tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74073033261159808252024-03-14T09:48:21.075-07:00Asian VoyageLearning, Climbing, DrinkingUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger79125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-24282031913109767392009-06-11T08:49:00.000-07:002009-06-11T08:57:22.576-07:00A REAL Ice Cream Sandwich<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSGFwOxLdYaCArGLgH_Cpq7XShcJWzD4i3BE4rb-1nEYf7rSMLxzFozXHT_3JnYTTpmUVLFXva_Y3SSzPLZDlnkHxjJ2pf20lb1JNHnwGUUrv9HQKt4Duj-OuQmEBTIrYDkou5P0_67dU/s1600-h/IMG_0361.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSGFwOxLdYaCArGLgH_Cpq7XShcJWzD4i3BE4rb-1nEYf7rSMLxzFozXHT_3JnYTTpmUVLFXva_Y3SSzPLZDlnkHxjJ2pf20lb1JNHnwGUUrv9HQKt4Duj-OuQmEBTIrYDkou5P0_67dU/s200/IMG_0361.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5346099668831621794" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMploAckZgANAiAdGWhEAt6m5rcvWV-nbWSXy8ZODhzHJxEiBtS5cbrxD_JtBvC5ntOim_6F5h236rvgsPr5fQ_jZAmXlb48SvnR2RLcQLwwNMAbzEEflrlvZtG9orxWPcVdISpRedq4Y/s1600-h/IMG_0362.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMploAckZgANAiAdGWhEAt6m5rcvWV-nbWSXy8ZODhzHJxEiBtS5cbrxD_JtBvC5ntOim_6F5h236rvgsPr5fQ_jZAmXlb48SvnR2RLcQLwwNMAbzEEflrlvZtG9orxWPcVdISpRedq4Y/s200/IMG_0362.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5346099480204147618" /></a><br />Italians know how to do Ice Cream, or more specifically, gelato. Ice Cream sandwiches in America are, by comparison, punny. It is made with sweet, choclate-chip bread with powdered sugar on top and three heaping scoops of gelato.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-35926319464507432262009-05-26T11:34:00.000-07:002009-06-11T08:49:47.147-07:00The plains of Italy are GORGEOUS<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1zxEtn_-zqSXCng4h9LMy1-reJFTdgNhCaUtXKNsQwzUf6JHqGp2U7QTyO5u8T0x0RLU_PS-umZxZ6IDNkChPAyuY13sgIWiek6l6VhjsjW6yukhdNADO1-A_jmTlbKyOnmUsqJKguJo/s1600-h/IMG_0128.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1zxEtn_-zqSXCng4h9LMy1-reJFTdgNhCaUtXKNsQwzUf6JHqGp2U7QTyO5u8T0x0RLU_PS-umZxZ6IDNkChPAyuY13sgIWiek6l6VhjsjW6yukhdNADO1-A_jmTlbKyOnmUsqJKguJo/s200/IMG_0128.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5346097696058813682" /></a><br />Our destination after the mountains was Taranto, a coastal city. We didn't run into <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">too</span> many problems on the way there, but I did realize driving here has changed the way I drive. We were getting close to Taranto and we were in stop and go traffic. As we neared a stop light the car in front of me was rolling along slowly past a gas station. I saw that the light was green and thought that the car must be planning on turning into the gas station so I hit the gas and pulled around the car in front of me. As I did so the light turned red and the cars in front of me stopped, so I couldn't make it all the way in front of the car I passed, but instead I was kind of caddy-corner. As soon as I stopped I realized I had just been a major asshole, although the car didn't even honk. The next day while we were driving Anson started laughing because I was swearing at the car in front of me (it decelerating as it approached an on ramp ... something I found/find very counterintuative). I even peeled out once when going around a curve. Although, I've also found American traffic frustrating since I've been back I think if I hadn't adapted to Italian traffic at least a little I might not have been able to hack it. I'm sure the same is true of Anson although he's always been more comfortable with speed.<div><br /></div><div>Anywhoo, when we made it to Taranto we parked on the edge of town and started looking around. We quickly stumbled upon a sort of Italian flea market and, before long, Anson found something he wanted to buy. A deck of numberless cards, they simply used symbols. It was only one euro so he bought it right out. We continued on through the crowd browsing. We passed some neat pipes, a sword, and a variety of other interesting things but didn't get any of it. We did, however, discover that Anson's deck of card only had 40 or so cards. They had had another deck or two so we decided to go back and see if we couldn't get one of those and, between the two of them, make a full deck.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is one of the more, in hindsight, embarrassing language/culture experiences I've had. Anson, after reading a long history of cards, found out that there were only supposed to be 40 cards in the deck. Now the odd, suspicious, sidelong glances they gave us as the looked for the other deck of cards made sense. It makes sense because ... they thought we were crazy. They didn't end up finding another deck of cards so Anson and I set out for our next objective, food.</div><div><br />Anson kept asking for hamburgers and hot dogs in the hope that he would get something crazy and unique and Taranto didn't disappoint. When he ordered his hot dog they asked if he wanted french fries. He did. After a few minutes they served him a hot dog, cut in half long-wise, on a sub with fries sandwiching it on either side. It turned out to be very unique and also very delicious.</div><div><br /></div><div>After dinner we began our evening search for a campsite. This evening however, we were looking to poach. We wanted something by the road, without much traffic or light. Preferably flat and without grazing animals or trash. It took us a lot of slow driving on back roads and some guts-ing up but we found a suitable place. We didn't find out until after we were laying down in the tent that our spot wasn't as flat as it had looked but we both slept well.</div><div><br />The next morning we got up at 7 and headed out. After getting breakfast we began our search for some archaeological ruins on the coast south of Bari. These too took some searching but these too we found in the end. They turned out to be spectacular. It was a village and burial site that were ~2000 years old. It was neat to see and we even got to walk inside some of the tombs and a large storage chamber. The coast in the areas was particularly </div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih8wec5XZXfZ2ukOT-ox3XGqASScxN9_EiIrf1Kwv3TsTveoOuqS5HNkWz81M2gfm5hd_-jnkz2fJsmj4POmkYoJBSP1RPhOS1LsN6NnFvlXVEBhmYNX_HSed7DQ2xxK7HGgysc0dH4iU/s200/IMG_0181.JPG" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5346096889695468610" /><div>beautiful. It was rocky, which was neat because you could see where the ancient villagers had used the cliffs as a quarry.</div><div><br /></div><div>By the time we left the ruins it was time to begin our daily ritual of looking for somewhere to eat. After almost an hour and one false start (we thought a pizzeria was open but, upon entering and talking with the management, who were there cooking, we found out it wasn't) we were hungry and frustrated with the whole thing. Just as we were starting to head back to the car to drive somewhere else, we saw a Chinese restaurant. Italians may take 4 hour lunch brakes but I was pretty sure Chinese didn't. We walked into the restaurant and, indeed, someone immediately came out and took us to a table. The food was good and I got to practice my Chinese ... always a bonus.</div><div><br /></div><div>After a refreshing lunch we left and made for our next destination, the Castellana Grotte. They turned out to be stunning caves but very commercialized. We couldn't even take pictures inside because the city owned the digital rights and would not stand for anyone else trying to usurp them. The cave tour culminated in the 'White Cave', a truly stunning room where the water creating the formations was pure of certain elements leading to completely white stalactites and stalagmites. Another interesting thing in the caves was the effect of the lighting. Previously nothing grew in the caverns because it was dark but now, around the lights, algae was growing. Apparently in some parts of the cave the air was even being turned more acidic by human breath, leading to stalactites being destroyed by the constant dripping of water, instead of created. It was sad and made me wonder what the caves would be like in 20 years.</div><div><br /></div><div>When we got out of the caves we found that we had gotten a parking ticket. It was a bummer but the main problem was that we didn't know how to pay it. I ended up taking it back to Bologna and asking my Spanish class what to do with it. Then Anson and I took a field trip to the post office, what my class/teacher had recommended, and paid it there. Immediately, however, our concern was to get our car washed and get to Bari. A guy on our tour of the cave was ''backpacking'' around Southern Italy so decided to give him a ride to Bari.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the way we stopped at a car wash. We had to ask for directions but then we got it figured out and got the car reasonably clean. Anson didn't think it was a big deal but I was paranoid about getting a huge charge after we turned the car in for 'cleaning' (I, so far, haven't). Driving into Bari proved somewhat stressful but we found a parking garage and pulled in there. The parking spots were so narrow that parking was almost more nerve wracking than driving had been but we </div><div>made it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Our main exiting event of the evening was stumbling upon some giant soccer celebrations. We literally rounded a corner and suddenly were confronted by a big screen TV and hordes of people watching, yelling, drinking, and generally carousing. This seemed a little more intense than we were quite ready for so we did our best to skirt most of it, only stopping to get gelato. On the way back to the car we stopped at a Tabacchi (smoke shop) where Anson bought another deck of cards. It wasn't until now that we began to realize the decks were only supposed to have 40 cards, and the used deck he'd gotten hadn't been short at all. It was just Italian.</div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8ofey2PqWK6mEdu8jmvzxTuAxQmoOgObwQ3LkmCuX2tcLGOd1PRQafuMvKwZa3rKGG_ZLEfNCvBYAMR80WXuEtgF7axWu5FhmA42alHIANcHICKuZK-c4J6Ph4p14KwFr8Z7V-Qy5IZY/s200/IMG_0189.JPG" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5346096642000092530" /><div>We had to wake up early the next morning to drop off the car and catch our flight, so we just decided to spend the night in our car. The flight back was uneventful except that the passengers broke out into song a couple of times. The right soccer team must have one the night before. The trumpets sounded again on our landing, promting another round of song. We had made it back to Bologna.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-38160273932835934212009-05-19T05:53:00.000-07:002009-05-26T11:31:03.116-07:00The mountains of Italy are AMAZING<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtU7BVj-WfKaqkyTL7UQYZsS0iKSKAvqO8HEUakhxJr9erhxDCsutxmwZyS-650EhkUcMX7YO2ZvnIg1K0OP9wb4bGG8DekOK-G79dWY96C2zgzlJHRWgmdwBQ1Y_fAq77LV7ILn1x_g0/s1600-h/IMG_0048.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtU7BVj-WfKaqkyTL7UQYZsS0iKSKAvqO8HEUakhxJr9erhxDCsutxmwZyS-650EhkUcMX7YO2ZvnIg1K0OP9wb4bGG8DekOK-G79dWY96C2zgzlJHRWgmdwBQ1Y_fAq77LV7ILn1x_g0/s200/IMG_0048.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340198351292891666" /></a>I woke up early (I thought) but Anson was up over an hour before me enjoying the sunrise. It was fully light by the time I woke up and we walked down to the beach again to stretch our legs. It was sunny, but chilly and pretty windy. However, I had wanted to swim in the Mediterranean and I knew this was going to be my last chance on this trip so I went back to the car and changed into my swimsuit. On the way back to the beach Anson advised me to just run straight in so, once we made it there, I sprinted straight in. It was cold but shallow. I swam out about 10' but it didn't get any deeper so I just waded around a little. <div><br /></div><div>Our campground had showers on the way back in and I started to use one of them before I realized they actually had hot showers too. So I went and tried to use one of those but unfortunately they weren't free. Thus, I trudged back out into the wind and stood under the shower head. I took a deep breath before turning it on full blast. It was as cold as I expected so I scrubbed off quickly and headed back to the car. We cranked up the heat and headed off. </div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCN7rnXHvp2twlR8t_l6cnvOsDBTfUQn1W1uM9HOZ9cz5eu-HHWU_Cwy-dre68wvEszWPB6_vW9eNMRyKNaP_lkgcdWAehz3zzrd1QSEdl51rGuKWE53qtFfQNdVYCSC8o_3-9bfTJ6pQ/s200/IMG_0112.JPG" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340200576038950130" /><div>This day of driving was characterized much less on navigating by map and much more on which mountains we thought we could make it to by taking which roads in our immediate vicinity. By heading towards the steep cliffs, we made finally arrived at Castel Mezzano. The castle part had been built onto/into the rock itself and probably would have been a pretty good fortification. A modern addition that Anson and I were much more interested in was the zip line. It stretched from the top of the highest peak at Castel Mezzano, all the way across the valley, to a mountain on the other side (www.volodellangelo.com). It was, unfortunately, closed. Anson and I looked for food, an occupation that was beginning to become quite tiresome, and, not finding any, moved on. </div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1D0U73NRRZU0TQlLjS5rq0pODgp6YfoymLXGwodnNetLquH-mwpPCpSCm0v3EEathYd017hvyqOYMr8OkGX9_l4anDz-cBxHkELQh233qOdeitmto0WWlTlbL4GI5nsPTBj5pydfoaG4/s200/IMG_0111.JPG" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340200311393614146" /><div>Since coming to Southern Italy I had been reminded more than once of Taiwan and now, as Anson and I navigated down the mountain on steep, debris ridden, and frequently one lane (due to landslides) roads the resemblance was overwhelming. In Naples moped use was almost as high as Asia, and I had even seen a family of 5 riding on one moped, something I had thought was distinctly Taiwanese. Squatter toilets and toilets without seats were also in regular use and, furthermore, families that owned restaurants seemed to also use them as their home. The food was even cheaper too. Now, driving along these roads with Anson, I was reminded of driving along Taroko Gorge with my dad the previous year. It was more surprising than anything else. </div><div>Either Taiwan is advanced or Southern Italy is behind. Possibly both.</div><div><br /></div><div>After more driving and many split-second navigational decisions we ended up in Tricario. We were still looking for food but we couldn't see anything open so we kept driving. It had started to rain but the scenery was still spectacular. We were in a type of deciduous forest and we began to see stock animals.</div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlto9y6ETa5aSvma48EGeReQc8Ir_hjYw2tT65j0vD7JhVlR1dQI10NIY-6jcyHbKXuCVLmTz9LBjWC6K0N_CZvEXOqMvR39jvp5sQ29mPeXSgELV8Z8bN83KPDNghCTYStr6Qn-5eDsI/s200/IMG_0120.JPG" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340198741421263490" /><div> When coming down from Castel Mezzano we had driven through some sheep in the road. Now we saw large grey cows that, at first glance, looked a little like elephants. Only at first glance though. We continued driving when we suddenly saw a restaurant sign on our left. Anson swung the wheel and we pulled up short in a parking space.</div><div><br /></div><div>Our fist impression on entering the restaurant was that it was probably nicer than what we were looking for but we were seated quickly so it didn't seem like we had much choice. The restaurant was bustling with people, I guessed they were the after church crowd. After a moment the waiter came up to take our order and we quickly found out that he spoke English. And his name was Alfonzo. They didn't use a menu for lunch, instead they just had some things that they recommended. Anson chose lasagna and then it was my turn. Anson told him I was vegetarian (better to get that out early) and his response was not heartening. "Oooh, that is not good, we only work with meat at lunch." Because I had had a good experience yesterday with spinach I decided just to ask for that, or perhaps mushrooms. "I aint got not spinach, I got mushrooms, but I aint got no spinach." I asked for a small pizza but that request was also denied. Apparently they don't do pizza at lunch. Alfonzo then suggested a plate with mushrooms, peppers, and cheese. It sounded good to me so I agreed. </div><div><br />After he left we observed the decor of the restaurant. It turned out that there was a picture on the wall next to our table, of a whole pig being roasted. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by the "we only work with meat at lunch" thing. Alfonzo turned out to be very nice and he frequently stopped by our table to talk. He turned out to be a very interesting guy, having lived in Liverpool and London for 6-8 years all told. No wonder his English was good.</div><div><br /></div><div>Before too long he came out again, this time bringing our food. Anson's lasagna was pretty straightforward and apparently, very delicious. My plate was a bit of a surprise but ... I guess that should have been expected. There were two large (3-4" x 1" x 2 ") pieces of cheese, one mozzarella, which was tied in a knot, and the other was provolone (I think). I also had peppers, and eggplant. The best though, was the mushrooms. I think it is common to cut bell peppers in half, then pack the halves with something and bake them. I had not thought that this could be done to mushrooms but indeed, although they weren't cut in half first, the tops were stuffed and they turned out very delicious. Alfonzo had also talked us into getting some bruschetta (baked bread with tomatoes, olive oil, and spices). Jeannie and I had made it once in Bologna but this was vastly superior, I think because of more oil and more salt. Although eating the two pieces of cheese was sort of intense (it was just a lot of cheese) the meal overall was fantastic. Anson got coffee afterwards and it too was delicious. The best was yet to come, however.</div><div><br /></div><div>While talking with Alfonzo before, it had come out that Anson and I were driving around and camping where we could. As we were paying, Alfonzo asked if we had a specific camping destination for the night and, when we said we had none, began advising us on camping in the area. After some discussion he said we could camp there if we wanted to. There would be live music at the restaurant and that they served pizza (among other things, they just assumed, correctly, that we would want pizza) at dinner. Suddenly, there were two short and squat (not fat, you could just tell that they enjoyed their cooking) old people wearing aprons appeared. I assume that they were the proprietors of the restaurant and the ones behind the idea to let us camp at their restaurant. </div><div><br /></div><div>This whole situation again illustrated how helpful, possibly overly so, the Italians were. We hadn't even asked for directions, let alone any advice on where to camp. However, we had gotten camping advice and more, we had gotten a free place to sleep, with the side offer of more good reasonably priced food and some live local Italian music. The chefs were still by the table, looking friendly and concerned. They spoke swiftly to Alfonzo. Turns out they offered to let us sleep <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">inside the restaurant.</span> We would, of course, have to wait until everyone left, at midnight or so, but then we could make ourselves at home. Sort of. </div><div><br /></div><div>The offer was tantalizing, especially since it had just started to rain and, although we would probably sleep fine in a wet tent, it does kind of suck. We discussed our options and decided to keep moving. It wasn't that we didn't want to sleep there, it was that we were in the mountains and we were pretty sure that if we went out of the mountains it wouldn't be raining.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-60166373537240176712009-05-18T06:43:00.001-07:002009-05-19T05:53:14.259-07:00Pompeii and Sorrento<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrVC6B7FewsI6dbDa9L8Z694Dy3SVvhitKT1x196SMHcTJfY8djWYjxy3UEez6VYoDdMx_Qy1MX9lZIh-qyxixx-N3b8u6FfgTgRZMJ11O5Nb9bFHN_ScqkiOp_vvPpD8Deyqy16kS3wM/s1600-h/IMG_0029.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrVC6B7FewsI6dbDa9L8Z694Dy3SVvhitKT1x196SMHcTJfY8djWYjxy3UEez6VYoDdMx_Qy1MX9lZIh-qyxixx-N3b8u6FfgTgRZMJ11O5Nb9bFHN_ScqkiOp_vvPpD8Deyqy16kS3wM/s200/IMG_0029.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337515236117779938" /></a>We got up early (Anson actually got up really early and saw the sun rise on the beach) and went to Pompeii. First, though, we had to stop to pick up more supplies. We had seen signs for a large grocery store (we had actually stopped at it but it was closed). We pulled into the parking lot at 8:30 and found out it didn't open until 9, so we decided to wait. By the time o'clock had rolled around there were 50 or so people waiting to get into the store. Most of them had carts and the atmosphere was sort of like the beginning of a race. People were not really 'jockeying' but more moving around slowly to try to gain a better position. As soon as the security guard opened the gate those in front shot out on their shopping errands. After Anson and I had gotten our groceries we headed off towards Pompeii. <div><br /></div><div>Although it was beautiful, and really cool to be able to walk around in that old of a place, it was sort of like a museum. Ie. it was really neat at first but after a while became a lot less exciting. Due to poor planning on our part we didn't bring in food and, because they didn't sell any inside Pompeii, we ended up leaving sooner than we would have liked. After Anson got lunch and I got gelato we walked around to the front and, to our surprise, they let us back in. Having been satiated, we enjoyed our round two entrance a bit more.