was to break up into the four groups we had been associated with during our time here and prepare for the presentations. Each group was tasked with creating a presentation that included the Chinese that they learned as well as including experiences and culture from Taiwan. Our group decided to create a quick three scene act that included scenes of a wedding, classroom, and restaurant. These locations allowed for everyone to talk at least a little bit of Chinese.

However, while everyone else said things they learned that actually made sense, I decided to use the sentence that had been a running joke throughout the camp. So for the answer for both “What is your name” and “What would you like to eat,” my response was “I am from the United States.” While much of the language in our class was difficult to learn, for whatever reason I was able to pick up “Wo shi mea guo ren” right away.

We performed the presentations in the afternoon. Ours turned out better than I had expected it to. However, we still came short of winning the best presentation award. It’s alright though. I’m just glad that people laughed at ours.

The last organized activity of our time here was the closing ceremony. After a few speeches, we had the opportunity to eat one last meal of fresh seafood. Actually, that may have just been me. I guess everyone else lives much closer to the ocean than I do. After the meal, people from each group got to describe a little bit about their experiences. Being the only native English speaker in our group, that assignment was left to me. In hindsight, I probably should have cried. People from the next two groups after me cried quite a bit.

We also had the opportunity to watch the video that the English people had made. Their school booked all of the travel for them, and booked their return flight for earlier in the day. The staff wanted them to still to be a part of the ceremony so they recorded a short video a couple of days earlier. Somehow I was roped into interviewing them for the video. Luckily, all three of them have a good sense of humor and I was pleased that the final product turned out well.
After the event, we had the opportunity to mingle for the last time and take some pictures. Here are a few of them. Thanks to everybody there for making the event such a fun time!

Giant and Ramen Noodles

July 23

On our last day of traveling, the first stop was the Giant factory in Taichung. Giant is one of the three biggest bicycle manufacturers in the world. I actually found the presentation part of our tour pretty interesting. It definitely made me more interested in buying one of their bikes. The factory tour was actually kind of fun as well. It was interesting to see each different part in the assembly line and how the bikes come together. It also reminded me of why I got a college education. The best part about the tour was when he let us pick up the frame of one of the carbon fiber bikes. Those things are so light! I’d want to get one, except I know they cost around $16,000US to get a completed one. I guess I will stick with my $150 one instead.

Between our two factory visits for the day, we encountered a problem that I am already much too familiar with. When the bus pulled off the exit ramp, the engine died. Subsequent attempts to turn it over proved to be unsuccessful. Finally after about 5 minutes, the bus finally was able to get started. We then found out that the bus was running on fumes. Luckily, we made it far enough to reach a gas station and were able to fill up. Considering the other bad luck that I’ve had on bus rides, I was ecstatic to find out that it was only a problem with gas.

The second visit brought us to the Uni-President Enterprises Corporation. The first thing we did was take a tour of the area where they manufacture ramen noodles. For the people that know how much I love ramen noodles, they would understand how excited I was to see them being made. I just wanted to hop the barrier and eat some right there. Luckily, the heat prevented me from being very hungry.

On the second part of the tour, they showed us a video basically on how their products can change the world. During the video, I discovered how much power the company had in Taiwan. Much of the food and drink that is available for purchase is made by them, plus they operate the 7-Elevens and Starbucks in the country. To fully realize how many 7-Elevens are in Taiwan, you need to go there and see for yourself. I imagine it’s the equivalent of trying to find a Starbucks in Seattle (before half of them went bankrupt). They have a dominant position in the country. The other thing that I realized during the video was that marketing a food company is difficult. Food is not a glamorous product, but the producers did a decent job.

After the tour, we went into Tainan City. The city has more history than any other place in Taiwan because it was the first city that the Dutch founded when they arrived in the 1600s. We went to a tree house museum where a gigantic tree was. I guess I missed the part that described why it was so significant, but it was kind of interesting.