</div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP1nHJetOU9U414ID8q6HmqiiW3oEmGc68SGy6s72oHhgnkeaWICCHf14YShGLbbM-ubIe4_AX1pLq01GhOPzYZJecCPZC4J8WdjTfUcCjJpLi-Mov5cjKha1IfSRlewlMIWsyLxAFRdA/s200/IMG_0044.JPG" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337515478846769042" /><div>Because we were let in again, it was almost 4 by the time we left Pompeii, so we decided to begin making our way south, in preparation for heading inland (and back towards Bari) the next day. In Sorrento we stopped again for food and, to our surprise, we actually found a kebab restaurant. Anson ordered one of those but, because they are supremely meaty, I looked for something else on the menu. I saw savory looking baked goods in the display case and something that had spinach in it on the menu. For some reason (probably wishful thinking) I assumed that they were the same thing but, just in case, I asked if the menu item had meat in it. It did. (I found out later that the menu item I was asking about corresponded to the plate of spinach with sausages on it in the display case. Duh! it had meat in it.) I then asked if the delicious looking item in the display case had meat in it. It also did. After a couple more minutes of talking I began to realize that this experience was exactly what Anson had been talking about when he said 'When you ask an Italian a question, it is not just a question but a problem that needs to be solved.' I had brought up eating spinach and it was rapidly becoming clear that they were going to make sure I ate some spinach, if that was indeed what I wanted. I did my best to convey that that was what I wanted so they nodded and asked me to sit down. By this point Anson was well into his kebab and when, by the time he finished it they still hadn't brought out any food, we began to wonder if I had actually ordered anything. </div><div><br /></div><div>It was foolish for us to doubt and moments later they brought out ... a steaming plate of buttery, cheesy, salty, oily, and generally delicious looking plate of spinach. I answered in the affirmative when he asked if I wanted bread. Moments later he returned with bread, which I quickly used to sop up the oil and butter. It was, perhaps, a little to salty but overall good and, most importantly, it was very <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">very </span>Italian. </div><div><br /></div><div>After dinner we continued moving south and began to keep our eyes out for a campsite. We were not too excited about the possibility of paying 20 euros to camp so we tossed around the idea of just camping on the beach. However, as we drove along the coastal highway we started to see prostitutes on the side of the road. This only further contributed to a general air of shadiness so we ended up paying to camp in a gated campground by the beach. After we got set up we went for a walk on the beach, which, while nice, mostly reaffirmed our decision not to poach camping.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-80106074339935836572009-05-10T02:59:00.001-07:002009-05-18T06:40:53.536-07:00Heaven Help Us<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw2rHPCsK5lhXXjn664m5rz0sQWybx_Jsx6_MuhPQhxT7jJChC4QvDKmKgmxq47Ra0iMgH9_7mRB-F6sKwyf0ivoCHtlGn_S-1NXMwD2_SZuTywVLUDpao_yjpg8XxF5MvYM6JjG2WawA/s1600-h/IMG_0422.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw2rHPCsK5lhXXjn664m5rz0sQWybx_Jsx6_MuhPQhxT7jJChC4QvDKmKgmxq47Ra0iMgH9_7mRB-F6sKwyf0ivoCHtlGn_S-1NXMwD2_SZuTywVLUDpao_yjpg8XxF5MvYM6JjG2WawA/s200/IMG_0422.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337152466698090002" /></a>The only excitement that the morning brought was trying to get onto the autostrada (highway). Anson and I had to ask at a gas station to figure it out but, just FYI, you take the ticket when you get on and give the ticket (and the corresponding amount of money) when you get off. Also, unless you are going roughly double the speed limit, you are treated as a 'grand-ma', dangerous at worst and humiliating at best. For example, as best we could figure out the speed limit on the autostrada was 80 kpm. Although we were doing around 130-140 we felt almost like snails as we were repeatedly sped past. We did our best to take it in stride.<div><div><br /></div><div>Our destination for the day was Naples. Thanks to the convenience of the autostrada we made it there by about 11:30 and we stopped on the outskirts for lunch. It turned out to be a nice calm before the storm. Traffic had been somewhat crazy on the way into town but manageable. There was one main road with 2-3 lanes on it depending on how the aggresive drivers felt and how small their cars were. There was also a lot of jockeying within the stop and go traffic, which was </div><div>somewhat nervewracking, but mostly harmless if you just let other people sort themselves out.</div><div><br /></div><div>As we got further into town, however, things got much worse. The streets became more and more packed with cars, honking increased, and any forward progress seemed based on how willing you were to cut off the guy next to you in traffic. In some places traffic was completely stopped and people were getting out of their cars to shout. Then, suddenly, traffic was moving a little more and Anson and I came up on what looked like a sort of roundabout. I have done my best to accurately recreate how the street sign looked, although I was stressed at the time and didn't get much chance to ponder its intricacies because there were many cars behind me, all rip-roarin ready to go.</div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKTyvp3cp8vixNyr6rQKCT_82LDkFyGuX2STuo7-hroHS0pehQy-SqY1GvajPkrRbZAq_ijx64NRk9mNF18_mvjxnWWnDizloxAHs_9q6d36uZFD9yprXtfabZvlNPtPwiKlgB6O7HA7U/s200/NapoliStSign.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337153241977061138" /><div> Furthermore, although all I really remember is that it was a confusing jumble of circles, my model is probably more simple than the real thing was because mine is just one road going in a wierd sort of cursive J while the real sign probably depicted more than one road. </div><div><br /></div><div>Anywhoo, because there were cars behind me rarin' to go, Anson and I had no real objective inside Naples to see, and the sign would have been a terrible indicator even if we had known which way to go so ... I went right. I don't know if any other direction would have been better but I do know that I certainly would not got right again. We ended up getting funneled up-hill onto narrower and narrower streets with progressively more pedestrians. They eventually became so thick on the road that I could barely move forward. </div><div><br /></div><div>Nudging is a sort of theme in Italian driving. Anson and I had begun to notice its use at intersections in alleys (where there frequently are no signs indicating right-of-way) or when merging onto heavily trafficed roads. People just keep merging out until the oncoming cars actually have to swerve to miss them, then finally one car slows down and they make it out. It is more dubious in alleyways because cars sometimes begin to nudge out right as one is coming up on them. </div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic4lQyB6o6Nbu4-fpLPqk7RclFRtnw2I62jM4GzEi5MfeIq2GPnI15Y7EI5Sf12-QvdaNPrcsTpxWGfB-BhqVM8hwWcEmvIIGeiTaNP0ESigxX2-Ix_NS3xTSl75atfvXZATEWCfemC44/s200/NapoliTraffic.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337153316055616610" /><div>So we had begun to notice the nudge and, seeing as pedestrians were thick as flies, I decided to try to nudge through them. I eventually made up to another alleyway. I was forced to stop again, but this time not by pedestrians. There was a car (car A) coming out of an alley to my right. It wanted to turn left onto the street I was on, but another car (car B) wanted to turn into the alley it was coming out of, and had pulled so far foward that it couldn't pull out. Before I clearly understood the situation I had pulled forward far enough so that we were all basically stuck. Fortunately there was a member of the local police force there to help us out. I had previously wondered if we were doing anything wrong by driving in an area with so many pedestrians but either, we weren't or this police officer didn't care. He just got car B to back up so car A could pull out. It was then my turn and the only place I could go (not that I particularly wanted to) was up the alley car A had just come out. The police officer waived me on so I started to nudge forward. </div><div>I immediately ran into a wall of pedestrians. I honked, but all that got was one or two looks and 0 people willing to move so I could go. The police office again stepped in to smooth out traffic by stopping the pedestrians. I had to drive over the curb to get into the alley but destiny appeard to be forcing us in that direction so I drove on. </div><div><br /></div><div>Car B had pulled in behind me so even as the alley narrowed and steepend I was forced to drive on. The alley ended in a sort of dead end. There were two guys standing in front of me with not way to go on in that direction. One of them pointed off to the right, where there were two other narrow alleys basically going back in the direction we had come. I took the left one in hopes that it would get us out of the maze. As we drove past him the guy shouted that we should turn left at the end of the alley. We did make it to the end and turn left, but the way there was not only really narrow, but also littered with debris such as a mattress and a car engine. </div><div><br /></div><div>The left at the end of the alley pushed us further uphill but we ended on an actual two lane road that wasn't a tiny alley. The sketchiest part of the drive was over although traffic remained so thick and the mopeds in the other lane were nudging so aggresively that I hit one with my mirror. The mirror bent out of the way and the mopeder seemed not to notice so I refrained from yelling at him to get in his on lane. We finally made it down somewhere and (hallelujah) found a parking place. It seemed to good to be true since we had not only seen none up to that point, but we had also seen regular double parking, leading me to believe that there were no available parking spaces in the whole city. However, there it was so I pulled in. Ah!! Heaven helped us!! We made it through Naples on what was the heaviest traffic day in 10 years. (I found this out later from Niccola, the dad in the famliy Jeannie babysits for.) Apparently spring had come late and it was European Labor Day so everyone in the country had gone to the coast. </div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicoW3KsDH8KqnA5cr9yLez2mIopWTws83aAD9uApKYKwCncao-9NhnErCsQ7WcNr2K9T0kF3_IxrT5aOVpHPVEfAZmqH3y_JrKw_Rns6mXUM7TY_3IOs83f57CLALHk4Z3A7yGh5HiEc4/s200/IMG_0428.JPG" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337152927475629890" /><div>Beacuse it was Labor Day very few of the shops were open and, after walking around for a while, we decided to head on out of Naples. We briefly considered going out to one of the nearby islands but decided to check out the castle overlooking the harbor instead. Alas it was closed so we contented ourselves with looking at the outside before getting back in the car and heading down the road. It was about 3 so we decided start thinking about a campsite, in which vein we decided to head towards Sorrento. We stopped for food once and Anson got an Italian style hamburger. The traffic continued to be bad the whole way but it was all pretty mellow compared to what it was like in Naples. Once, traffic was slow and I let another car in front of me. The driver did not even wave a thank you but instead turned away and honked once, teaching us a little more about the acceptable uses of honking.</div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgajTr-tnJ7lTj8ZpsXuj7BtB3KuCnFB65dJulqZqEh0hDNgN1rF7HVClkjxA75mMw5BenFSTpOB9NFFuFsqY4qn_igd79VFS92MgQn3z7KuIyGKxro12jO1UxCkc-gWAORrYpXuWwzriE/s200/IMG_0429.JPG" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337156231101659234" /><div><br /></div><div>We finally saw a sign for camping so we swung off the road to the right and began driving down a narrow and steep road. At the bottom we found the advertised campsite and turned in. I steeled myself for another conversation in broken Italian and got out of the car. I went over to the proprietor and (I'm pretty sure) said "I would like ... (dramatic pause for effect) ... CAMPING!" He responded, somewhat disappointingly, in English, so we got everything taken care of pretty quickly. Although the campsite was more expensive than the one we had stayed at the night before, it was very nice. </div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb8YmI2KEbxZGphd0na2_RcuWhF83BYED6FBNNwr9MuTd_OPuR6_io6_wh5KF1g191kyo5gN6PE-rRTclAkb8tJPNPHrAdJE-Rqpr5Lw-f3-oBbu9iwJGvXS6Ab6NFbEXQKxeuii2fx9k/s200/IMG_0436.JPG" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337156694019553858" /><div>There were orange trees everywhere and some roses and it was generally a very pleasant place to be. After Anson and I got set up we walked down to the beach, then up to the next town (Vico Equense) for dinner. </div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-7150346863950798192009-05-08T07:00:00.001-07:002009-05-08T07:00:37.998-07:00I LOVE ITALY!!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; "><div style="border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 3px; padding-right: 3px; padding-bottom: 3px; padding-left: 3px; width: auto; font: normal normal normal 100%/normal Georgia, serif; text-align: left; ">We neared the runway. The wheels touched down and I heard a sudden noise. Music. Trumpets playing triumphally. Many of the passengers broke out in applause. As Anson and I grinned and looked at each other inquisitively, wondering why a normal plane landing warrented such celebration, a voice came on over the intercom and annouced happily that we had arrived on time. Furthermore, so the annoucement said, Ryanair flights were ontime more than 90% of the time (the best record in Europe) and that because of this, and the cheap fares, we should continue flying with Ryanair. A damn fine argument if I've ever heard one. <div><br /></div><div>Anson and I had decided, while he was visiting me, to fly to Bari (on the Adriatic in southern Italy) and there rent a car. Now that the flight was on the ground, the next thing to do was rent the car. It took a little bit of waiting and some finagling, involving going to another rental place, but we did get a car rented. Now came the fun part ... driving. We drove straight out of the parking lot and ran smack into a roundabout. We took it and went straight back into the parking lot. We took a break, got our bearings more firmly settled, and headed back out onto the open road. The roundabout didn't manage to foil our exit this time and we headed for our first destination, an old castle built by the Holy Roman Emperor Federick the Second in the </div><div>mid 1200's called Castel del Monte. Getting there didn't prove too terribly difficult but it was a sort of sink or swim experience. </div><div><br /></div><div>Anson was driving first and had had no chance to familiarize himself with the road conditions of Italy (a quasi complete lack of obeyed traffic laws). Although he was able to swim fabulously, avoiding all collisions and managing to pass a bike while being passed by a car in the other direction <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; ">and</span> being flanked by two parked cars, we did have to take an early brake. I went into a grocery store to get some supplies and Anson headed into a cafe for a sandwhich. After I got the groceries I decided (having brought the map into the store with me) that asking for directions would be good. The supermarket seemed to have a slight excess of staff and when I pulled out my map they materialized from all directions to provide assistance. I pointed to Castel del Monte on the map and did my best to communicate that I wanted to know how to get to the road that led there. I think they got it but none knew which road to take, so my cashier led me out of the store. </div><div><br /></div><div>We headed across the street to what looked like an abandoned gas station. There was nothing inside the store and all the pumps were wrapped up in paper. There turned out to be a middle aged man sitting in a plastic chair out front with his hands in his pockets, apparently not doing anything. The cashier began to talk to the man and show him the map. A near by German Shepard stood up and barked liesurely. </div><div><br /></div><div>The man began to speak to me rapidly in Italian. I gathered that we were looking for highway 95, that we should take a couple turns, and that there would be railroad tracks involved at some point. With these directions in mind, Anson and I headed back to the car. I decided that I loved Italy and asking for directions. I hadn't understood most of what transpired but everyone had been friendly, and it seemed like I had learned some things that would help us get out of town. </div><div><br /></div><div>We headed off in the indicated direction and did take some turns and find some railroad tracks. We crossed them, but ended up pulling a U-ey (an art we would become practised in over our trip) and heading back into town. We had a map of the country which was reasonably detailed, showing major roads and some secondary ones. However, it completely lacked maps of cities; something that turned out to be a serious deficit. We did devise a strategy to cope with it which was, although not perfect, certainly adequate. We just drove around turning onto the roads that were bigger than the one we were on until we were on a road large enough to have signage directing us to the next town. Many of these towns were not on our map, but we usually could make an educated guess, and we always ended up somewhere.</div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirHDXwpuQSSzigL55kljbCi0G_bQZLOrAiaKrIsQ7AtoknNUWmslS1N_i9HZzgxuZmhB1oZM7Ctf1k-Zmm4tbEw3ltarB1OwV9KlR72nip626HpDrRxUfTCrnxPNGS5Y5naAYfHw2U81U/s200/IMG_0389.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333451099801995058" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px; " /><div>After a few detours, we made it to Castel del Monte. It was neat to see but ... perhaps not as neat as one would hope. You couldn't even get on the roof. So we kept moving, heading north towards the Gargano Peninsula, the so called 'spur' of Italy. We stopped along the way in Barletta and ended up finding another castle. This one was much more like a fortification and less like a hunting home. Although we were able to get up on the roof, this castle seemed to have been partially turned into an office building. We checked out the dungeons too, where we stumbled upon an echo chamber. All in all, the second castle was much more fun to see, but after a bit we decided to keep moving. </div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBSy8fSUIsceaZAGX-c7P34MHINyfwQKgySz7x7TqJC4BAnSphHPpnNNBUftbDwAYbTTiH4hHOe56crjpmIHQyqoXgyfEO0MMoF0qcioyahJBk2cV3lJ_I2aaGFl1mCzQe8GuDpEtS_jw/s200/IMG_0397.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333451690976815490" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px; " /><div>Our destination for the night was Manfredonia and, without too many wrong turns, we made it. We were starting to get hungry but, in what was going to be a trend for the trip, there were no stores open. It was about 6 pm, which is earlier than many restaurants open but, we hoped, not too late for the tourist information office to be open. So we went there. The front door was locked, but the lights were on, so Anson and I hesitated outside the door wondering if there was anyone still inside. A man rounded a corner in the building and came over to open the door. He said something I didn't understand, so I just sort of looked back at, smiling stupdily. He repeated it, and I guessed that he was asking what we wanted. I don't know how to express 'can' so I asked where it was possible to eat. Then I rubbed my fingers together to indicated that money was a consideration. Here our man started to show his true mettle. Anson later observed that when you ask an Italian for something they treat it as a problem to be solved instead of a simple inquiry. This observation was to be proved again and again over our trip, but this first time was one of the best examples. Our man didn't just point us 50" down the street to a random cafe. He wanted to get us the best possible Italian food we could <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; ">while</span> meeting our cost considerations. He also wanted it to be easy for us to get to. Immediately, after I asked the question our man stepped outside the door and began to ponder. We could see that we were in for something good.</div><div><br /></div><div>After thinking for a moment our man invited us inside. He took us back to his office and offered us seats. While looking at his office we realized that he was a city employee, i.e. he didn't even work for the tourist office, but he just wanted to help us out. He did most of the talking and a lot of repeating, but I gathered we were supposed to go to 'Leclerc'. I asked if it was a city. He said no but then got up and went to a map in the corner of the room. He then began to ascern where we had come from, where we were going, and where we were going to sleep that night. </div><div><br /></div><div>During my time here, my Italian has progressed significantly from nothing to ... descent tourist Italian. I can ask where things are, how much things cost, make sure that there is no meat in foods, and that sort of thing. However, my Spanish has gotten a lot better and whenever my Italian breaks down I try to slip in a Spanish word or two without anyone noticing. If that doesn't work I resort to English and more enthusiastic gesticulations. If <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; ">this</span> doesn't work ... I repeat myself a few times with different inflections and gesticulations. Between all this I can usually get my point across, and I actually enjoy it, partly because I think its just sort of fun and challenging in and of itself, and partly because I am putting myself in their shoes. I can only guess at how crappy my diction is, and it makes me laugh to think about asking someone the Italian equivalent of 'wheeere is posseble eating?'.</div><div><br /></div><div>Our man also seemed to enjoy communicating and definitely one-upped me with the gestures. We where planning on heading to Naples the next day. When he found out he took his glasses off and rested them on a table. He looked deep into my eyes and slowly raised his hands towards his face. He gave Anson the same penetrating stare. Then he started to smile, pulled down his bottom eyelids, continuing to stare at us and smile happily, and said slowly 'o c c h i a p e r t i'. Then he took his hands down from his eyes and held them in front of his chest with the fingers of one hand spread wide and the other hand in a fist. He said something in Italian and then, whistling slowly, he began to close the fingers of his open hand one by one until it too was a fist. He then pulled his eyelids down again and repeated 'occhi aperti'. Apparently, Naples was dangerous, and we should not only watch out for people stealing things but keep our eyes open. Ah, the joys of communication. </div><div><br /></div><div>These two warnings were repeated frequently thoughout our whole interaction. Indeed, they were repeated frequently enough that, when we did get to Naples, I was really worried about our car getting stolen. Our man continued questioning us and seemed concerned about where we were going to spend the night. We told him we were planning on camping and managed to gesticulate across that we had sleepings bags. Also tent is 'tenda' in Italian so ... we got that idea across too. He recommended against camping because of the weather and told us to sleep in our car in the parking lot just outside. I'm pretty sure he said he would have let us sleep there except that he might get fined. After 'discussing' this some more we moved back to where we would eat. </div><div><br /></div><div>He said 'Leclerc' again and then wrote it down for us. 