After that, we had a few hours to get food. I went with Mangmang and Ms. Bao, the professor from Beijing. We decided to wait until we got back to Kaohsiung to get dinner, so we walked around for awhile. We finally stopped at a park and sat next to this group of older guys that looked like they hung around the park a lot. Of course, seeing that I was white, they proceeded to practice all of the English they knew, which was comprised of “Hello,” and “How are you?” The rest of the time they spent talking to the other two that knew Chinese. It was somewhat disturbing because one of the guys kept walking around, flipping up his shirt, and rubbing his belly while talking. I was trying hard not to laugh the whole time. After a few minutes we decided to walk around somewhere else.

After another hour-long trip, we were finally back at Wenzao. I went with Mangmang for some beef noodles. I added some extra spice to them and they were quite good. I could definitely get used to the spicy food around here. My time here is getting much too short now.

Once again, thanks to Grace for the pictures. Although I did take the middle one because you can see Grace in the picture!

On Top of Taipei

July 22

Day three of our journey brought us to the capital of the country, Taipei. It is a bustling, overcrowded city that offers plenty to do. On the trip from Yi-Lan to Taipei, we went through one of the longest tunnels in the world. I forget the name of it, but the Taiwanese claim that it was the most difficult tunnel construction project in the world. Judging from the inside of the tunnel, the results were inconclusive.

Our first stop of the day was at the Taipei 101. Unfortunately, the building didn’t open up to commercial traffic until 11:00, which meant that we had two hours before we could go inside. I followed Jake (England), Craig (England), and Beck (Taiwan) around until the building opened. We first headed over to McDonalds for some food, but I opted out of getting any. I am too close to leaving the country to be eating American fast food. I decided that I would wait until the 101 opened up and get food in the food court.

After that, we decided to go over to the City Hall, which was a few blocks away from the 101. They turned out to have a pretty interesting museum inside. It gave details of how Taipei came to be created and organized. I also learned that Tainan was the capital of Taiwan for a long time before Taipei became the capital in 1887 (I had to look up the year). The audio guides that we had were very informative.

After that, we were on our way back to the Taipei 101. Jake, Craig, and I decided to spend the NT400 to go up to the top. We found out that spectator area was only on the 88th floor and were a little disappointed by that. Overall, the experience at the top was good, not great. I thought that the view of Kaohsiung from the Kaohsiung 85 was better than Taipei from the Taipei 101 (original names, huh?). Even so, it was still pretty cool to go up the tallest completed building in the world. The best part about the top was the ability to see the wind damper. The wind damper is a 660 metric ton hunk of metal that acts as a counterbalance to stabilize the building. It is the only one in the world that is open to the public to view. I enjoyed listening to how it worked.
Our afternoon trip took us to the National Palace Museum. First, a little background on the place. When Chiang Kai-shek was forced to Taiwan by Mao, he took a bunch of stuff from the mainland with him. Among the things that he took were many different artistic pieces. So many, in fact, that the National Palace Museum regularly changes exhibits, but has yet to show all of the pieces in their possession.

The tour turned out to be pretty much of a disappointment. Everybody had an earpiece, which was tuned to the leader’s microphone. However, the leader was Scott, the guy who had just turned 18 a couple of days ago. He was far from an expert in the artwork that we viewed. Instead, he gave us valuable information like, “This is written in Chinese,” “How many stamps do you see on this paper?” and “This is old.” Most importantly, he used the opportunity to recite the dirty words that the British guys had taught him over the previous weeks.


The big draw at the museum was a piece of jade carved into the shape of a cabbage. Call me crazy, but I just couldn’t get very excited over the most expensive thing shaped like a vegetable that I’d ever seen in my life. It turned out that the pieces I liked the most were the contemporary artwork that I went to look at by myself. I liked a few of them a lot.

After that, we traveled to the hotel about an hour or two south of Taipei. It was in a remote area. It would have taken a 20 minute cab ride to get to the nearest town. Dinner was provided in a restaurant in the middle of the area. I knew it would be a rough time for me when we were told that it would be a vegetarian meal.

One thing that I had learned from my time here is that my body likes meat. If it doesn’t have some, my body gets mad at me. I had not had any meat all day up to that point and now found out that I wouldn’t for the rest of the evening as well. It turned out that I spent about the same amount of time in the bathroom as I did at the table for the meal. In hindsight, I should have sprung for the McDonald’s in the morning.

The rest of the evening was spent walking around the area. It turned out that the place wasn’t like a hotel; it was like a little village with small huts as the rooms. We spent most of the evening sitting down by the pond and talking with one another. It was a good place to relax, save for the biggest moth that I’d ever seen in my life that kept flying around the light by us.

Thanks to Grace and Wikipedia for some of the images.

Mountains and Beaches and Gorges...Oh My!

July 21

Today was the second day of the four day tour of Taiwan. The first thing that we did was continue or path north towards Taipei. The first stop of the day was at the Taroko National Park. The main attraction of the park is the Taroko Gorge, a big chasm (thank you Microsoft Word dictionary) that has a river running through it. The path that people hike on could be an all day event, but we only had a couple of hours to spend. Walking the trail was fun because of how narrow it is. The trail was about 5 feet across, with the only protection from falling off being a guard rail that was too low to do much good. After walking for 20-30 minutes, we reached a section of the trail where we could go get in the water. Everybody hiked down and we spent about 45 minutes getting our feet wet. It was fun, but I would have still preferred to have been back at the waterfall again.

For lunch, we had a nice box filled with nothing but pastries and a juice box. It would not have been my first choice for a boxed lunch, but I guess it did get the job done. While we were driving along the road, the scenery was incredible. Since Taiwan is a volcanic island, there are many steep mountains. On the eastern side, the mountains extend right to the sea. The location of the road was basically right on these cliffs from the mountains where you could look down a few hundred feet and see the beaches below you. It was another spectacular sight. The only problem was my fear that the bus was going to tip over and fall down the mountain. Luckily, that never ended up happening.

After looking at many empty beaches on the journey, we pulled off into a small town and went to a beach where we basically had the whole thing to ourselves. It would have been great, but it was the middle of the day and we still had another seven or so hours before we would be able to go to our hotel and take a shower. Therefore, I did not want to get into the water because it would mean that the rest of the day I would be travelling in clothing covered in salt water and sand. I may love beaches, but I hate the feeling of sand once it dries and gets everywhere. At the beginning, only the Brits decided to get into the water. Slowly but surely, more and more people started to get in. Soon, people were teaming up against others and throwing them into the sea. I knew that I eventually I would be the target of one of those attacks. Soon, it was my turn.

When I am either about to get into a fight or forced to do something I don’t want to do, I have just one strategy: run. When people started to come after me I used my speed to my advantage. They tried to get me on about five different occasions, but each time I was able to outrun the mob. However, it was still not a total victory for me. By running along the beach quickly I had tracked ocean water and sand up my shorts. So even though I never went into the ocean there, I still had to deal with the sand that had gotten on me for the rest of the day.

After we had gotten back on the road, the next part of the drive was even better than the previous. We went even higher into the mountains. At one point I looked out and saw a few clouds hanging on the side of the mountains. A few minutes later, we were at that point that I had seen and actually drove through the clouds. That was a first for me. Soon we reached our destination for the evening, Yi-Lan. Yi-Lan county is southeast of Taipei county.

For dinner we went to another night market. As some people I was with were waiting for food, I noticed a stand that had some fried foods. She had these things that looked kind of like real hash browns when they all stick together. I decided to get one of those, which ended up being a good decision. It tasted sort of like a funnel cake, except with potato and cinnamon flavors with it. Eating with some other people, I also had part of some sort of baozi, which was also pretty good. After looking at the food stands there, it offered better food than any of the other night markets I had visited.

When we reached our hotel, for the second straight night I was in a room that housed eight people. The room was great. There was a lounge area that had a big flat-panel television and a speaker set-up. When we got in the room, I walked into the first bedroom I happened to see, which turned out to be the master. I was able to claim the king-sized bed that was in there. It was gloriously large and comfortable. I shared it with Jake, but there was so much room on the bed that it felt like I still had the whole thing to myself. I slept well that night.

Thanks to Grace for the pictures. My camera was dead again.