'Le cle rc' He held up the piece of papers and read slowly for us emphasizing the spaces so we would be doubly sure to understand. He went on to discribe this place to us. Apparently it was a mall of sorts but there was a good restaurant there that was not only cheap but was also very good. Our man began to expound the virtues of this store, good pasta, good meat, lots of fruit, good appetizers, and on and on. I'm fairly sure that he said he'd go with us, except that he had work to do. I told him I was a vegetarian but that Anson could eat the meat dishes. A few days later I was thinking about it and I'm pretty sure I called Anson 'she' on accident a couple of times, but our man didn't make a fuss about it. Our man continued to talk about Leclerc and even wrote down directions (frequently repeated) on the same piece of paper that he had written the name on. </div><div><br /></div><div>When we finally left, our man walked us out and shook hands with us. He pointed to the parking lot and told us we could sleep there if we wanted and it would be safe. We could close our eyes without worrying there. As we walked back to our car, Anson and I shared our mutual astonishment at how nice our man had turned out to be. He certainly wasn't the first Italian to be nice to me, but he genuinely tried to help us find a place to eat good Italian food. Despite how good his directions were we still took a wrong turn (although we noticed it quickly) on the way there. In the parking lot we got honked at for stopping at a stop sign, reminding us to keep on our toes.</div><div><br /></div><div>We were quite hungry by this point, but when we went into the mall we were quickly disappointed. We saw a restraunt dead ahead. It was, however, all shut down. A small sign on one of the doors explained, it was closed for renovations, but only for one day. Our man must not have known. We walked around the corner and found a pizza place. We would've thought this was the place our man meant, but when I had mentioned pizza he had shaken his head, disappointed. Pizza, he informed us, was okay if you were in America but in Italy ... :( ... we should eat good pasta. We ended up eating pizza anyway, but ... at least we tried to follow his advice.</div><div><br /></div><div>We camped at a roadside campsite and were on the road early the next day.</div></div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-21818484364734811422009-04-14T06:35:00.000-07:002009-05-06T01:18:26.071-07:00Vacation and Spring Time<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4OIVn7HT2K-XcrVxJYlPZaGYTjlS8XJ13ZVrUJPK3nECxojIMzTR0AzoiUvIvkpnSFODR5jlX1ZdSJYSr1eaFIDmss3aEUmxBH4uOn6XJcfwaIfE7ytz39T-dJAnQMlK88g1djuXEfqw/s1600-h/IMG_0282.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325670881161024898" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4OIVn7HT2K-XcrVxJYlPZaGYTjlS8XJ13ZVrUJPK3nECxojIMzTR0AzoiUvIvkpnSFODR5jlX1ZdSJYSr1eaFIDmss3aEUmxBH4uOn6XJcfwaIfE7ytz39T-dJAnQMlK88g1djuXEfqw/s200/IMG_0282.JPG" border="0" /></a> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">The hallowed holiday of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-STYLE: italic"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Spring Break</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> had come to Jeannie's school. She and I combined our interests and crafted a trip wherein we would backpack from Lecco to Mandello del Lario, to a house a classmate of Jeannie's rents out. The trip was, initially at least, stalled by one of the last things humanity has not yet learned to control, Mother Nature.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Either we haven't found the right website for weather or the meteorologists in Italy are especially crappy but they are consistently wrong. I mean, I know that everyone talks about how bad people are at forecasting the weather, and everyone likes to poke fun at their local weather man. However, I usually like to cut <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">them a little slack because ... </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-STYLE: italic"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">they are predicting the future.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> The ones here, though, can't even get the present right. I lost all confidence in them when once, earlier in the year, Jeannie checked the weather and informed me that it was 9 degrees Celsius (48 Fahrenheit) and snowing. I knew this for a boldfaced lie because I had just been outside (the sun was out and it wasn't snowing) and so it took me a minute to catch the incongruity. Jeannie had to help me but I finally caught it ... it can't snow when its that warm. </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Anyway, the weather was forecast to rain the whole week of our vacation. I am highly skeptical of the weather service here but as the time neared for our departure, and I realized that we weren't that well prepared for rain (I didn't have a pack cover and Jeannie didn't have anyway to keep her feet or legs dry), I began to get nervous about the forecast. Furthermore, we had had a string of beautiful, blue-bird, days an I was worried that we were due for some rain.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">My worries turned out to be ill-founded. The sky, as far as we could see from the train, was again blue and the temperature was warm. The train ride to Lecco was about 4 hours and we wanted to get there with enough time to do some hiking so ... we got up at 5 am. Our train left Bologna at 7 and, after a short connection in Milan, we got to Lecco at about 11. I couldn't find any maps before we left so all we knew was that we would, hopefully, find a tourist information office and it would, hopefully, have some maps which we could use to hike from Lecco to Mandello del Lario. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">In Lecco our first reconnaissance only revealed what seemed like a dozen travel agencies. They, however, only had maps for remote destinations. We kept on, though, and we finally found the tourist information office. It turned out to be a goldmine and receptionist was perfect for her job. She was super friendly and when I asked if we could camp anywhere, although she said most of the land was private, she still recommended we give it a shot. "They aren't going to come and put you in handcuffs, and if they try to you can always say you don't speak Italian." In the end, gave us maps and advice o'plenty, and sent us happily on our way. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">The plan she had laid out for us was incredibly simple. 'Walk through this piazza to the newspaper stand. Buy 2 bus tickets. Take bus number 1 to the last stop.' Buses have always been a mystery to me and the system in Taipei was complex enough that I never took the bus more than a 10 times the whole year I was there. Bologna's bus system, though it is smaller, isn't much better, and I don't really use it either. In this light, it was refreshing to be taking bus number 1, especially in a town that appeared to only have about 5 bus routes. Added to that was that the weather, despite forecasts of doom, was sunny and warm.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325670344884871762" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 150px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ1qdPpjg3vDE4YyaRLDy3OkYEXt5Er1ACnx4iBnm40vnpWYYYSHplPEbXLQTVAVk5A6Iq3clBVw-8Eg_PRWrlIB52wRoJD0nu-AUOeqAyEQWlnDQZbnM-W90V4_lW0kZBYpvt19Adyec/s200/IMG_0305.JPG" border="0" /> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">In Italy hiking appears to be rather different than in the US. In the US, for the most part, the trails are not steep, steep, or really steep, but there are usually trail construction standards and even in the extreme the gradient of the trail is limited by how steep dirt can be before it just erodes itself away to a lower angle. Trails could be steeper if they were on rock, but rock is usually not part of hiking paths. Italy, however, appears to have devised a couple of ways to circumvent this. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">I had heard of one called, Via Ferratta before. It is basically iron rungs attached to the rock, resulting in a ladder. The other kind I was less familiar with but my impression is that it is for lower angled rocks and it is basically just a chain handrail. The tourist information advisor had initially suggested we take a couple of trails that left immediately from Lecco. However, upon further investigation, she found that these included sections of Via Ferratta, or at least required equipment. We weren't quite prepared for Via Ferratta, especially because this was Jeannie's first backpacking trip.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial;"><div>So, our advisor had chosen a new trail, which she said was 'facile' (easy). She said it only took a couple of hours and, as our bus zoomed up a large hill, it confirmed my suspicion that our hike would be a walk in the park. Because our plans mostly involved taking it easy, resting, eating, napping, resting, taking it easy, and eating an easy hike seemed to fit the bill perfectly.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, after the bus driver pointed us in the direction of the trail and we got started, we soon found that 'facile' was not going to be as easy as we had thought. During one of our eating/resting breaks we examined the map and found out that, to our surprise, 'facile' was intermediate level difficulty. The easiest was 'elementari' and the hardest (usually requiring equipment) was 'impegnativi'. </div><div><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325671671585511890" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidCfmT_r6sVLNxIoZjpjnoKzB4pkD5bDLRbkMATDRHrYRUOJwaUw6KgVUHmR5G68p2KBm0_WrlSNuHEiEV8JX-s2PfO1T4_RKQ6RXKfbaDb4-NfqdNRNv53I3sC040efTcxo3AoaLGsuM/s200/IMG_0306.JPG" border="0" /> <div>Although the trail was steep (much steeper than we'd expected), we managed to make it up it and the views were stunning. We were heading for the 'Piani Resinelli' which is a small city and had </div><div>prompted my question about where we would camp. We ended up finding a camping spot on the downhill side of the 'Piani Resinelli' and, though we could see a couple houses from our tent, we were reasonably well secluded. Furthermore, we hadn't seen more than 10 people the whole day, including walking through a small town and asking two women for directions.</div><div><br /></div><div>I was a little worried about cooking dinner with my stove because I had had to procure some gasoline from a local gas station and, because I didn't do enough research before hand, I was only somewhat sure that I had gotten the right kind of gas. Furthermore, when testing out my stove before we left a small fireball had erupted from the stove when I lit it and, even more distressing, the fuel bottle had leaked and the fireball had caught it on fire. Most distressing, however, was that, because I had decided to do this test on our stove top (it seemed like a fire-durable surface), I was also worried about the cabinets catching on fire. I had managed to keep anything from getting burned, but the stress from the incident had kept me from doing anything more mentally strenuous </div><div>than listening that whole afternoon, and I was nervous about using the stove again. Fortunately, although the flame was dirty, there was no fireball and our pasta boiled up right nice. </div><div><br /></div><div>The next day we hiked down into Maggiana Crebbio and thence on to Jeannie's friend's house in Mandello del Lario. From then on we, continuing our trend, mostly spent our days resting and eating, with regular walks down to the lakeside before or after meals. Other than that only a couple interesting things happened. </div><div><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325669841933840818" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4p6yy2vleBFkvf49yPOxrcF3GWbRTPFbxL-oioYAkfaZW7ZBf0UA1FIIxyVD6R23a0DXx37xyJnMZsiLOvyXZSdhmyAHJJfwPSwCRFXl-1njQeM_CAwq37rxZ3KqUielmHDajYviHnis/s200/IMG_0322.JPG" border="0" /> <div>The first interesting thing was: we tried to cook pizza. We decided while we were hiking that it would be pleasant to cook ourselves a pizza. After ascertaining that the house had an oven we went to the store and bought all the fixings. We then prepared one pizza without thinking to pre-heat the oven first. When we tried to do this we found out that something was wrong with the oven. Gas would come out but it wouldn't light. So I reached in with a lighter and lit it. The problem appeared to be solved but we decided to ask the neighbors for help just in case (I was still gunshy of possible fireballs). The neighbors proved of little help when she tried to use the timer to light the stove, then told us that it 'non funziona'. So, we thanked her and smiled and said we'd figure something out. After she left I took another look at the oven and found another heating unit on the bottom, that I had not lit before. We had not smelled gas, but I tried lighting it a couple of times, to no avail. Because we already had a pizza prepared we decided to go ahead try to bake it, lighting the oven by hand. We, lacking a pizza pan, had prepared the pizza directly on the rack. When we first put it in the ends of the pizza had flopped down and the ingredients were falling off of the pizza. In a moment of brilliance and idea sprung to me, "We'll prop up the ends with crackers!!" We we put crackers on the bars of the rack and under the ends of the pizza so that they couldn't fall down. However, after a couple minutes of backing the dough (store bought) was in the phase where its hot, but it hasn't been hot long enough to have baked into something firm. Which meant that the whole pizza was sinking through the bars. </div><div><br /></div><div>We took it out of the oven. We decided we didn't really want pizza, we wanted a calzone more. To this end, we decided to roll the pizza up, put it on a plate and bake that. This went off about as well as one could expect and we ended up with a pile of dough, mozerella, spinach, mushrooms, olives, and tomatoe sauce. We put it back in the oven and crossed our fingers. Meanwhile we had prepared a second pizza in a 11" x 6" x 2.5" rectangular pan, which was probably more suitable for baking maccarroni and cheese but ... beggars can't be choosers and we didn't have anything else to work with. </div><div><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325669386127689266" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIOgsoN6hNPaXAlWInPpdflWAHBVZsoJ_A-9M73a4H-VGZgwbXWacCs36ZcrYDKdi2vM7IlzHDuz-3KI-_GwcOXC7bEGQ2RwIE9VDLsigGwAUUxIeFN8TBe8miSXkDQjR_NmijPkHkCqg/s200/IMG_0323.JPG" border="0" /> <div>Now commenced a long period of waiting broken only by trips to the oven to see how our pizza was doing. In short, the pizza-come-calzone ended up getting burned on top so we took it out and spread it around into more of a pizza-pie. It still got burned and, in another stroke of brilliance, we decided to flip it, so we took all the hard/burned pieces and flipped them over revealing the doughy-mozzarellay center. At this point we decided to start using a timer and cycling the oven: on 2-3 minutes and off 2-3 minutes. We also decided to put in our second pizza, on the next-to-bottom shelf with the pizza pie beneath it. Everything still burned. Just before we were about to give up we had our final stroke of brilliance. We could 'fry' the good pizza to cook the dough on the bottom. This worked ok but by this point we were both full from testing dough to see if it was cooked and we weren't really hungry. The upside of all this is that the fiasco was so ridiculous that we couldn't help but laugh. Also, we had basically had plain pasta for dinner the night before so this was a step up from that.</div><div><br /></div><div>The second interesting thing that happend was that: we discovered we have become gelato snobs. The logic goes like this: gelato is an inherently Italian creation and so it must, naturally, have the worlds best gelato. Within Italy Bologna has, with the only exception, perhaps, of some places in southern Italy, the best gelato. Furthermore, within Bologna Jeannie and I have scouted out the majority of the gelato places and we happen to live a quarter mile from the place that we believe is the best. This is also subject to debate but the place we like (La Sorbetteria) is recognized to be very good, if not the best. Therefore, Jeannie and I live only a few minute walk away from the best gelato place in the world. This has obvious benefits but one of the drawbacks is that mediocre gelato doesn't really cut it anymore. So in Mandello del Lario, after the second time we got warmish, sugary, and bland gelato we just gave up. I feel sort of bad about being a gelato snob but ... the best is just so good.</div></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-74906077670210439232009-04-02T02:44:00.000-07:002009-04-21T12:56:26.975-07:00Friend Festival!<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsbDZuYisgYpjJnbM9HY_N8imzAz8yb_m6CZrvRWq9UZA4uxIk97hHpGgIaUt2M2R013cr-v6VwXXSBu59bL18fD6jBhujeeISN3ZQK6d4VT5X2XT1x97f29Q2GGF30_1cnHR6ubRY_5A/s200/DSC06547.JPG" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327235337372244882" />We had a full house this weekend. Kathryn (a friend of Jeannie's from her undergrad) got here, from Japan, on Thursday night. Jeannie and I busted out our Italian cooking skills and made eggplant Parmesan. Jon (pronounced 'yon') and his girlfriend Meredith (Jon was visiting her while she studies in Geneva) got here on Friday morning at 5:30. So I got up at 5:10 to go meet them. I was 10 minutes late, but I had planned on that cause I figured either their train would be late or they would be dazed enough not to really care. And in the end their train was late. <div><br /></div><div>We spent most of Friday eating pizza and gelato. I tried a new flavor (La Maria) which has rum in it and is incredible. In the evening we went to see a blues band at Jeannie's school and after that we went to a sort of local 'bar', for lack of a better word. It is a basement apartment that some of the professors at the University of Bologna own/have permission to use. Every Friday night these professors play classic American rock for a couple hours. Its b.y.o.b. which is sort of nice, but its also really smoky. This is even more unpleasant because smoking is banned in all bars and restaurants in Italy (which, in itself, is miraculous because there are <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">so</span> many smokers here, they even have cigarette vending machines on the streets.)</div><div><br /></div><div>On Saturday morning my friend Ben (who I went to the Fireworks Festival with) came in from London. All 6 of us decided to go up to San Luca, a basilica on a hill. Apparently it is featured in the climactic ending seen of a John Grisham novel but we went because there are portico's the whole way (it was sort of a rainy day) and there are excellent views from the top. </div><div><br /></div><div>Jon, Meredith, and Kathryn all left on Sunday. Ben (who just finished his semester) and I took this opportunity to sleep till about 1. The rest of the day, as per its start, was really lazy but we did make one important decision. We were going to go to Venice on Monday. We got up at 6:30, had eggs for breakfast, and headed for the train station. Its 2 hours by train to Venice and we got there a little after 10. Neither of us knew much about Venice, and the little that we did know was gleaned from a 4 year old travel guide while we were on the train. Apparently the site to see is Piazza San Marco and San Marco's Cathedral. Maps were out of our price range (2 euros) but we had read that you can take water buses to see these things. We decided against this in favor of walking and following discreet yellow signs. </div><div><br /></div><div>In Bologna the streets are mostly on the narrower side and the buildings are mostly on the taller side. This, in combination with the porticoes (ie. covered sidewalks), go a good way towards preventing the average pedestrian from seeing the sky and completely prevent him/her from getting his/her bearings on anything. Basically, unless you know your way around, things can be a little confusing. Venice is similar, but about 5 times worse. There are lots of nice, wide streets but some of them are only as wide as a normal sidewalk, but with buildings towering up on either side.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, we got 'lost' a couple of times, although there are limits to how lost you can get, ie. if you go to far in one direction, you'll just get to the ocean. We stopped once at a grocery store to get supplies (bread and cheese) and once to sit by the canal and eat our supplies, but we did make it to a major thoroughfare near San Marco's. So we sat down to snack a little and enjoy the sunlight. Because the alleys are too narrow to let in much light every one that walked out of an alley immediately crunched up their face and went into full squint, which was very amusing to watch. We did get bored after a while, so we walked down to check out the cathedral. It was crowded. Ben rated his desire to go in as a 3, which decreased to a 2 (on a scale of 1 to 10) after seeing the line, so we decided to walk around some more. </div><div><br /></div><div>At this point, the fates aligned. It was after noon, we found another grocery store, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">and</span> a large piazza with nice benches. And the sun was still out, or at least trying to peak through the clouds. </div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRbrxxue4b4CaeTEzMC_fIiA077xNfpGFp5POruME_Hz6ayqgZtLCcHSoRsXylSPBu3FjpQF14ifvHeJBWr-PRbjNmgIeFZIwHcKUprDKpwMcuErKXu7vOy0rNY4P47j_9pQybBrZw6Mc/s200/DSC06574.JPG" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327235519657362466" /><div>So we bought some beer and sat on the benches. We spent most of our time talking about how much we loved Italy and Venice. We found all sorts of good reasons to love Italy, delicious coffee and food being a couple. Another was that all Italians all seem to be really friendly. I hadn't had a conversation, with an Italian, in English yet (I even found out there were no free maps in Italian) and Ben, who had only gotten to Italy 2 days before, could order coffee without the host slipping into English (something that frustrated us to no end in Taiwan).</div><div><br />The one reason that surpassed all the rest, though, was how happy and mellow everyone seemed to be. By just sitting on a public park bench and drinking beer Ben and I were doing something that would get us arrested in the States. And, despite the fact that it was early Monday afternoon, there were crowds of other young people drinking and singing. One group even set up a sort of gauntlet that reminded me of something I had read the Iroquois Indians or medieval knights used to do. One guy wearing a wreath of leaves as a sort of crown ran through a sort of tunnel of his friends while they all slapped and hit him. When he made it out he tumbled to the ground, but everyone was laughing and having a great time (I later found out that the people wearing wreaths had just graduated). These groups often broke into loud song, but despite their antics the worst looks they got from passersby were just 'Ah, look at those young kids ... I remember when I used to be young.' </div><div><br /></div><div>So basically, we were enjoying ourselves. At the 3rd beer we realized that this was basically the same thing that we had done in Taiwan, ie. drink beer outside and talk. However, the reason we drink beer outside and talk is ... <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">it's a lot of fun</span>. We kept hanging out until we got hungry and then we went in search of cheap food. The rest of the day was mostly uneventful except that we didn't get a train back to Bologna until 11:30 and we almost missed Bologna when we got there. The train had sat for almost an hour in a station along the way so I assumed it was going to be late and set my alarm for later than our original arrival time. We ended up getting to Bologna early and sitting there too, which was fortunate because it gave me time to deliriously open my eyes, stare at a sign that said 'Bologna' for 5 seconds while the information processed, then rush off the train.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-27647588949787077752009-03-21T07:16:00.001-07:002009-03-21T07:24:31.836-07:00My Apartment<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwdnuH-xRNNTEl2-QUbztfH3be4Bi3b6jNCacPmU3cRXBX5E6gO3u_Tq0xyrIld8qATXchMZipjbxdm2SIeVCH0BS9gFOsurE3K6-5YjlLLAdkEyL3lui1ELbHIjTtmTClfbpeWA-Wvig/s1600-h/IMG_0273.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwdnuH-xRNNTEl2-QUbztfH3be4Bi3b6jNCacPmU3cRXBX5E6gO3u_Tq0xyrIld8qATXchMZipjbxdm2SIeVCH0BS9gFOsurE3K6-5YjlLLAdkEyL3lui1ELbHIjTtmTClfbpeWA-Wvig/s200/IMG_0273.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315645277422620882" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihOZa2TyNaKCA7eD-u_gmG4BcDWocOUOYrqsYi6CcdZw9wP7aLaoQJanv2ipqNRhz9fP6xPcGPfVY4iUv_cxYWF8jy11274sFRSmrn2kDpenu28IybwSfBKZA2BqcIsHOkhaI3XlcvAYs/s1600-h/IMG_0272.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihOZa2TyNaKCA7eD-u_gmG4BcDWocOUOYrqsYi6CcdZw9wP7aLaoQJanv2ipqNRhz9fP6xPcGPfVY4iUv_cxYWF8jy11274sFRSmrn2kDpenu28IybwSfBKZA2BqcIsHOkhaI3XlcvAYs/s200/IMG_0272.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315645199555759778" /></a><br />I previously mentioned how sketchy my shower is ... so here're some pictures, although I don't know if they do it justice. Its like showering in a big rectangular bowl. Every time I move it reminds me of slab climbing because thats the kind of climbing where the rock isn't vertical so it is, in theory easier. However, what the rock lacks in vertical-ness it makes up for in a corresponding lack of handholds. So you have to move carefully and place your feet delicately. I feel like that almost everytime I shower.<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhneVPHbTGGUcQbaqi0gqFBnePuxqEW7en-3zZcvA6bKW0ovIEst5q-46moF8WCCHPcH7MWR0a8twCtCHiGwRhTtdJe6KQXM2GYtNn1rdT1mk9xEmm2y4mYDUVXbspkdwKJizqmSXqlw6Q/s200/IMG_0275.JPG" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315645845563625730" /> The other pictures, as you could probably guess, are of the bedroom and kitchen. <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7J7Ieg9oqYP1R5FcKCpIy-sCcm-2j1Ia1a28qFnL0ZnzEyaZ5qqOFo4w-lQYJJ_tglmXk_iLsIEF9PE5D9uL47_8owAs8eDNEVyj9MF0C2clgO0qLafwWdl5XdJxznzAVYiAyIswOMKg/s200/IMG_0278.JPG" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315646597112785762" />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-16744466583777943972009-03-04T06:02:00.000-08:002009-03-08T09:32:18.010-07:00Hooray for the International Atomic Energy Association!!!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZQFcwUxxyOQmmbXuyDqJBMYm8tD2VX8a3WjvcY0QMzYCMQhUSt3EIELEinbY58Og6rHlaZsTb58gnufVls9QKUFenGQFjaFubGKmZUfezn1pH4bIFhExezrYmmxclVg4MJOI_qUaFPlA/s1600-h/IMG_0219.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZQFcwUxxyOQmmbXuyDqJBMYm8tD2VX8a3WjvcY0QMzYCMQhUSt3EIELEinbY58Og6rHlaZsTb58gnufVls9QKUFenGQFjaFubGKmZUfezn1pH4bIFhExezrYmmxclVg4MJOI_qUaFPlA/s200/IMG_0219.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5310853766639441714" /></a><br />We were in Vienna. We got off the subway at the 'Stephansplatz' station, with the intention of seeing St. Stephans cathedral. The station was indeed well placed because the escalator we rode to the surface put us out about 30 feet from the front door. The cathedral, in all its gothic majesty, loomed up in front of us. Much of the stone was black (presumably from age and mold) giving the cathedral an even more powerful presence. Apparently the building has been under construction almost continuously since the 1100's and, true to form, one tower was still under construction. The inside was just as formidable with thick pillars rising to the dark recess in the arched ceiling. <div><br /></div><div>Jeannie and I were in Vienna not to see St. Stephans cathedral, but to attend an Austrian Ball. The two of us, and Jeannie's entire class had arrived in Vienna that morning after an all-night bus ride from Bologna. The entire trip had been organized by Jeannie's Austrian classmates. They had bought the tickets to the ball, booked hotel rooms for the 200+ students and partners in our group, and rented 3 big busses to get us there. Jeannie and I had chosen to book our own hotel room for two reasons. The first was, to save money, and the second was, because we like to do our own thing. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm pretty sure that Jeannie and I are basically the perfect travel partners, which is lucky cause we're going to get married. We share an ~hour long tolerance for museums and a sweet tooth. Additionally, we both like walking and hate spending money. These trends have made themselves felt in recent trips to Florence and Rome. We usually see maximum 4 sites per day and spend the rest of the time walking around looking for gelato, falafel (so far, all the European cities I've been to have Bangladeshis by the dozens making cheap kebabs and falafel; except the ones in Bologna don't seem to make good falafel), cheap beer and sites that don't cost money to see (like parks, cathedrals, or old buildings instead of museums). We also spend a lot of time walking from restaurant to restaurant trying to find a good deal.</div><div><br /></div><div>The only difference to our travel in Vienna was that instead of looking for gelato we looked for 'sachertorte'. Torte just means cake and sachertorte is a traditional Viennese chocolate cake with fruit thrown in in a delicious way. Also, because it was cold and we were running on very little sleep (the bus seats were smaller and more uncomfortable than airplane seats) we spent more time in coffee shops relaxing.</div><div><br /></div><div>After we saw St. Stephans cathedral we moved on to the Hofburg (the Imperial Palace and the former center of the Holy Roman Empire). For our one museum of the day we toured the Imperial Suites and got to see the very rooms from which emperors had coordinated their empires. We managed to make it for about an hour and a half in this museum (we had gotten the audio guide for free so we had to get out money's worth out of that). After a gelato stop in the afternoon we went back to the hotel to take a nap before the big evening of the ball.</div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTBJlfwIUmyQjJzA_cq96Sr_z2KSdXveJTNfrcwIT2wYVQDWaAfoURW3nJUzB9FFN3Vsfw7FhcSx67Z92kg_oEG81QGWYXtNK3Ffr6HFdUNPBXiXXbKi1fMbTlExNfmPxMrpEquNQFMhY/s200/IMG_0261.JPG" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5310852870107269138" /><div>Vienna is a very agreeable and progressive city with wide pedestrian friendly sidewalks, bikes everywhere, and some completely car-free streets near the cathedral. They even have bike stoplights. Another aspect of this progressive attitude is aggressive government support for the arts, specifically modern art. Apparently the city government frequently buys art and, periodically, puts on themed displays. One of these exhibits was kind enough to invite our entire group (all 200 something of us) to a cocktail reception.</div><div><br /></div><div>We had to be there at 6 pm and we were almost on time. However, we (or at least I) ran into a hitch when getting ready. I was dressed and I looked in my suitcase to get out my shoes. I didn't see them. I swore. I dumped everything out on the bed. I swore again. Apparently the dress code for this sort of thing was very strict. I quote from the ticket ''Ladies: Formal evening dress or national costume Gentlemen: Dinner jacket/tuxedo, smoking, formal evening attire with bow tie (no neckties!) </div><div>or national costume" Everyone had made a big deal about the bowties and I assumed that sneakers were not a part of 'formal evening attire'. However, by the time I found out that all I had were tennis shoes and boots it was about 5:45. Jeannie and I decided that I should just wear my regular shoes (fortunately they are black) and hope for the best.</div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYoByue5ClJAnbcXcwt7FXdkXItjQNxdgQBIU5IovfMFP6xwEEDlBN73_bTzO47M-_QSG5DXUD-yEBvB-R4gpCHlCBnjE8ObcmcSg54tLVTTtIMwBPs1t4e2dANe8mGsJYwYdtaCEchuc/s200/IMG_0234.JPG" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5310854225391266834" /><div>At the cocktail reception our friends assured us that they didn't notice my shoes and that if it came down to it we could just get a few girls with long dresses to walk in front of me. Someone else suggested that if I got turned away Jeannie could go in and find another guy with black shoes and bring them out to me, so that I could wear them in. I found this particularly funny because that's what people do with drivers licences to get under-21-year-olds into bars. Despite the number of excellent and creative solutions proffered by our friends, no one hassled me when we went in. Although this was a weight off my shoulders, I still felt a little like an idiot for wearing running shoes to a formal ball but then again ... meh, aint no thang. </div><div><br /></div><div>The place was hoppin. The ball was at the Hofburg and, although it was in a different wing than the Imperial Suites, its seems likely that we were dancing in the very rooms where emperors and empresses had previously danced. Anyways, Jeannie and I went into the bar area and ran into a couple of our classmates. Apparently the opening ceremony was about to kick off, so Jeannie and I decided to go see that. We saw what looked like the main room, walked in, and found ourselves feet from the main stage. </div><div><br /></div><div>I think the opening ceremony was about an hour and a half long but here is the short of it. The ball was hosted by the International Atomic Energy Association (a UN organization) and the head of that organization was retiring. So there were a number of speeches (including one by the head, a Nobel laureate), 1.5 opera pieces, some traditional dancing, a performance by a mariachi band, and a waltz by the young debutantes to kick off the dance.</div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE87sDQ_7xQKZX9sYufMDHhzfijwooBXBz3X0o0k37Ji37O8RY-gl87l44v8W_SxTC5TtXsgsJKnzKZk27iNUTxyocHqzuc5NKo6ixijkS9xu4-lXXZK0UlxUenEWSTNVRMFgPVKIITi8/s200/IMG_0253.JPG" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5310854948485453218" /><div>After the opening ceremony, which seemed to fly by, we made our way to the bar again where we paid an exorbitantly high price for a glass of wine and a beer. Luckily, the bread was free. So we loaded up on that. Additionally, the Austrian Ball Committee (aka the Bologna Center Austrian students) had fundraised to such an extent that they were able to provide multiple glasses of champagne for everyone. Needless to say, we had a lovely time. </div><div><br /></div><div>There was live music in every room of the palace- we stopped by the swing, rock, and reggae rooms. Unlike some of our more energetic classmates who were closed down the palace, at around 2 am we were ready to call it a night. </div><div><br /></div><div>We both slept very well and were ready for another day of sightseeing by the time we woke up. The first thing we did was go to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's house. Well, one of them. Mozart never lived anywhere for more than two or three years. It was interesting to see how he lived. He apparently made tons of money, but spent it more quickly than he could make it. By seeing the place, I had hoped to imbibe some of his musical talent, but alas, I still can't play the violin. It was really neat see how a genius like Mozart created music and lived. </div><div><br /></div><div>After that, we wandered around Vienna for the rest of the day, going into various coffee shops and enjoying (or not) various good (and bad) desserts. We finished our day with delicious Austrian beer, and the first and only Taiwanese vegetarian restaurant in Vienna. Which, interestingly enough, is not staffed by Taiwanese. After talking to our server some I asked which part of Taiwan she was from and, in an awkward turn of the conversation, she pointed out that she was from southern China. So that's weird. <blockquote></blockquote></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-71096805318667826192009-02-18T23:57:00.000-08:002009-02-19T00:05:42.467-08:00Addendum to Post 2I forgot to write the funniest part of the story about having dinner with Jeannie's babysitting family. So here it is: Jeannie and I are vegetarians and our vegetarianism was a semi-frequent conversation topic. Niccola (whose English is actually pretty good) has gotten the words 'vegetarian' and 'vegetable' confused. Therefore, whenever we talked about being vegetarian and Niccola needed to say something like 'So how long have you two been vegetarians?' he would instead say 'So how long have you two been vegetables?'. It made the whole night a lot funnier (although not until after we'd left). Also, Jeannie and I didn't have the heart to correct him so, if we go over for dinner again, we will almost certainly get called vegetables repeatedly. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-7368341165711213522009-02-06T06:04:00.000-08:002009-02-19T00:24:25.715-08:00The High Life: Eating Gelato and Riding My BikeI've been enjoying myself so far. I ate gelato the first day I was here but I didn't really like it. It was too creamy and sweet for me, which was kind of a bummer because Jeannie eats it pretty much everyday. We kind of decided though that beer was like my gelato. Jeannie could eat gelato with lunch everyday and not think about it and I could drink a beer every day with lunch and not think about it (if money grew on trees that is). Anyway, gelato has been growing on me since I found the 'Sorbetteria'. Its not quite as creamy (which makes sense because we ate at the 'Cremeria' the first time) so I like it much more. You get two flavors every time and so far I've tried white choclate (fantastic, way better than vanilla), dark chocolate (darker than the darkest chocolate bar I've ever had ... almost too dark for me), strawberry (delicious in small quantities), Dulce de leche (caramel, and officially my new favorite flavor), vanilla with pine nuts and caramel, and this other flavor I don't remember the name of that was made with ricotta cream and had little candied fruits in it, which I wasn't the hugest fan of. Anyway, strawberry with white chocolate was my favorite until I found out about Dulce de leche. <div><br /></div><div>Aside from eating gelato, I've also been able to get out riding my bike, and I even went on one overnight trip. It was during Jeannie's finals week so I decided to make myself scarce and I had been wanting to do an overnight shake down bike trip for a while so I went for it. I had bought a map a while ago and using google maps (very detailed and helpful) in combination with my map I planned out a route. If all went well, I would bike out in a large circle and stay on mostly small roads.</div><div><br />I had been planning for weeks about how I would pack for an overnight trip (I have a rack on my bike but no panniers) and I finally ended up bungeeing my tent on top of the rack and Jeannie's small backpack (good because it has a stiff plastic frame) to the side of the rack. I figured my sleeping bag would be to bulky to attach to the rack so I decided put it in my backpack, carry my backpack like normal and call it a poor mans pannier. Once equipped with my route (street names written on paper with my map as backup) and once my bags were packed I set out.</div><div><br /></div><div>I retraced part of my route from my last biking trip so I was on pretty major roads. I went through a couple round-a-bouts, which I was a little nervous about, but which really weren't that bad. I was also excited to pass a Carrefour (because I'm always excited about cheap food buying places). Anywho, I started to keep my eyes out for my turn off (Via Gesso). I almost missed it because it was a one way road going onto the street but I looked back after I had passed it and sure enough, it was Via Gesso. </div><div><br /></div><div>Via Gesso turned out to be a beautiful interlude in my trip. The sun was shining, the traffic had died off, and I was surrounded by fields (if only on one side). After this short rest, however, Via Gesso emptied back onto a large road. It was only a two-lane but traffic was just buzzing along and there didn't appear to be a shortage of large trucks either. I didn't really see any other options so I waited for a lull in the traffic and then rode on, while keeping a sharp eye out for my next road (Via Lavino). Google maps had made it look like Via Gesso just turned into Via Lavino, so perhaps this was Via Lavino. There had been no street sign at the intersection. I decided to stop and look at my map. During my planning I thought it would be prudent to choose a road that was on my map. Now, sitting by the side of the road looking at my map I realized that route I had chosen, while being, theoretically on the map, was not labeled. I found out later that I was on the right road, but because my map didn't label the road I was on, I was clueless about where I was. I decided my only option was to keep riding and keep looking for Via Lavino. After a while I saw a sign for Via Lavino. I was thrilled and quickly turned off the main road. Via Lavino turned out to be a muddy dirt road. I decided moderate traffic was preferable to mud on a road bike and turned back to the other road.</div><div><br /></div><div>This proved to be a good decision because I quickly saw another 'Via Lavino'. This one, however, appeared to lead to a small factory so I again avoided it. I ended up seeing 12-13 more Via Lavninos. After a while I saw one that was only about 30' long and just led to a house. I started to wonder if Via Lavino wasn't actually Italian for 'driveway' and somehow google had mislabeled something. After I got back I tried to translate 'via lavino' and apparently it means 'wash away' (at least according to www.google.com/language_tools). Traffic had been gradually dieing off and the vineyards had been becoming more common so I decided just to keep with the road I was on. </div><div><br /></div><div>The road had been going slightly up-hill almost the entire time but now it began to steepen. It continued to steepen until I had shifted into my lowest gear. This, unfortunately, caused my rear derailleur to hit the spokes on my back wheel, so I stopped to do some maintenance. Once that was sorted out I moved on. I passed through one small town and had to get off and walk a couple times, but I finally made it to the top of the hill. </div><div><br /></div><div>I hadn't left Bologna until about 2 and by the time I made it to the top of the hill it was exactly 5 so I started looking for a good campsite. I was surronded by fields with small copses of trees interspersed therein. Despite the abundance of 'No Trespassing' signs (they were put up on posts about every 20') I decided to camp in one of the small copses of trees. I was pretty close to a road and, because I didn't want to have an awkward confrontation with a possibly irate Italian farmer (and possibly one or more of the dogs I could hear barking) I didn't set up a tent right away. I hadn't planned on setting up my tent at all but, during the night I noticed that there were no stars out. I got worried about getting rained on and figured, because it was dark I probably wouldn't run into any Italian farmers, so I set up my tent. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the morning after I had broken down camp I realized that I had a flat tire. I attributed this to the fact that the spot I was camping in would, in the summer, be a narly patch of brambles so my front tire must just have gotten caught on a stray thorn. I walked out to the road and set about changing my tire. I had never actually changed a tire before but this experience turned out to be glorious. The sky had cleared up and the sun was shining down warming my bones. I was (thanks to yesterday's climb) on one of the highest points around so the view was beautiful. And, aside from cold fingers, the tire changing went off without a hitch. There were even birds chirriping melodically in the trees.</div><div><br />After I got my tire sorted out it was, both literally and figuratively, 'all downhill from there'. I bundled myself up, rolled down the hill. By the time I had to peddle much again I was halfway to Bologna and I used the rest of the ride back to think of ... Lessons Learned: 1. You aren't as strong as you thought you were and biking uphill with food and a tent is harder than you thought it would be. 2. Maps suck (I kind of already knew that) but writing road names on yours would make it a lot better. 3. Poaching camping is as sketchy and unenjoyable as you remember it being, especially because you don't speak any Italian.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-31865189144851200612009-02-06T05:44:00.000-08:002009-02-06T22:41:40.757-08:00Hair Cut!!!<br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhZwp16Xf0YbLW2nxm5sF47W1fXrgYGZu_ZjjDus3plqqdA1Pe8zl80CZ38HtmIiv-G19ewHx3kMWCB9A_UjC8QfA8tAyzUAky9Kmxx4M6bsdn1zWQH68Ynt44HYS2ew_uptWHPXClusE/s200/101415.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299681751580250674"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6PLef8A2iv57dNyyaASnv9oeZfc6MIHFAXBCrlbPy7WqY0sfm4Iy1htJ4ekLHPw_tpJJzupx2_mKsO2hQdQAN4nmxkOJkzhAO6tGiEMnxEwphSKFvr9FkKevfrBOaJQrD2pYw9enc55c/s200/104345.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299681310633896930"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqGGe6DZIG6jcGDyGcfp-h12RptlDcfz9O1lbXkgAh1OAE-0Wo3qSm9PhBOZw7MNuefKzmGF41oa4an4nQR9pJGimrqTK7DnGKW0mc4yVSCWXizKqHOjVv_nFy7qpgJ4_IfBrm9Z3NsUQ/s200/104719.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299682008786158402"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRX0SIwOLm92rPqkhrBR82uy9Y3V_ppFeDTF9cZHcg1vJAqPhQ83YxenUOsNrcirENuZ_WSsL4jKWiLtd5N_rzf9E3axSwpUsRFQZulUGbtx2fIl1MXNeXZWa1SSejWiu5gukDHm2ICZU/s200/104949.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299682257142736722"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9e2XYP62LlNfh0P1XNYeqG3NwXjPhpQtKoiyDzTbrxbiJGhxSYqNMQ0dh0OXVPGWbvBNg5jgH89KdN_9VNJbzUyfhVuELQYy6HHoIq_UglEihEfooCXJVI6ncnqPh1O5jUOeboW-DA7c/s1600-h/110653.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9e2XYP62LlNfh0P1XNYeqG3NwXjPhpQtKoiyDzTbrxbiJGhxSYqNMQ0dh0OXVPGWbvBNg5jgH89KdN_9VNJbzUyfhVuELQYy6HHoIq_UglEihEfooCXJVI6ncnqPh1O5jUOeboW-DA7c/s200/110653.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299683072153432082"></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrAAEdhG-x82e0gZ_TeaDKdxEjyA9GeqGq5wT-iYbVJQIUSDbPz_sKYonAYOqxaTzLHOaQza1nuxqiK-7zutKke6WDhmaJVs_TcdM7C4x6PYPereNUYE9C5RTyeJp0diUYzyN8MVXs6vc/s200/110745.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299683999496145314">I had to put it in pony tails because I was donating it to locks of love and they want it to be in a handy donateable format. Also, I look pensive in the next to last picture because I had just heard a 'snip' and then Jeannie say "Whoops! maybe could have done without that" But then she laughed and I figured it was ok.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-56468409909312038972009-01-27T06:34:00.000-08:002009-01-31T05:52:22.150-08:00Biking!I almost hit a pedestrian the other day. She was very apolegetic though. I was cruising along in the (I think) bus lane and she stepped out in front of me. I slammed on my brakes but still came up right beside her. Then she noticed me and started apologizing fervently. I didn't realize until I was biking away that I hadn't even said one word. I would have said "I'm sorry" but I don't eve know how to say that. I really only know how to say please, thank you, and your welcome. And 'Preggo' means please <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">and </span>your welcome, so I pretty much only know two words.<div><br /></div><div>Anyway, not discouraged by my last almost-accident while biking, I got a littel stir-crazy today and decided to go on a longer ride. I glanced at a map decided to head south-east (sort of towards Florence) and try to get out into the mountains. On my way out of the city I passed the stadium where, I deduced from the masses of riot police loitering around, there was a game going on. I later confirmed this with Jeannie, apparently David Beckam was there, which I guess explains the riot police. </div><div><br /></div><div>At one point I had sort of a Taiwan flashback. There was a line of cars at a stop light and I went ahead and pulled up all the way to the front. Cause I'm on a bike and I get special privaleges. After I had been there for a second a moped pulled up beside me. Then another one pulled up in front of both of us. Then a Mercedes pulled out into the intersection and stopped in front of all of us. I realized I probably should have been wearing a helmet. The light turned and I pulled out into the intersection. I was in the center of the intersection and it seemed much more prudent to be on the right side so I decided to merge. I looked over my right shoulder to check for traffic. All I saw was my hair. I looked again and saw mostly hair but it seemed clear and I was starting to lose intersection so I went ahead and moved over. Apparently I don't just need a helmet, I need haircut too.</div><div><br />It seemed to take a while to get out of the city but once I did the mountains were very scenic. I could even see, off in the distance, snow on the hills. I only consulted the map once after I made it out of the city. However, after I saw two bikers ahead, I quickly disregarded the knowledge gleaned from the map though, and decided to follow them. I turned too late and missed them but, after a brief period on a road, albiet a 2 lane road, with higher speeds than I would've liked, found my way out into the mountains. It was gorgeous, quite, and virtually car-less ... everything I had wanted. Unfortunatley it was only about an hour before dark and I felt like I should turn around so I didn't make it far enough to be turned around by snow (which had sort of been my vague goal.) </div><div><br /></div><div>On the way back I saw 2 more bikers turn into the same road that I had followed bikers down before, which leads me to believe that there is either a good biking trail down there. That or some kind of wierd commune where a bunch of bikers live. I also ran into a police road block near the stadium on the way back. Really it was just a small car and one cop blocking off half of the road, but I was worried that he wouldn't let me pass and that we would have an awkward half Italian and half non-communication conversation. So, doing my best to smile nicely, in hopes of avoiding any awkwardness, I biked past. The cop, however, didn't even appear to notice me. The reason half of the road was blocked off quickly became apparent. It was filled with busses, presumable those of the football team. I did my best to ride along unperturbed with busses towering over me on my one side and traffic zooming past on my other side. I ended up making it home without incident.</div><div><br /></div><div>Other interesting tidbits:</div><div><br /></div><div>Our kitchen is tiny. Tiny enough in fact, that I can touch both of the sidewalls at the same time. There are benefits to the tiny kitchen though. For instance, if I sit in the right spot at the table I can reach the sink, the food cabinet, the refrigerator, and the oven without getting up. So thats pretty handy. Heck, if the kitchen was any smaller I could do all my cooking from a sitting position. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-64153700866856929062009-01-21T06:32:00.000-08:002009-01-27T06:50:59.880-08:00Post 2In some ways a lot has happened since my last post, but in other ways nothing has really happened. I am going to be taking Spanish and I now have the textbook for the class but it isn't actually going to start until mid February so, right now, I don't have anything that I <span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-STYLE: italic">have</span> to do. I usually go to school with Jeannie in the morning and apply for jobs in the DC area or read. Then I come home in the afternoon and practice playing the fiddle because, if I'm going to go play on the streets in the spring to try to make an extra buck, I figure practicing is really just like increasing my job skills. So that has been the more boring/routine part of my life. <div><br /></div><div>Jeannie babysits here and she and I had dinner with her babysitting family last Thursday, which was one of the more interesting things. It was actually very enjoyable and, although the couple's English isn't perfect, there were no real problems in communication. Both Nicola (husband) and Federica (wife) have very good senses of humor. Federica had already given Jeannie an Italian name (apparently Italians have a hard time with the 'j' part of the name) and she also wasted no time in giving my own Italian name, Gaspare, so I felt like the evening was off to a good start. Also, when they were asking why I chose to study Chinese, I paused before answering and so Jeannie stepped in and said "Jasper enjoys challenging things." This was a perfect set up so after a moment I pointed out shrewdly "That's why I'm dating Jeannie!", which Nicola and Federica had both been thinking, so I knew they had good senses of humor.</div><div><br /></div><div>From talking with Jeannie I knew that their child (Matilda) wasn't entirely planned and that, although he loves her very much, sometimes Nicola doesn't recognize that he can no longer do all of the things that he wants to. This was illustrated clearly at dinner because he was, apparently, staging a major offensive, the goal of which was moving the family to the UK or the USA for a period. Although it was clearly doomed to failure, I felt out of a sense of fidelity, that I should support him. So when he started jovially using me as an example of someone who travels frequently, I did my best to go along. Federica, on the other hand, continually rejected all his attempts even though some of them, being able to make more money in other countries for instance, didn't seem entirely unreasonable. </div><div><br /></div><div>Hearing Nici and Fede (as they refer to each other) tell the story of how they met, turned out to be another high point of the evening. Apparently they were both going to a summer retreat at a school in Sicily. Nicola and a friend didn't get to the campus until very late and there were no rooms left. The desk clerk asked if they would mind sharing a room with two girls. (At this point in the story Nicola opend his arms wide, shrugged his shoulders, and smiled in the worldwide gesture of "Of course we wouldn't!") So the clerk gave them the key and they went up to the room. Federica and her roommate were out on the town at the time, so Nicola and his friend had time to scout it out. Nicola began looking around the room, trying to find out what he could about his soon to be roommates. He noted that one of the girls had huge shoes ("A tall girl," he thought). The same girl also had skinny clothes ("A thin girl," he thought). But the thing that caught his eye most was a book by the German philosopher/scholar Goethe ("A smart girl?!?!?!" he thought). At this point, Federica and her friend returned from their night on the town. They had been warned at the front desk that two men would be sharing a room with them, so they, rightfully so, stormed off in a fluster to reclaim their room. As Federica said, "We were girls! We couldn't stay with boys!" Federica decided she would do all the talking (because her friend was shy and Federica is a better talker). When she got to the room she threw open the door and found Nicola. To her chagrin she accidentally blurted out "Che buono!" (so beautiful) after which she quickly slammed the door. And the rest was history.</div><div><br /></div><div>Another fun point of the weekend was a birthday party Jeannie and I went to on Saturday night for one of her classmates. The most interesting thing was that he lives with two Italians, which opened up the possibility of a real cultural experience. This revealed itself later when it came time for cake. I saw one of the Italians put what looked like a piece of bread (presumably cake) in a bag and pour white stuff on it (presumably sugar) and start to shake it. "This is great Jasper, you're getting a cultural experience." I asked Jeannie what was actually happening. "It's a traditional Italian birthday cake where they put bread and sugar in a bag and shake it. DUH!"</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-46827986138245352282009-01-07T06:08:00.000-08:002009-01-08T09:46:08.513-08:00Part II: Italy<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I made it, without any hiccups, to Italy: the land where wine is cheaper than water, where dogs go to the bathroom on the sidewalks (and more importantly no one cleans it up), and where, once you get in the bathroom, there are directions on how to get to the toilets. The directions aren't just printed out on paper and taped to the walls, they are engrave in the tile. And you know when you get there because behind the toilet there is a tile that says 'here' and behind the urinals the tiles say 'these are the toilets'.<div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>The trip over was very enjoyable and worked out, basically, completely perfectly. Jeannie and I were worried about how we would get my bike back to her apartment but, to our surprise and good fortune, my bike had been left in Munich. So we went on into Bologna and bought some gelato, which was delicious, like ice cream but richer. After gelato we went to school because, hopefully, the airline was going to ship my bike straight there. Alas, I still had to fill out a customs declaration and fax that in, which we got done the next morning (Monday). The bike came Monday afternoon and I carried back home and put it together Tuesday, which was pretty exciting. Before I left Idaho I bought a rack for it, with the idea of Jeannie being able to ride around on the back. Success! Jeannie had to babysit Tuesday afternoon and, thanks to my help, she got there 10 minutes early. And I popped a wheelie once because Jeannie was sitting on the back. Then I rode over to the grocery store to pick up some beer and eggs but, to my disappointment, it was closed. This, however, wasn't entirely unexpected because Italy celebrates Christmas on the 6th, so I tried to make it back home a new way. I did get lost, but just before I was about to turn around and go back the way I had come, I saw a familiar street sign, which led me straight to my front door. Overall the I'm very excited about bike riding in Italy. The one ride I've had so far was very enjoyable not only do I see loads of other people biking around, but some streets even have bike lanes, making the whole enterprise a lot safer than I had originally thought.<br /></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I also have some interesting things to relate about Jeannie's apartment. 1st of all, the shower is a death trap. It is similar to a normal shower in that there is a bathtub attached to it, however, the bathtub is about 1/3 as big as a normal bath tub. It is also tiered so that about halfway from the spigot to the back of the shower there is a step. The dangerous part is that the whole thing is curved. So, its sort of like showering in a big wet bowl, with little lateral maneuverability. Everytime I have to turn my body, I wish there was a handle to grab onto, but there isn't, so I just put my palm against the wall and hope that if I lose my balance there will be enough friction between my palm and the wall to keep me from tearing down the shower curtain in a last ditch effort to prevent my fall from being a rib breaker.<br /></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Another interesting thing about Jeannie's apartment is the radiator. Basically, it sounds like a waterfall. I've lived in rooms before that had radiators and none of them sounded like this. Also, it's barely warm to the touch, although if we leave it on constantly it somehow seems to keep the room liveable. However, the combination of the waterfall like noise and the luke warm surface of the radiator lead me to believe that basically there is just hot water running through the radiator, which warms the metal, which warms the room. This seems horribly inefficient; however, I don't really know anything about radiators so if anyone does, I would welcome any knowledge you might have on the subject.<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-18199440444852781242008-05-29T23:58:00.000-07:002008-07-28T03:31:44.169-07:00A Good Ol' Taiwanese AdventureI've been stuck in Taipei for a long time, and so my girlfriend Jeannie and I decided to try to have an adventure. We perused a guide book and asked some of our friends and decided to try to go to Green Island (from all reports a tropical snorkeling paradise). We made this decision on Wednesday, and on Thursday Jeannie went to book us train tickets down to Taidong. The first boat out to Green Island left at 8 am, so we were going to have to take the 3 am train so we could make it down in time for the boat (its about a four hour train ride). While Jeannie was going to book train tickets I called a couple hotels on the island to try to reserve a room. The first hotel was booked, and at the second one the woman who answered just kept yelling '喂' (Hello in Chinese), so, after doing some yelling of my own, I gave up on that. I got in touch with Jeannie and found out that, somehow, the 3 am train was completely sold out. We were both confused at this turn of events, but took it as a sign that we shouldn't go to Green Island. Apparently it wasn't meant to be.<br /><br />Further perusing of the guidebook revealed that there was a waterfall not to far south of Yilan, so we decided to head there on Saturday. The train station we needed to get to was so small that only a few trains went through it a day. The first one left Yilan at 10 am, so we decided to take that (it was, after all, a marked improvement over 3 am). We made it to the train station with plenty of time, and were sitting waiting on the platform with our tickets at 9:55. Somehow, we were having such a jolly time waiting on the train that we managed to miss it completely. It stopped, people got off and on, and then it pulled away. As it was leaving Jeannie stood up and said, "I hope that isn't our train", which I think was really just a nice way of saying "Damn it. How did we miss our train? We were right here!" To be fair, the train did pull up to the side of the platform that we weren't facing, but on the other hand, ITS A TRAIN! It was too early in the day to give up, so we decided to go to the next nearest station and walk the rest of the way.<br /><br />There was a train to Nan Ao in about 25 minutes so we went back to the platform and waited. A few minutes before it was scheduled to arrive we decided to go ahead and stand up, just to be able to keep a better eye on our surroundings, and lessen any chance that we might miss this train too. The train arrived on time, we got on, and then double checked with the conductor, just to make sure. Our original plan was to walk to a "Recreation Farm" (just like a National Park or Forest campground in the states) where we could rent bikes, then ride them to the waterfall. We figured out that we could get to the same farm by walking from Nan Ao, though it might take a little longer. However, we were in good company, and the scenery was spectacular. Nan Ao is a costal town where about three or four mountain valleys all converge onto a small plain and beautiful beach. Not only were we in sight of awesome mountains, but we were walking 'through' (we were on roads, but the only traffic was the occasional old person on a bike wearing an Asian style straw hat) fields and the weather was beautiful. And it was quiet, an incredibly pleasant change from Taipei. We had no map and only a vague idea of the direction we needed to go, however, we did see a bridge that looked promising and decided to head for it. This meant stepping off of the main road and actually walking through the fields. I was worried for a moment about encountering someone with a shotgun yelling at us for trespassing, but who are we kidding, this is Taiwan. No one except the police (and maybe a few hunters) have guns and people are just more mellow about everything anyway. And we were still on a small path, so it didn't seem like we were hurting anything.<br /><br />After following the path to its end, we found out that it didn't actually go to the bridge. It got us close, but we would have had to wade through a field and maybe a stream too. It wasn't worth it, so we turned around and re-traced our steps. It turned out that the road we had been on led us straight to the bridge too, and, once we got to the bridge we found signs for the 'Recreation Farm' so we knew we were on the right track. It only took us about 30 more minutes to get to the place, however, once there we had a little trouble renting bikes. We saw a group of guys sitting in the shade and as we walked up, one of them got up and approached us. I asked about renting bikes. He said no. Well dog my cats. I laughed (trying to be friendly) and asked again. "There are <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> no bikes?" Apparently there were bikes, loads of bikes in fact, but they were all broken. I kept pressing to get him to rent us some bikes and he kept resisting, but letting in slowly. After a little he took us back to a shed, and sure enough, he had about a room and half of bikes, all in sub-par shape. I had hoped that there might be one that fit me, but I that dream was destined to dye. It seemed like we were going to be lucky to get a bike at all. The guy we were talking to started poking around in the rows of bikes, checking to see if the tires had air and whether or not the brakes worked. He found one after a while, not only did it have air in the tires, but both brakes worked, or at least were passable (though we would find out later that it pulled pretty hard to the right). He said there was another bike out front for me, which was in good shape, except that only the back brake worked.<br /><br />By this time, the guy had really warmed up to us (I think he just didn't want to give us bikes at first because he was partly worried about us getting lost and partly worried about the bikes getting stolen and/or broken), and inquired where we were going. We told him the waterfall we were going to and he was <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXqcFiVNFkLFSe4gfJtWEmIwQTNk9YzEkpUc3gqF4-PNTi58AfvSgdwItK5TSqmHUEwdebwU-GmdtkXUXa1Jd-XRfHP1tSxj0Ww8iejhsASV1wsFE5r1iAjz6tS8JpgLGWQYf-yvK-mGI/s1600-h/IMG_2415.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXqcFiVNFkLFSe4gfJtWEmIwQTNk9YzEkpUc3gqF4-PNTi58AfvSgdwItK5TSqmHUEwdebwU-GmdtkXUXa1Jd-XRfHP1tSxj0Ww8iejhsASV1wsFE5r1iAjz6tS8JpgLGWQYf-yvK-mGI/s200/IMG_2415.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5227946779925949202" border="0" /></a>somewhat surprised and somewhat pleased. He got out an old map that looked like it had been drawn out, then photocopied about a dozen times so that not much was distinguishable, and began to give us directions to the waterfall. We got ready to leave, and I was somewhat hesitant because I had assumed that we would have to fill out some paperwork or put down a deposit or something, but after a moment the waiting got awkward and he was giving no sign of asking for anything, so we rode off. We went back the way we had come, and decided to stop off at the beach along the way. After a short detour we got into the meat of the trip, heading straight into the mountains.<br /><br />As we got closer to the mountains the jungle began to surround us, and the clouds dropped down to meet us. And everything got noisier. Apparently it is some sort of frog, but whatever animal it is, it sounds almost exactly like a fire alarm. A loud whining noise of varying volume that goes for quite sometime, but finally seems to fizzle out, presumably as the frog runs out of breath. It is sort of a creepy noise at first, but after a while you sort of get used to it.<br /><br />On <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd9XPf2QvqD8kqySLrp8pe-vyVMPpPLJ1WjKuanY8WDzbOnCVcVZD528eUCHXtmWVy4qPk59Ko3Bqd2N2aPdkP4NhecIkJqYeyMDvxET_U9yGthOq-GS4z5WeWccfEmYfH5X5SdTb1W4g/s1600-h/IMG_2417.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd9XPf2QvqD8kqySLrp8pe-vyVMPpPLJ1WjKuanY8WDzbOnCVcVZD528eUCHXtmWVy4qPk59Ko3Bqd2N2aPdkP4NhecIkJqYeyMDvxET_U9yGthOq-GS4z5WeWccfEmYfH5X5SdTb1W4g/s200/IMG_2417.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5227947634912442002" border="0" /></a>our ride up the valley we had only been passed by one car, so we didn't think there were many people around. And it was starting to rain, so we hoped that would scare other people away. Alas, it was all to no avail. We came upon a shed with a small plaque that said "Jinyue Waterfall", so we parked our bikes there and kept on walking up (the road was dirt and gravel now). We passed a group of 6-7 people coming out, and met about the same number hanging around near some pools below the waterfall. We were greeted in English (as per usual despite the fact that we live in a Chinese speaking country) and they immediately layed in, asking where we were from, and what we did in Taiwan. They were having a good old fashioned BBQ too, and asked if we wanted any food. I was somewhat disgruntled that there were hordes of people around the waterfall and I can't seem to get spoken to in Chinese despite the fact that I'm in Taiwan. AND, I was sweaty as hell and wanted to go swimming, so ... I wasn't as nice as I could have been, and just brushed them off. The water did feel great though. I loitered around in some of the pools at the bottom before deciding to head up to check out the higher waterfall. As I was slowly making my way up a new Taiwanese guy came up and asked if I was going to the upper pool. I said I was, and he said he'd take me up to see it. So I stood up and followed him from rock to rock to the pool immediately at the base of the waterfall. It was gorgeous. The water wasn't actually falling, 'rolling' would be more accurate, but it was still pretty to look at. The waterfall itself wasn't very long, only maybe 20-25' but the pool at the base was large, a dark turquoise-ish color, and completely empty.<br /><br />Swimming towards the waterfall was like swimming in one of those little rectangular pools that people get in their houses, with an electric current. I kept swimming toward the waterfall and kept never getting there. The water was cold though, and felt refreshing after the bike ride up. After a moment my guide asked me if I wanted to jump in. I had seen a rope swing a little higher up and made a mental note to myself on how sketchy it was, so I asked once to confirm there was no real danger. The guy, naturally, denied any, so I got out and followed him up to the next higher rock. It turned out we weren't using the rope swing anyway, just climbing up and jumping in. He went first, jumping straight towards the base of waterfall, and I followed suit. It was fun. And I didn't get hurt. I didn't even touch the bottom. I decided to quit while I was ahead and headed back down to Jeannie. It turned out to be a good time to leave because, despite the fact that it was starting to rain, more and more people were showing up and any hopes of solitude we'd hoped of having were being destroyed.<br /><br />The ride back down was enjoyable, though on some of the steeper hills I had to get off and walk, what with only having one brake and all. The ride back to the 'Recreation Farm' was uneventful except for once, when I had to ride my bike into the grass to get it to slow down, and not thinking that she had two working brakes, I yelled to Jeannie to pull off too, which proved to be a stupid decision on my part, because then she was stopped in the exact place I had wanted to cruise through on my way to the stop. I managed to narrowly avoid tragedy by taking a sharper angle into the grass and heading partway up a hill. My bike came off worst and it really only got a twig caught up in the spokes. Once we got back to the farm we both parked the bikes in front. I was expecting this would be when we had to pay, but after loitering for a second, the guy hadn't asked for money, and I damn sure wasn't going to volunteer, so we smiled, thanked him graciously, and walked away.<br /><br />Jeannie is a vegetarian too (major score) and within minutes, we had already planned out a good all you can eat vege buffet to go to and gorge ourselves when we got back to Yilan. Jeannie had scoped out the train times for the ride back, and knew we could make it to one just after it opened for dinner and get to the food before it had been sitting for too long. Then, before we were out the gate, the guy we'd gotten the bikes from pulled up on a motorcycle and offered us a ride. I was at first confused about how we'd all fit on, but he scooted really far forward, Jeannie squeezed in behind him, and I got on the back. There nothing for me to put my feet on except the exhaust pipe, and not only would that only have worked only for one foot, but it just seemed like a bad idea anyway. I also almost bottomed the shocks out, just by sitting on it (and did bottom them out a number of times before the end) which created and contributed to the general atmosphere of precarious-itude. It seemed like the only thing I could do was hold my feet up, hold on to the sides of the seat, and cross any fingers that weren't holding on. The turns were the scariest part, but the whole thing was also kind of hilarious, and we did end up making it without trouble. He dropped us right below the bridge that the train tracks ran across, so we headed under them, and towards the train station. Jeannie got checked the train times she had written down, and we found out that we had about 45 seconds before the train left. We started running, but the train was leaving as we got onto the platform, so we gave up and stopped to catch our breath. The next train actually came in about an hour, so missing that one wasn't too big of a deal. We decided to go get a couple beers to make the wait easier and make fantasizing about all-you-can-eat vegetarian buffets less part of our conversation. We did finally make it to the buffet, and it was glorious. All in all it was an amazing day.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-72456879221863330252008-05-29T19:50:00.000-07:002008-07-15T04:56:34.412-07:00A Taiwanese Baseball GameI went to a Taiwanese baseball game the other day. It was the Whales (pink and green uniforms) versus the Elephants (yellow uniforms). However, they were all wearing pink hats, and they even used pink bats at some points. The best reasons for the pink accessories we came up with were, it was mother's day weekend, and they were just trying to show some motherly affection? We got there a little late but the game was just starting, and it really got of to a thrilling start. No one scored until the fifth inning. Apparently they were pretty evenly matched teams.<br /><br /> For a little background of the game, they were both corporate teams, one played for China Telecom, and I don't remember the other one. I know Taiwan is really stoked off of baseball, to the point of having a picture of a celebrating little league team on the 500 NT bill, but, just judging from how much people follow the corporate league, I don't think there is an actual professional league.<br /><br />Anyway, one of the main differences I noticed about the game was the approach to encouraging players, and the appropriate noise level. At all the baseball games I can remember going to in the states, the announcers played the cavalry charge and aggressive music and the crowd got rilled up, but all before the batter stepped up to the plate. Then the batter was given a courteous silence, so he could concentrate on hitting the ball. However, there were no announcers here, and the Taiwanese fans didn't start making noise until the batter was about to swing. I can only assume that their motivations were the same (wanting the batter to do well), but it was interesting to see different implementation strategies. The music (or noise) used to encourage the players also highlighted differences between cultures. I think Americans are pretty big fans of the cavalry charge, but the Taiwanese people had a drummer. And not like some 15 year old rapping out a peppy beat you could jig to. No, there was a drum large enough to boil small farm animals in, and a dude with two hammers sounding out the call to battle. It was impressive and motivating, but alas, the weren't too creative with the beat, and after the second hour it got pretty old.<br /><br /> It was the Elephants who finally scored in the fifth inning, and from there the game was over. They scored again in the sixth inning and the poor whales never had a chance to come back.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-86500905406796947952008-04-03T00:44:00.001-07:002008-04-07T03:06:26.877-07:00My BicycleMy bicycle and I are beginning to have a long, and some might say sordid, relationship together. I got it for 1500 NT (New Taiwan Dollars), or about $50, which I thought was a good deal. When I first got it I was very excited about it, despite how small it was (while riding my knees came to within about 3 inches of the ends of the handle bars). It had a bell and stickers with pink flowers, and it was such a vast improvement over walking everywhere. However, it didn't take it long to loose the bell (I think the bike got hit by a car while it was parked), the flower stickers started to fade, the basket got messed up, the hubs started to rust, the breaks started to get sketchy, and the wheels started to get more dented than the outside of a pineapple.<br /><br /> One day while I was riding to class the chain broke, so I grabbed it and put in my basket, then sat down on my bike and pushed it, just like the Flintstones, the rest of the way to class. It was a little demoralizing, but also hilarious, so I think it worked out OK. After class I went to get the chain fixed, and it was 200 NT for a new one.<br /><br /> My next bike breaking while I'm riding it adventure happened one Saturday night when I was riding to meet Luke at the subway. We had just had dinner, and I had ridden it home as quickly as possible, which involves standing up and wrenching back on the handle bars, in order to put maximum force on the pedals. I was only at home for a little bit, then Luke texted me and told me to meet him at the metro. So I rushed out, grabbed my bike, and proceeded to sprint away on it. I think I made it to my metro station in under a minute, which is really good time. However, while I was riding I started to notice that the bike handle bars were a little loose. I assumed the nuts were loosening a little bit, and that I could sort it out later. After I got to the metro station, I realized I didn't have my pass with me so I decided to rush one station further up to meet Luke before he got on, and borrow his pass. I jumped back on my bike and sprinted away again. The handle bars seemed a little looser, but I didn't think anything about it. I had to stop for a crosswalk, and as soon as my light turned green, I started wrenching on the handlebars to try to get up to speed again. I guess I wrenched a little too hard because I tore the handle bars off. I could no longer steer and, fortunately I hadn't gotten up too much speed, so the bike quickly fell over. I ended up standing and unhurt because while I'm riding my feet are only about 6 inches away from the ground. I looked around to see if anyone had seen me, which, of course, people had. Then I went to pick up my bike and see what had happened. I had indeed torn the handle bars free from the frame, but they were still bolted into the front stem. So while they were attached to the bike, they were completely useless for their main purpose of guiding the bicycle. So I stashed it and ran on to meet Luke. It was 300 NT for a new handle bar, raising the overall amount of money I'd put into fixing the bike up to 1/3 of its original value.<br /><br />After I tore off the handle bars I thought the worst was over. However, as you may guess, I was wrong. Alonzo got here about 2 weeks ago, and last Friday I gave him a ride on the back of my bike. All bikes either have a rear rack or pegs, and most people take full advantage of these tools to ferry their friends around. I wanted to be able to ferry my friends around too, so when I bought my bike I asked if the back stand was strong enough to hold a friend. Naturally the salesman said it was, and I believed him. To make a long story short, Alonzo was sitting on the back, and we hit a curb wrong and the back tire bent up like a taco. Neither of us were hurt, and the situation was initially very funny, though possibly more so to Alonzo than to me. Alonzo carried the back end, I steered the front, and we headed off for the bike shop. When I'd bought my bike they told me I got free labor there, so always to bring my bike back to them if anything happened. Ben had also bought his bike here, and he had had a very poor experience with the owner, so I was a little dubious about the place, however, aside from the chain breaking, I had taken my bike there for a couple other small things, and they'd always been helpful to me, so I decided to take my bike there. Apparently it was going to be 600 NT for a new wheel. That seemed a little steep, and I wasn't ready to fork over that much money without a fight, so I went back on campus and stole another bike.<br /><br />Now, I want to say, that although I did steal the bike, I'm pretty sure no one was using it. I get to school at 7:00 am everyday, so I pretty much have my choice of parking spots, and I park my bike in the same place everyday. This bike is always there and, a few days before, it had fallen over. I noticed there was not even any air in the back tire, so I just kind of pushed up against the bike rack, and left it there. It had not been touched since then. Aside from there being no air in the tires, I feel like the strongest piece of evidence that it was abandoned was that the sticker allowing it to be parked on campus was from last year. Also, not every morning, but on some mornings I see big flat bed trucks carrying away old abandoned bikes, so I figured if I didn't take it away, they would. So, overall I didn't feel to bad about taking it.<br /><br />It turned out not to matter because the wheels were a different size, and not compatible anyway. This led to another decision, could the bike I'd stolen somehow be made to work, or could they somehow be combined to make one workable bike. No parts could be salvaged off of my bike to make the other bike whole, and making it whole without parts from my bike was too expensive, so I was basically in the same situation. At this point, the shop owner offered to sell me a used bike. I rode it around the block once, but it was pretty sketchy. Only one of the breaks was good, and the peddles were plastic and brittle and I was afraid they were going to break off (which was what had happened to the bike Ben bought here).<br /><br />I haggled with the guy some, but could only talk him down to 800 NT (from 1000 NT) with the trade in of the two bikes, which I wasn't willing to pay. So Alonzo grabbed the stolen bike, and I grabbed my old bike and we walked away. While I was haggling with the guy, I ran into one of my classmates, and she recommended I go to the bike on campus. Apparently it was cheaper there, and they weren't as devious and cheating as this guy. So Alonzo and I headed there. Because Alonzo and I each had to steer our own bikes now, it was more difficult to walk along and steer with one hand, while holding the back tire off the ground with the other, so I (only sometimes) just pushed my bike along, while the back tire dragged. After I'd been doing this for only about 150 yards at most, Alonzo and I heard a loud hissing sound, and looked down to see the air rushing out of my back tire. Apparently dragging the bike for about 3 minutes was enough to wear through the tire and tube. After that I didn't drag it anymore.<br /><br />After we got to the bike shop on campus I found out it was going to be 450 NT for a new wheel. Score. That was significantly cheaper than the other place, and these guys were nice. Then, they turned my bike over and found out that I'd need a new tire and tube also, which immediately doubled the price. Learning this was a lot like a slap in the face. 3 minutes of weakness was going to cost me about $15. IT WAS GOING TO COST ME FIFTEEN US DOLLARS FOR PUSHING MY BIKE ACROSS A WIDE STREET.<br /><br />I asked if they had any used bikes. Nope. It was a hot day my backpack was heavy, and I was sweating just standing there. I decided to stash both bikes on campus, and go home. After we stashed the bikes Alonzo and I went to the Welcome, where Alonzo got a pint of ice cream and I got a beer. Then we went to a near by park, and consumed our rewards for a moderate lenght afternoon of mild stress and discomfort. I'd never drank beer in this park before, and it was actually really nice. For one thing, because I got beer from an actual grocery store instead of a convenience store, like normal, I had more options, so I got something I don't normally drink. And it was good. The park was also full of little kids playing and it was really enjoyable to watch them. They didn't have to worry about paying 15 dollars for not carrying their bike, and them not worrying helped me not to relax. After I finished my beer and Alonzo finished his ice cream, we went home and I took a nap.<br /><br />I had a sort of vague plan of leaving the bikes there over the weekend and then sorting it out Monday morning. However, things sort of piled up, and I ended up leaving them there for a whole week. During that time, I decided I was just going to have to man up, and pay the 900NT. It was cheaper than buying a new bike, and it was the environmentally sustainable thing to do. So I went back today grabbed my bike, and carried it over to the bike shop. The guy said again it was going to be 900NT and asked if I could pick it up tomorrow. I said that was alright, and then, for good measure, asked if he had any second hand bikes. Apparently there was one, and after a little searching (in large clumps of standing bikes), he found it. And then I decided to buy it. It was on 700NT and was an environmentally sustainable option. And I think its bigger than my old one, and the seat is certainly more comfortable, so I think I actually came out on top of the whole deal. Everything went perfectly. And I'm going to put the bike I stole back in its place tomorrow morning, so I won't even have stolen a bike, just borrowed it for a couple days.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-54330346209897796432008-03-05T05:47:00.000-08:002008-03-19T00:59:26.457-07:00THE CRAZY TRAIN. Part IIWell, It was 2 in the morning, we were kind of drunk, and had just gotten kicked out of a temple. Fortunately the festival was still going on, so we didn't feel to forlorn. Since the elementary school was our fall back option for a place to sleep, and this seemed like an excellent time to go for the fall back option, we started to move towards the elementary school. We weren't walking for long before we ran into a large group of people, and another temple. We stopped at the temple, with some vague hopes of being able to sleep there, and ended up talking to some more Taiwanese high schoolers. We again broached our problem<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrolEiKMgk3jTjm2lvCOQz7Z1IpL7TfH_ntH7dlcedCBxnRPj1ncfX-_LXj8SSpsvn5UHOqh5VJlFwVT19ar8do2NIJSA8zNEiNedTlo1oRImWptyUj3ZHXcyZPfs08dM0U-lacSP2bFc/s1600-h/IMG_0327.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrolEiKMgk3jTjm2lvCOQz7Z1IpL7TfH_ntH7dlcedCBxnRPj1ncfX-_LXj8SSpsvn5UHOqh5VJlFwVT19ar8do2NIJSA8zNEiNedTlo1oRImWptyUj3ZHXcyZPfs08dM0U-lacSP2bFc/s200/IMG_0327.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179333872460125106" border="0" /></a> of having now where to sleep, and the kids threw out some options. One even pointed at himself, but I think he was just doing it as a joke, or to make himself look better in front of his friends, because it never went anywhere. Some of the kids were chewing betel nut, and offered us some. Ben took one, and started chewing, and I refused at first, but after a while a kid came up and shoved one in my face, so I accepted. We kept chatting and chewing betel nut for a while, when suddenly we realized fireworks were about to go off behind us. People around us (mainly the high schoolers) didn't seem to concerned, and weren't weaning full protection, so we didn't panic too much, though we did turn our backs, while carefully looking over our shoulders.<br /><br />After the fireworks were done, the high schoolers started to move on, and we moved in to check out the temple in slightly more detail. It turned out to be small, and given our record of success, we decided not to ask if we could sleep there. We started moving back towards the elementary school, chewing on betel nut (which causes incredibly heavy salivation), and spitting out huge red globs of spit (I know its disgusting, and I know this doesn't make it OK, <span style="font-style: italic;">but</span>, all the native Taiwanese people do the same thing, so overall, I don't feel too bad about it.) It didn't take to long for the betel nut to get old, and we spit it out before we made it to the school. Once we got there, we did another perfunctory search to find someone to tell/ask to sleep there, but to no avail. We scouted around for a good place to sleep, and decided on a patch of ground near the track. We stashed out stuff here, and deciding it might be hard to fall asleep on the cold ground, headed off to the nearest convenience store (fortunately less than 100 yards away) for a nightcap. It was cold, and we were worried about not being warm while sleeping, so we jogged to the store. As Ben was buying his beer, in the spirit of trying to be warm, I decided we should get some chocolate, and eat that too. To my good fortune, they had Milo bars for only 8 kuai (a screamin' deal) so we got two of those, to help wash the beers down. Then we headed outside, and sat down near the elementary school to have our last, hopefully very conducive to sleep, 'meal'. After it was over, as per our instructions earlier, we left our beer bottles on the ground, and jogged back to our piece of ground. Just as we were putting on our moped helmets for sleep, we realized someone was walking around the track, and for a moment we were worried it was a security guard, coming to try to kick us off of the school grounds, but the person paid us little heed. It must have just been someone out for some late night exercise, and they ended up not being alone. Due to a number of factors such as: being cold, having my camera in my right pocket so that every time I laid on my side it was jabbing me in the thigh, sleeping on some rocks, and having my backpack laying on top of me, I didn't sleep very well. Because I didn't sleep very well (and also possibly contributing to this) I noticed that there were people exercising almost all night long. The first person was there when we went to bed (at close to 3), and when we got up at 6, there was a whole group of people out running or walking or exercising in some way. I've gotten up early to exercise before too, but I was still surprised to see people out <span style="font-style: italic;">all night long</span>.<br /><br />As we started stretching and moving to try to warm up, one of the exercisers made his way towards us. As he passed us he said something in Taiwanese, and I responded by telling him (in Chinese) we <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht4CUTo8rP4rA47rZDAn0rDCNt89BKXdxHsZJ2yvIG6eB4VZEh1HxK_Wt-Ukrh12jJL_QSt9S5xeHOOseBghGcaBtdd_yUl3025O8bRAEvWi2uFYS2SW2v9jTPs_fFEyTZvzPDxT38j2c/s1600-h/IMG_0333.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht4CUTo8rP4rA47rZDAn0rDCNt89BKXdxHsZJ2yvIG6eB4VZEh1HxK_Wt-Ukrh12jJL_QSt9S5xeHOOseBghGcaBtdd_yUl3025O8bRAEvWi2uFYS2SW2v9jTPs_fFEyTZvzPDxT38j2c/s200/IMG_0333.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179334649849205698" border="0" /></a>didn't understand Taiwanese. He smiled and (what appeared to be) a look of comprehension spread across his face. Then he said something else in Taiwanese. We just smiled and nodded, and he went on his way. After dusting ourselves off, we decided to head to the nearest 7-11 to get something warm to drink. We went back to the same one we'd bought beer from the night before, and not only did they have warm things to drink, this particular 7-11 was equipped with a short bar and a few stools, so we decided to stay a while. Interestingly enough, the same guy was working now, as had been working when we came in the night before, and I think a quick recap from his point of view is in order.<br /><br />Two foreigners run excitedly into his store at 2:30 am and grab beers. One buys his beer, while the other peruses the candy selection, then yells excitedly (because I found the good deal on the Milo bars), and buys his beer <span style="font-style: italic;">and </span>two candy bars. Then they leave. 3 hours later they return (not running and maybe even shivering a little) with dirty clothes and blood shot eyes, buy coffee, then slump down on some stools for about 30 minutes before leaving, looking only mildly more energized.<br /><br />I bet that store clerk has an interesting opinion of foreigners.<br /><br />We stayed in the 7-11 for a while, and we hoped that by the time we'd left, it would have warmed up some outside, but we were disappointed. After we left we began searching for someplace to eat breakfast. Before to long we found a Danbing (sort of thin pancakes with onions in it, and an egg place fried on top) store, so we stopped there. As a sort of reflection of the group mentality of Taiwanese people, I think the vast majority of them only ever order two danbings. I almost always<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5RCqs50QqHo1MN4sQfDhmEKvPv3h2CT9SaqRxyltilf21vMDk3FSW8ixmU84p_rDHqGTOmx_6KJFeRqdp70UbbwfZpO2AMokJuu6HQPnGZWDCQbMWXoIKl4DjcNRRR8wVTAOfBuJAQPI/s1600-h/DSC01300.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5RCqs50QqHo1MN4sQfDhmEKvPv3h2CT9SaqRxyltilf21vMDk3FSW8ixmU84p_rDHqGTOmx_6KJFeRqdp70UbbwfZpO2AMokJuu6HQPnGZWDCQbMWXoIKl4DjcNRRR8wVTAOfBuJAQPI/s200/DSC01300.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179336135907890146" border="0" /></a> order three, and whenever I do, it is almost certain to cause a stir. Not only does the cook as one or two more times to make sure I know what I'm doing, but I also frequently get stares from other customers. This danbing place was no different, the cook asked twice if I actually wanted 3 danbings, and a couple old women who were waiting on their food to be cooked, cast shocked and curios sidelong glances at me. The danbings were good though, and we got some soymilk to accompany them.<br /><br />During breakfast we made some priorities for the day. 1: Secure some form of transportation (preferably leaving at 2 am ish) back to Taipei. 2: Fritter away time until crazy fireworks, preferably by napping. After we finished breakfast we set out to accomplish priority one, so we headed back to where we'd gotten dropped of last night. The bus stop had a sign projecting from the building and, right underneath that sign was a booth. So we approached the booth, and only after a minute of so of looking at the menu for the booth did we realize it was a stand selling waffles, and that all the bus stop was made of was the sign. So we started looking at the sign. While we were discussing our options I saw another sign a little further down the street that pointed to the harbor. I thought it would be neat to see the harbor, so I interrupted Ben in mid-sentence, and broached the idea to him. He seemed excited about it, and we set off immediately, talking about our surprise that we were actually that close to the ocean. After walking for about 15 minutes, we realized we had no idea where we were or even where we were going. We had only seen one sign, and it was pretty vague. It felt sort of like, what I think being ADD would feel like. We just saw a sign to the ocean, thereupon we immediately dropped all plans and departed (without even realizing we'd dropped any other plans) for the ocean.<br /><br />We began to realize that the combination of: being exhausted, hopped up on caffeine, having no difficult goals for the day, no where to go to accomplish these goals, and no where to go when we weren't accomplishing these goals, led to a very interesting state of mind. This mindset in turn let to various feelings of exhaustion, hilarity, and complete satisfaction with where our lives were at at that point in time.<br /><br />Back to the story, we didn't know where we were or where we were going, so we decided to ask for directions. Normally this isn't a difficult process, but we do hem and haw a little to find someone friendly looking to ask, or we have to think about how to phrase the question, but now there was<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCAKncuJDihtQgPgrCnQnLh6zRCJGioWFxopXojGD5cg3bkTQRt-v4bqkI27pQRaR1Xn2Xhd00sx9rW4xj4KltoxVkXpCEexvaXcoicbuda1KJnXQ1j6ES5neyi2qyaoNss2n6eHmyGNU/s1600-h/IMG_0354.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCAKncuJDihtQgPgrCnQnLh6zRCJGioWFxopXojGD5cg3bkTQRt-v4bqkI27pQRaR1Xn2Xhd00sx9rW4xj4KltoxVkXpCEexvaXcoicbuda1KJnXQ1j6ES5neyi2qyaoNss2n6eHmyGNU/s200/IMG_0354.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179337265484289010" border="0" /></a> no beating around the bush. We turned to the person nearest to our physical position when, which happened to be some guy on an old motorcycle. He said we were about 20 km from the ocean, so we immediately dropped all thoughts of going there, and headed back the way we had come. On the way (we were getting back on track with 'our priorities') we decided to take a bus back to the larger town with the train station, and try to secure transportation from there. A woman was waiting at the bus station when we got back, and she told us it was just a few minutes until the next bus, so we got in line. After a short bus ride back to Xinying we headed to the train station to look for the tourist information center. The train station and bus station were on opposite sides of a traffic roundabout and both stations had their own set of taxi drivers, who, despite having seen us a number of times, took every opportunity of us walking past, to avidly sell their wares (a taxi ride to the fireworks festival). Their approach was to communication involved a lot of yelling, or just loud noises indicating fireworks, accompanied by gestures of explosions and soaring rockets. It was interesting at first, then it got old, then it got interesting again because they were so dedicated and oblivious to our apathy in their taxi rides.<br /><br />At the train station, the tourist information center didn't open for 30 more minutes, so we were at a slight loss. However, we took this opportunity to go to the bathroom, and clean up a little, and Ben called his landlady to tell her he wasn't going to be in Taipei that day (something had gone wrong in his apartment, and they needed him to be there while they fixed it). It turned out that Ben's landlady was coming to the festival, and was driving down as he talked to her. We wondered if we might be able to get a ride back with her, Ben had said she was nice.<br /><br />After getting cleaned up we decided to move on to goal 2 for the day, so we asked the station manager where the nearest park was (our plan was to go there to nap for a while). The station manager was happy to tell us that there was one, just right outside of the station. We walked out, only to discover that the 'park' he was talking about was just a monument inside the roundabout. As soon as we found this 'park' we were stoked. It was perfect. Not only were the marble benches around the monument not covered in dirt, but they would warm up with the sunlight, hopefully creating some sort of oven in which we could warmly bake ourselves. And if that got too crazy, there were a couple patches of scraggly grass (actual grass, not just dirt that looked like grass, like where we slept the night before) underneath trees, so we could seek refuge. We really were really excited about this 'park' for about 45 seconds until we realized IT WAS A 20 FOOT BY 20 FOOT CIRCLE IN THE CENTER OF A ROUNDABOUT. We still liked it, but we decided to keep looking for another place, and to hold this as a fall back option. So we headed off down the road. We explored a couple groups of trees in hopes of finding a little park somewhere, but they were just houses with gardens. After walking for a little bit, we saw a sign for the local 'Cultural Center'. We got excited about that, and were about to run off towards it (it seemed like we might be able to sleep at a 'Cultural Center'), when we remembered the dangers of following random signs, so we stayed the course. We did get off track a little bit when we ran into an internet cafe, and stopped to check our emails. It was kind of an intense place because all of the computers had <span style="font-style: italic;">huge</span> chairs in front of them. They were obviously the sort of chairs made for 15 hour stretches playing the same video game. We almost passed out here, but Ben was in favor of finding a park, so as we were leaving we asked directions to the nearest park. Apparently it was just through a couple stop lights, then take a right and we were there. So with these hopeful directions, we set of again. On the way we came upon a truck parked by the side of the road, and right after we passed it we saw another copse of trees of to the right, so we went to check it out. The benches in this park were too short, and there was no grass in between the bamboo, so we decided to move on. Because of circling around a little in the park we ended up behind the truck, so we had to walk past it again, and as we walked back towards the road, we picked back up the same conversation we'd been having before spotting the park. It all worked out so that, as we were passing the truck for the second time, Ben was saying almost exactly the same thing he had said the last time we passed the truck. It was sort of like deja-vous, except that the same thing had just happened, I didn't just <span style="font-style: italic;">think</span> it had just happened. It was a little creepy and funny, and probably made more so by the mental <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDay95RFtv5CQaPzXI9FQOjshVBZgumFJFMOzehmYa672Uw_xex7SkroR5qPEBaKPkZiByaCPQvJvYNMlj9p1lHL8ZQn6QtCZJR9pKXvMUvDG9NepT_pJGhT5TG1SOH0DNj89s0kYmOmY/s1600-h/IMG_0346.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDay95RFtv5CQaPzXI9FQOjshVBZgumFJFMOzehmYa672Uw_xex7SkroR5qPEBaKPkZiByaCPQvJvYNMlj9p1lHL8ZQn6QtCZJR9pKXvMUvDG9NepT_pJGhT5TG1SOH0DNj89s0kYmOmY/s200/IMG_0346.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179339541816955938" border="0" /></a>state we had going.<br /><br />Shortly after that we finally made it to the 'Cultural Center' (even though for a while we hadn't know that it was our goal, we made it there anyways). It was truly amazing. It had a lake, and two or maybe two and a half football fields worth of open grass fields, and trees, and a hill, and a lake, and an island, and nice modern art glass structures, and small elk looking statues. Truly unbelievable. My skin still tingles thinking about how awesome it was.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzyPPtTPuR_5dpb0U8UoY_uRlhP6EGyoGG2AGr0pwFUOMRkjHatsHzGDhywqhc5GW8vc1SnnQvtb-xdclhdP4leSwKjn9RMCynZJO5aB5sCpaan_LXv5Rt5wuAhFmHCtUkwVWAF6Havoc/s1600-h/DSC01305.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzyPPtTPuR_5dpb0U8UoY_uRlhP6EGyoGG2AGr0pwFUOMRkjHatsHzGDhywqhc5GW8vc1SnnQvtb-xdclhdP4leSwKjn9RMCynZJO5aB5sCpaan_LXv5Rt5wuAhFmHCtUkwVWAF6Havoc/s200/DSC01305.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179337875369645058" border="0" /></a>We decided to go to the hill for our nap. It was actually a very small hill, only 10-12 feet tall, and also pretty small in circumference, but it gave us the illusion of having some privacy while we slept. So, the glorious moment had finally arrived. The sun was out, and it was warm, and the day was truly beautiful. I didn't sleep with my m<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjCW3qd5opgFNM59DrkFUfgsR1ZPmAmzAjS418QdMAuQkWWQO1LIjlVJ4kEn5Z0LMgSRzFSXFluRwpL-k7rGvv4FGJV07fHcpKFdxgojrtMBHb8M4cgtTj5fnWrhjlpTu6IqSNusuRbEQ/s1600-h/IMG_0343.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjCW3qd5opgFNM59DrkFUfgsR1ZPmAmzAjS418QdMAuQkWWQO1LIjlVJ4kEn5Z0LMgSRzFSXFluRwpL-k7rGvv4FGJV07fHcpKFdxgojrtMBHb8M4cgtTj5fnWrhjlpTu6IqSNusuRbEQ/s200/IMG_0343.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179340151702311986" border="0" /></a>oped helmet on at first, but instead used my jacket as a pillow. However, our hill was right next to the lake, which had a fountain in it, and when the wind shifted, we got sprayed with the mist off <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicp-yskzy7s_rWfZwzsEAIJnGQcsPB4egBxVY6zJBhKh7HcBhKi2zLswMHjNUq8NfUUQ4e4lze9WKS4NltO-c9aLrOeNPo-X4A1h8YABQiT2ha4pY56FQeU4RlsPb_EnF451EiaNVcof0/s1600-h/IMG_0341.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicp-yskzy7s_rWfZwzsEAIJnGQcsPB4egBxVY6zJBhKh7HcBhKi2zLswMHjNUq8NfUUQ4e4lze9WKS4NltO-c9aLrOeNPo-X4A1h8YABQiT2ha4pY56FQeU4RlsPb_EnF451EiaNVcof0/s200/IMG_0341.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179338712888267794" border="0" /></a>of the fountain. In the end, I put the helmet on, and<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXs68TXBeUn9QuUV_L9x6R0tnphTzdS4_DoulGupRdu5prQozG7tEV8H3-OZvVeZIJ84bi7-vos-WTj4RkMUkKo7JXA4EAhRiWhsit3iYGfbbx-0c-0pvkkCle7VsmBrBhO_xQkPUvxw0/s1600-h/DSC01309.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXs68TXBeUn9QuUV_L9x6R0tnphTzdS4_DoulGupRdu5prQozG7tEV8H3-OZvVeZIJ84bi7-vos-WTj4RkMUkKo7JXA4EAhRiWhsit3iYGfbbx-0c-0pvkkCle7VsmBrBhO_xQkPUvxw0/s200/DSC01309.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179340499594662978" border="0" /></a> now, not only was it an amazing pillow, I put the face mask down, and it kept me from getting awoken by fountain spray hitting me in the face.<br /><br />After 2 hours of glorious relaxation and napping, we woke up. We hung out on our hilltop for a little longer, but it was a little after noon, and we were both hungry so we left. On the way back to the train station we passed a dried noodles store, and stopped there for lunch. As a testament to our mental state, and the slowness of my mental capacities, I grabbed a bottle of spice to flavor my curry soup a little, and as I was grabbing it, I thought I saw a fly on the wall. It took me 20 seconds of staring at the wall to figure out that it was just a discoloration in the fake wood grain finish. Ben and I never lacked for something to talk about, but this meal was more characterized by slow eating, and slowly ranging thoughts. After lunch we walked back to the train station. We were walking in the road, going against traffic, and at one point a middle aged man driving a moped, went for about40 seconds without looking at the road in front of him. He was just staring off to the side, presumable looking at someone he knew, but because he wasn't looking, he was slowly swerving towards Ben. He finally looked back to the road and straightened his course, but at no point in the whole process did he ever seem to be worried about the consequences of driving one direction and looking another.<br /><br />We made it back to the train station OK, and went straight into the tourist info office. The woman was very helpful, and found a bus that we could take back to Taipei. She called a couple people to check schedules, and then she asked us if we wanted to make reservations over the phone. We did, and so she made another call, and then handed the phone over. I was surprised, and not ready, but it was already ringing so I didn't have much of a choice. I made the reservation OK, and then woman on the phone asked me what my last name was. Without thinking I gave her my Chinese last name, and she scoffed a little. At the time, I thought she scoffed because my name is maybe a little less common, but shortly there after I came upon a much more likely situation. She knew full well I was white, and wanted me to give her my English last name. It all worked out though. After the phone call, the tourist information woman wrote down the name of the company we had just reserved tickets with, and then we took our leave. We decided to go in search of a second lunch (hopefully we'd be really full, thus aiding in an afternoon nap). We found a place that had vegetarian lunch boxes for pretty cheap, so we got a couple of those, and tried to head back to the paradise we'd found in the morning. We got lost immediately. Because we wanted to find a different restaurant for our second lunch, we went a different way back (to see new restaurants). We did indeed see new restaurants, but we also got lost. We struggled with admitting how lost we were before finally asking at 7-11 how to get to the 'Cultural Center'. While Ben was asking directions, I walked down a different alley, to see what I could see, and I actually ended up seeing some very interesting things. After Ben got out of the 7-11, I brought him back to the same place, and asked what he saw. He confirmed what I'd seen. We were in the background of the view we'd seen earlier from our hilltop at the 'Cultural Center'. We were seeing now, the backs of buildings we'd seen the fronts of earlier. This matched up with the directions Ben had gotten, so we headed off, and got to the park in no time.<br /><br />Because we were approaching the park from a different direction, we had cause to check out some of the glass structures. Apparently they were also solar heaters, not only heating water, but also exporting electricity. The 'Cultural Center' was already badass, but this pushed it to a whole new level, which I didn't even really know existed before. After checking out the solar structures for a little while, we went over to some picnic tables by the lake to eat our lunch. The lunch was actually really delicious, but things started to go a little bad at this point. It was just singing really, but it was incredibly terrible singing. There was an amphitheater in another corner of the park, and there were a couple of people who were belting out some old Chinese opera. I will admit, I can't sing myself, and I recently had to have it explained to me what an octave was, so I'm generally not much of a reliable musical critic. However, Ben is, so I'll just use the analogy he made to explain the situation. This singing sounded like: Someone had gotten really drunk. They were so drunk they passed out. Then one of their friends poked them with a stick until they woke up, handed them a microphone, and told them to start singing. It was a song they were familiar with, so they knew the words, but they were pass-out drunk, so their singing ability was in the toilet. Basically, no rhythm, pitch, or tone, and far too much random quavering. And someone was playing with the echo machine, randomly adding in an echo affect.<br /><br />Mostly we just laughed at the music, and our lunch was good enough to almost make up for it. There was one tough thing about the lunch though. The soup. It was in a little cup, so it needed to have a <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1r3UA_h81z6baMy84wieOvnbqeJp1pfbRmM2MHhS8iqpphCv4LJ4P4Haimmt6fxteghUSHVOR-fWC-3xGMouQVjGLCXkM89WglO9i6tziLZkILKes1M2m8oCTYEo5hvDAwo-UK5xl_mI/s1600-h/IMG_0349.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1r3UA_h81z6baMy84wieOvnbqeJp1pfbRmM2MHhS8iqpphCv4LJ4P4Haimmt6fxteghUSHVOR-fWC-3xGMouQVjGLCXkM89WglO9i6tziLZkILKes1M2m8oCTYEo5hvDAwo-UK5xl_mI/s200/IMG_0349.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179341530386814034" border="0" /></a>tough lid, or else it would spill out, but this lid was a little too tough. At least for us right then. And the reward of getting the lid off (the soup) was disappointing, but in a really amusing way. The soup was just, clear liquid, a piece of carrot, an unidentified white vegetable, and a date. I guess they were just trying to keep it simple.<br /><br />After lunch, it was nap time again, but this time we decided to sleep on the back side of the hill, to keep out of the wind, which not only changed the temperature and made it hard to get comfortable, but also sprayed water on us. And we could prop ourselves up against the side of the hill, for a little change of position. We ended up having noticeably less privacy here (we heard a number of people comment on us as they walked past) but it was a dynamite place for sleeping. Somehow we still got a little bit of spray from the lake, but much less, and<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvbJu3pltGqQTzg1a5anYxFQ7MHbY9XadsVK6Ss5Q0Pa4v2GmxFzWDV5a2BHUKQ-R_DP37E1VU-2uaPB84Bh3JwzI_e9CJ_wmscYOABYuyMsluMn35C_qA_SE8slub_avgvTMayNUQ99s/s1600-h/IMG_0352.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvbJu3pltGqQTzg1a5anYxFQ7MHbY9XadsVK6Ss5Q0Pa4v2GmxFzWDV5a2BHUKQ-R_DP37E1VU-2uaPB84Bh3JwzI_e9CJ_wmscYOABYuyMsluMn35C_qA_SE8slub_avgvTMayNUQ99s/s200/IMG_0352.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179345657850385506" border="0" /></a> leaning up against the hill was also dynamite. It was more comfortable at first, and then when I finally decided to lay down, it made laying down much more enjoyable. We woke up at about 5:00 pm, about 30 or so minutes before sunset, and decided we'd better get going. Although we had reserved tickets, we still needed to pick up the paper copies, and we also had to make it back to the Yanshui (the town that had the actual festival). So we packed up our stuff (and by 'packed up our stuff, I mean, we put on our shoes, and grabbed our moped helmets), and left our beautiful park. On the way back we stopped to buy a couple of towels, because, although, we already had some, it seemed like a good idea to grab a couple more.<br /><br />At the bus station, we tried communicate that we only needed to get to the other bus station (the one with the bus back to Taipei, it was half way in between Xinying and Yanshui). We'd hoped that if we could communicate this, we could get discounted tickets, because we really only needed to get half way, but we had a hard time with the communication, and in the end they said they knew where we wanted to go, but we still had to pay full price for the tickets. As we were boarding the bus the ticket cashier made a point of telling the bus driver where we needed to get off, which made things simpler for us. Sure enough, when we were about half-way there, the bus driver stopped and yelled something unintelligible, which we assumed was for us. Normally when you get off the bus, you have to give the driver your ticket, but we'd hoped this time, we wouldn't have to, because we weren't actually at our destination yet. If we didn't give him our tickets, we might be able to flag down another bus (they were pretty common between the two cities) and ride the rest of the way, thus getting the full value out of our tickets. (In hindsight, this seems like we made a huge deal out of this, because we would have only been saving about 25 cents, but I guess it is the principle of the matter.) Anyway, somehow, while we were getting our tickets out to give to the driver, the driver said something, and we became the but of a joke for the whole bus. I have no idea what it was, because he said it in Taiwanese, but whatever it was, the whole bus thought it was funny.<br /><br />So we were a little disgruntled when we got off the bus, and we didn't find the bus station immediately, which made us a little more disgruntled. When we did find the bus, we went inside, and I told the cashier we had reserved a pair of tickets, and my last name was 葛. She said they didn't have a system where you could reserve tickets. I was confused, and looked over at Ben, who seemed just as confused. We decided to abandon the reserved tickets, so I asked the woman if she had any buses going back to Taipei in the early morning. She did, and so we bought the tickets. Major Score. At this point in the day, we had accomplished both of our priorities. The previous day, we had been a little worried about how to get transport back, but mostly we were worried about how to fritter away an entire day without getting bored. The first goal was easy, and we had made light work of 'frittering away our time'. Now all we had to do was eat something, get a little drunk, and get shot at by fireworks.<br /><br />We still had to make it to Yanshui, so asked the cashier if there was a bus station near by where we could catch a bus to Yanshui. There was no such station, and she told us that we would have to take a cab. We were pretty strongly against this option, but in the interests of being open-minded, we went outside, found a taxi driver, and asked how much it would be to get to Yanshui. The answer was, about 6 times as expensive as the bus. We haggled a little but the driver was having none of it, so we started walking. At first it was a haggling strategy, but the taxi driver didn't call after us, lowering his prices, so we kept walking. We also had vague hopes of flagging down a bus to Yanshui, but after not too long, we decided it was only about 2 km, and we should just get a beer and walk. So we did, and it was amazing. The moon was out, and beautiful, and fortunately the traffic wasn't to heavy, so we felt like walking along the road/highway wasn't too dangerous. Another benefit was that we got to walk through the outskirts of the festival, instead of being dropped off right at the center of it.<br /><br />We really got to see everyone doing there own thing. Most people were just shooting off fireworks in the middle of the street (which was still cool to see, cause fireworks are pretty), but we passed a couple guys swinging a string of fireworks around their heads, as the fireworks were going off. Which was also neat to see. At one point, on the walk in, Ben stopped to <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjAUbblcvXXSxK86RJu6Yil1XpZUgRaWUVTIYOCzmQotcQcbWLZMdddS0GPiEWeHXS50q_gcFcZMqA4bDiNbVEzDCPxjMbWDlCaIs34lzte8fOaRQSpvJNsM-7NIvnQBrXTgPYeXWXE54/s1600-h/IMG_0358.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjAUbblcvXXSxK86RJu6Yil1XpZUgRaWUVTIYOCzmQotcQcbWLZMdddS0GPiEWeHXS50q_gcFcZMqA4bDiNbVEzDCPxjMbWDlCaIs34lzte8fOaRQSpvJNsM-7NIvnQBrXTgPYeXWXE54/s200/IMG_0358.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179347435966846066" border="0" /></a>find somewhere to pee, and gave me his beer. So I was left standing beside the road, watching the traffic go past. I stand out enough already, but standing by the side of the road, double-fisting beers got me more than the normal amount of stares, and covert looks. But when Ben got back, we decided to roll with it. We decided to purposefully make ourselves the butt of the jokes, and smile and laugh right back. So we stood there for a while, drinking and smiling at people, but we soon realized that the traffic wasn't really that thick there, and so we moved on. Before we got shot at by fireworks, we still needed to check the local bus schedule, to make sure we could make it to the other bus station in the morning to catch our bus. The sign at the 'stop' wasn't clear, so we decided to ask the women at the waffle store.<br /><br />By this time, Ben and I were a little drunk, and this could prove to be a hindrance to the conversation, but in the end, it proved to be a huge advantage. It was one of the most fluent conversations I've ever had in Chinese. We ended up finding out that the buses quit running at 8 or 9 at night, so we'd have to find another mode of transport back (either walking or a cab), but we ended up talking to the women at the waffle stand for a long time. We talked about the festival, and mine and Ben's schools, and I was making jokes with some words that people don't really say anymore (cause a couple of my textbooks are from the 50's), and everyone was laughing. It was great and proved a fortuitous omen for the whole evening.<br /><br />After we finally left the waffle place, we went to eat a big dinner before continued drinking. After dinner, it really was <span style="font-style: italic;">go time</span>. We knew the fireworks started at 10, and somehow we had frittered<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguEfzZjB3FQ_O4BXSk5aDrkk0axzdOm6YoJQ8Wh3Z5yJyfFRbSO7OZ8gS3fTdLye4qgbSDY5Rj2XY_n6gEc5q-B82dO_WoPCjDVBcxoBZhoFRM4LnIKgr_7Dkevzci9bbxKPpwRuxiHv4/s1600-h/IMG_0363.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguEfzZjB3FQ_O4BXSk5aDrkk0axzdOm6YoJQ8Wh3Z5yJyfFRbSO7OZ8gS3fTdLye4qgbSDY5Rj2XY_n6gEc5q-B82dO_WoPCjDVBcxoBZhoFRM4LnIKgr_7Dkevzci9bbxKPpwRuxiHv4/s200/IMG_0363.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179348406629454978" border="0" /></a> away most of the time since we'd awoken in the park, and now it was about 9. We only had one hour, and we had lots of things on our do list, so we set off to the nearest 7-11 to make a run at the first of our objectives. We were both pretty full from dinner, but given our time frame, we had to start chugging liquids. First, we both chugged about half a liter of water (not only to mitigate the after effects of drinking, but also because we were about to put on multiple layers of clothing, and it would probably be hot in the press of the crowd), and were going to keep going, when we realized it wouldn't hurt to have some for later. Next, we each pounded a can of coffee, nicknamed 'Double Dregs' last year because it is loaded with 2 times the normal caffeine amount. Our last beverage of the evening was beer, but before we moved on to it, we made clear what had to be done during the rest of the night. Not Die. So we made sure that before we got into the actual fireworks danger zone, we would throughly protect our throats and eyes. And with these precautionary statements out of the way, we walked back towards our old trusty Elementary School, drinking our beers on the way. When we got to the Elementary School, we changed clothes, and got on our protective gear. In addition to the towels we'd picked up in Xinying, we also each got a pair of cotton gloves, while we were walking from the bus station. On the bottom, I had on hiking boots and a really old pair of Car<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg89ni6lPh9sp7yom76nZTBCER_gpXlvINY6ePBTwLKIhQ9fG546v308NnIC68c0calFFH-5REgJyNwoO3qv11RQdXPwQOImgTfucNpyaBinUj-4_Dsodjnt5B26OdXDKZVhBuiL4rGMy4/s1600-h/DSC01337.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg89ni6lPh9sp7yom76nZTBCER_gpXlvINY6ePBTwLKIhQ9fG546v308NnIC68c0calFFH-5REgJyNwoO3qv11RQdXPwQOImgTfucNpyaBinUj-4_Dsodjnt5B26OdXDKZVhBuiL4rGMy4/s200/DSC01337.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179349226968208530" border="0" /></a>hartt jeans. I had brought one towel from home, and I tucked this down the front of my jeans, so it made a sort of loin cloth (but only in the front) to protect my crotch. On the top, I had my old black jacket, and over that I was wearing a sweater (I had planned on wearing the jacket on top, but last night someone had advised me that the nylon was not a good material for resisting fireworks, so I wore the sweater on top). Our moped helmets were full-face helmets, but they didn't have a chin guard, so I taped the other towel along the bottom of the face mask, for neck protection, though I was also wearing a scarf. When things got really serious, I also pulled my hood up over the top of the helmet, so the back of my neck was also protected. Ben was also wearing Carhartts, in addition to a pair of cargo shorts (on underneath). <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4YDIWvqGayOWFXTv-H4kh6wRVmB13N2piioPiHwS_FMQ5BhOnPaRA5dSCU9_bwPt-Enh5GDEtLl8baJoe96WLe0diqmyq1n2vPw9VrGYXPGR3TuBT1b1vNddO4FleFHbYEllmwS3j0z8/s1600-h/DSC01338.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4YDIWvqGayOWFXTv-H4kh6wRVmB13N2piioPiHwS_FMQ5BhOnPaRA5dSCU9_bwPt-Enh5GDEtLl8baJoe96WLe0diqmyq1n2vPw9VrGYXPGR3TuBT1b1vNddO4FleFHbYEllmwS3j0z8/s200/DSC01338.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179349841148531874" border="0" /></a>He was also wearing two layers on top, with a scarf, and towel taped to the moped helmet. We felt like we'd accomplished our goals of making sure that both throat and eyes were protected, so we stashed the rest of our stuff under a tree, and took off.<br /><br />It was really hot and steamy to wear the helmets with the face masks down, so on the walk back to where we thought the show was getting started, we carried our helmets underneath our arms. It was the most empowering thing either of us had ever done. Our excitement for this event had been building up for weeks (even longer for Ben, because he'd heard about it the previous year, where as I had only heard about it a few weeks earlier). We had gotten our hopes up on the way down, and the previous night, they were at first disappointed (to find out the real ho down wasn't until tonight) and then bolstered (because we got a preview of the awesomeness to come). Now we where here, the excitement was beginning to come to a peak, and we were <span style="font-style: italic;">fully, completely, 100%, WELL PREPARED</span>. Carrying our helmets underneath our arms not only highlighted this fact, but seemed to make the occasion that much more amazing. We both felt like we should be carrying swords at our waist's, as we walked into battle.<br /><br />As we neared the area where there had been the concert the night before, and where we assumed the events would kick off tonight, we found it empty. This was a little confusing, but we pressed on and quickly found what we were looking for, a huge field, overflowing with people, and a stage with someone talking. We found out from people outside the field, that this was indeed where the event was about to get kicked off, and that they were going to start as soon as the person finished talking.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe0q4bWZwamgUtQEfUyhA5hMF7M4bBlSjXTXImZRC_Iorxm7IsZ5Eo-qvxf-ZHYbzN4YCTVDcfXva_rt9MhTDFt_vKJ6-PWAxCoZV1hi7lHYy2ZpPTRZsoIstSiD9ZZKpQHaO6iznoGxk/s1600-h/DSC01339.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe0q4bWZwamgUtQEfUyhA5hMF7M4bBlSjXTXImZRC_Iorxm7IsZ5Eo-qvxf-ZHYbzN4YCTVDcfXva_rt9MhTDFt_vKJ6-PWAxCoZV1hi7lHYy2ZpPTRZsoIstSiD9ZZKpQHaO6iznoGxk/s200/DSC01339.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179351881257997490" border="0" /></a> We decided we had enough time, so we sprinted away (still carrying our helmets under our arms) to the nearest 7-11 for one more beer (only the kid sized one) before things got started. We ended up missing part of the opening fireworks, but they were magnificent enough that we could still appreciate them from outside the 7-11. As the were finishing, we ran back over to the field, only to find people streaming out of it. We asked one middle aged man where everyone was going, and he said he was going home. Interesting. We asked someone else what was going on with the festival (we had heard it went until 3-4 in the morning), and they said just to follow the flow of people, and we'd find it. A lot of people seemed to be heading into an alleyway, so we ran that way. We soon found out that all of those people were going to their cars, and going home, so we turned right, to swing back around. We passed a fire truck, with a few fire-fighters hanging around chatting, so we stopped to talk to them. They were very friendly and told us again, just to follow the stream of people, and that they didn't know exactly where the festival would be or when. So with vague ideas of following streams of people, we sprinted off again. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkagQ2I3fNU21FGkCTnjb9mMCraCogc7aEfCQ0NTuaj1onIXDMsAtrPBlEbnzcimUU2GoeCmWGcuhq5zvydpc4TTmuJAw69Z8kQUr7KOiDaF5AXVnIlZdwt5Kt6NqRSUm32iN6Man5JRw/s1600-h/IMG_0371.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkagQ2I3fNU21FGkCTnjb9mMCraCogc7aEfCQ0NTuaj1onIXDMsAtrPBlEbnzcimUU2GoeCmWGcuhq5zvydpc4TTmuJAw69Z8kQUr7KOiDaF5AXVnIlZdwt5Kt6NqRSUm32iN6Man5JRw/s200/IMG_0371.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179352293574857922" border="0" /></a>This time, however, we weren't disappointed and we found the right stream of people to follow. Pretty quickly we meet up with a group of college students, and start hanging out with them. The conversation is great, and we chat it up, as we slowly move along with the procession.<br /><br />OK, I think a breakdown of the main attraction is in order. The whole scheme of the festival is, basically to get shot at by fireworks. Everyone who is interested gets suited up, and makes a sort of parade out of it. Everyone who isn't interested stays the hell out of the way, so they don't get hit by stray fireworks. There are 4 or 5 carts, sort of rectangular cubes, maybe 7 feet tall, but only 3 feet by 3 feet square. They are on wheels, with one pole mounted on each side, making a handle in the front and back. Inside the rectangle is an alter, with a Buddha or some other sort of religious idol. Everyone follows these carts around, and every so often the carts stop. When the carts stop, another cart is rolled out from a store in the area. These don't have much in the way of handles, and are much larger. Still about 7 feet tall, but maybe 8 feet long by 3 or 4 feet wide. The sides of the cart are covered with red paper, upon which Chinese is written. The red paper is then torn off, and burned in a pile in the street, revealing racks of fireworks pointing into the crowd. At this point, the people tending the carts with idols in them, start to shake them, which is sort of creepy, and also makes an odd creaking noise. The shaking combined with the creaky noise take the amount of ambient intensity to the whole <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbLWTd8A7RnbuZqrccJsH763iDsYmrL21Vb-JYu8uZgrDeZ6_1nTKnsLEXdKZKOqNjFFdHHZIjS7vtuME_Q-ePhBX-c8m3Gz99Qx9o94b5f73DXwKjaGz9foi50abVQTeV3E0xJKJrnMQ/s1600-h/DSC01394.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbLWTd8A7RnbuZqrccJsH763iDsYmrL21Vb-JYu8uZgrDeZ6_1nTKnsLEXdKZKOqNjFFdHHZIjS7vtuME_Q-ePhBX-c8m3Gz99Qx9o94b5f73DXwKjaGz9foi50abVQTeV3E0xJKJrnMQ/s200/DSC01394.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179354346569225442" border="0" /></a>next level, which is really saying something because having racks of fireworks pointed into the crowd made things pretty intense already. Then everyone starts to push in, and sort of jump up and down, and move side to side. At this point, we become part of the group mentality, and jump and move ourselves. Vaguely moving in this way makes the whole thing seem less dangerous, and we sort of don't have a choice anyway because the crowd is so tight. At some points, I am unable to move, which makes things scary again, because I don't feel like I have any retreat. Then the fireworks start to go off. At first they go off the top of the cart, but then the sides start to go to, and the carts are shaking, and everyone is jumping around a little, and fireworks are screaming around in all different directions, and I bet if we'd looked up it would have been beautiful, but I think we had other things on our minds. Then the fireworks are over, and everyone gives thumbs up and high fives all around, and maybe even a hug or two. Then someone comes and takes the cart away and the procession moves on.<br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dz5K-DnvAV3Q2PfZkTBN0V2LGmz9_xYq9aDrlpzrbrzmE0i17hW_I4NsqweRdn1PDdcm5uSxEwnaZnoqmrDVQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br />We hang out with the college kids for a while, but then we get separated from them in the crowd, so we move on. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBImioJsINzF5tOUEpzUlG_sXSnm2T8XwgY1MsAbFUAW46lWH4xCa0WkCGNLJnBXfOCx-wtXaGXHzjPRg7jYsF75KU4cJgdNV9CQpZLmFkLh9ZsX7q8J0aXQ4ku1Bnll36mJ9Lq9eJTcY/s1600-h/DSC01362.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBImioJsINzF5tOUEpzUlG_sXSnm2T8XwgY1MsAbFUAW46lWH4xCa0WkCGNLJnBXfOCx-wtXaGXHzjPRg7jYsF75KU4cJgdNV9CQpZLmFkLh9ZsX7q8J0aXQ4ku1Bnll36mJ9Lq9eJTcY/s200/DSC01362.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179352924935050450" border="0" /></a>However, there is no shortage of people to talk to, and in the press of the crowd, there is always a fresh face. People just stare at us because we're tall and white, and because we're so close to them, and a little drunk, it is really easy to say "Hey, is this your first time coming to the festival?", and then we're off in conversation. I don't remember how many carts full of fireworks they rolled out to shoot into the crowd, but I'm pretty sure it was more than five. Ben, somehow, caught a firework to the leg (it left a mark, but no burn) and I got hit in the face mask once (which, interestingly enough, was sort of my goal or expectation for the evening). Aside from the carts and everyone doing there own thing (which was still going on, even with the parade), there were a couple of other types of fireworks. One was strings of fireworks that just exploded brightly, powerfully, and <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIpVtlXxmN5z-F5ilXpCRPVTXAsImMINM8qRwCX1Xi4gfYxNAZ0WqQS66tQXW5XpRHMDUr5wUDhI49irfxl8XxAKxlDMwqznU7tIOQhoOQxTC0YkhQK4t7BjrzIiaa0zQxzyHQ8oinP6A/s1600-h/DSC01404.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIpVtlXxmN5z-F5ilXpCRPVTXAsImMINM8qRwCX1Xi4gfYxNAZ0WqQS66tQXW5XpRHMDUr5wUDhI49irfxl8XxAKxlDMwqznU7tIOQhoOQxTC0YkhQK4t7BjrzIiaa0zQxzyHQ8oinP6A/s200/DSC01404.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179356365203854594" border="0" /></a>noisily, and upon which some people thought it was a good idea to dance (as they were exploding). Ben and I did abstain from this particular brand of tom-foolery. The other type was not dangerous at all (at least compared with dancing on top of exploding fireworks), and <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSnjniuIhjRz0yyi6RU3khCxMUjuXYEaJxXBme7TaTiLOxfEyNN7Ac1eccNMuuTf-aFTDp3wtzG1xahWmGT3Y2HoSzeepqzWsVTmhFeg2OSRMBZHzOU1fC4acXYqE38-c3lsyiLcTh_H0/s1600-h/DSC01412.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSnjniuIhjRz0yyi6RU3khCxMUjuXYEaJxXBme7TaTiLOxfEyNN7Ac1eccNMuuTf-aFTDp3wtzG1xahWmGT3Y2HoSzeepqzWsVTmhFeg2OSRMBZHzOU1fC4acXYqE38-c3lsyiLcTh_H0/s200/DSC01412.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179356678736467218" border="0" /></a>was actually very pretty. Long strings of sparkler like things were pulled up into the air, creating a beautiful waterfall of sparks.<br /><br />So, once we found the parade the evening consisted of, talking to people, getting shot at by fireworks, watching people dance on fireworks, actually enjoying the beauty of the fireworks, and drinking the occasional beer. Although the excitement for the festival had built up to an impressive high, the festival itself had <span style="font-style: italic;">fully, completely, 100%, LIVED UP TO ANY AND ALL EXPEC</span><span style="font-style: italic;">TATIONS.</span> Everything had gone entirely perfectly. There were many opportunities for Ben and I to turn the experience in to a crappy one, but our mentalities were so similar, that any difficulties we encountered we rolled with. We honed the 'go-with-the-flow' mentality to the point of being willing to sleep on marble benches in the middle of a roundabout. The bus driver made fun of us, and at first we were disgruntled, but later we opened ourselves up to ridicule, and tried to use it to open up conversation with strangers. The number and quality of conversations we did have with strangers, who, if we hadn't spoken Chinese, would have had no way to talk with us, and the incredibly rewarding feeling this gives. The sheer randomness of the majority of the things that happened (such as: the possibly drunk stranger who didn't kick us out of the temple, but seemed genuinely sorry for it having happened; the random security guard who almost forced us to drive his moped after we'd been drinking, and who wanted us to pick him up some special bowling ball the next time we where in the states; the random old couple who decided it would be a good idea to go sing some old Chinese opera style karaoke in the park; the cornfield in the middle of the city; or the random guy at the temple asking if I was Dutch, then upon finding I wasn't, leaving the area; or the wild pack of family dogs, <span style="font-style: italic;">see above photo</span>), but how everything still seemed to come together perfectly. The festival would have been amazing by itself, but all these things combined to make the experiences in either Ben's or my life. And it wasn't even over yet.<br /><br />Our bus left at 1:50, so as the time neared 1, we began to separate ourselves from the parade. Things were starting to wind down anyways, and we ran into some Australian girls on the outskirts of the danger zone, so we stopped and talked to them for a while. We'd taken our helmets off, <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPZEPRuOGc-SOZ1ik7MMw1oDkhtdgbY2_hNEX9Xppgm5NVxGT5eeFjsZSQRsH5xoWSnTGltABpUNMp-oMLgZ-V5KJWJ5iirKBtvqaOZqtNwOUrAvdEvAtP6q5atLT2SBpqYENiVj7PQCo/s1600-h/IMG_0390.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPZEPRuOGc-SOZ1ik7MMw1oDkhtdgbY2_hNEX9Xppgm5NVxGT5eeFjsZSQRsH5xoWSnTGltABpUNMp-oMLgZ-V5KJWJ5iirKBtvqaOZqtNwOUrAvdEvAtP6q5atLT2SBpqYENiVj7PQCo/s200/IMG_0390.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179354690166609138" border="0" /></a>but this turned out not to be the best decision because, in some ways, the outskirts were more dangerous. The stray fireworks were a little more crazy, and there were still some people doing the crazy firework dance. We realized time was getting short, so we ran off in the direction of the bus stop. Somehow we had gotten on the wrong side of the procession, and we had to press back through the crowd to get where we needed to go. The carts were starting to shake again, so we knew things were about to get serious. We donned our helmets as quickly as possible, and pushed through the edge of the crowd. Once to the other side, we took our helmets off, and started to jog. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqZO2OIzFmrzPI5lkOUfDmUmjgNPi3VTjzqgw0xkMKwUyivTGdLoCIFHIetvRh96Tm5rCqPxD4RIuF57hXZ6rGDNsuP6dVwhCzumpoELmZwidNUd3PQmJHCjD2kPm40PxHgSG7x77yp5A/s1600-h/IMG_0401.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqZO2OIzFmrzPI5lkOUfDmUmjgNPi3VTjzqgw0xkMKwUyivTGdLoCIFHIetvRh96Tm5rCqPxD4RIuF57hXZ6rGDNsuP6dVwhCzumpoELmZwidNUd3PQmJHCjD2kPm40PxHgSG7x77yp5A/s200/IMG_0401.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179357765363193122" border="0" /></a>The Australian girls had pressed some betel nut on us, so as we ran, we spat out huge globs of red spit, and tried not to choke on what we didn't spit out, while we panted for breath. It was still a nice run though (we were carrying our helmets under our arms again), and we grinned at each other as we jogged along. We contemplated, only very briefly, jogging all the way to the bus station, but it was already 1:30, so we got a cab. We told the driver the name of the bus company the woman at the tourist info place had given us, and he drove off. When he stopped the car, we found out that we were at the wrong place, though we were very close to the station we'd bought our tickets from. We told the driver to pull over to the other place, but at the same time, we realized that the place we'd just stopped was where we had made phone reservations. Apparently, we'd been dropped off at the wrong place earlier, but since we didn't pay for the reservation, it didn't seem to matter. At the correct bus stop, we shed our layers, and had a victory beer.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpBFI1LFD7Yq-g-xLNx2p0Q86Uq9fFK4sLsGlYiK_br-wlHT41R5tqxljRdhejOdzLt4rkH-IlmNyh0IhuM1IqJqvIU1QloVT6kPoc4dgIMB1YrbHQYdSNrBq18gPkY9SO9GH-SDXj7LY/s1600-h/IMG_0402.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpBFI1LFD7Yq-g-xLNx2p0Q86Uq9fFK4sLsGlYiK_br-wlHT41R5tqxljRdhejOdzLt4rkH-IlmNyh0IhuM1IqJqvIU1QloVT6kPoc4dgIMB1YrbHQYdSNrBq18gPkY9SO9GH-SDXj7LY/s200/IMG_0402.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179358169090118962" border="0" /></a> Our bus came, and we got on it, but there weren't two empty seats, so Ben had to sit in the front of the bus (where he chatted it up with the driver), and I sat in the back. I was staring around, dazed and tired, and realized that we weren't supposed to have beer on the bus. Oh well. The bus was moving now, and no one had told us, either because no one really cares, or because we're white foreigners. On the ride back they played 2 movies on the bus, "The Constant Gardener" about aid work in Africa, and some Lindsay Lohan move. Both seemed very out of place. I made a mental note to add them to the list of random things that had happened. About half way back the bus made a stop, and Ben came back and sat next to me. We had a little pep talk, then the bus started moving again, and he went back to the front.<br /><br />At about 5:30, we got into Taipei. We were worried about the subway not being open because it was so early, but by the time we made it there it was 6, and the trains were running. We had a little touching parting company moment as we each went to our separate train lines.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihZZ0VYTPEN24SVYUJfc_OWHNkyNPy7_fnPfgpjH7CtCeNtJ80KsImHEnTnbSTinxfX0PyJtbAOMXi3vz_TalOOn2VCroSEJWhijBBVhAO4JdX7cwT1FO6lBdcYBqAWcQDWB2pfRFAURw/s1600-h/IMG_0405.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihZZ0VYTPEN24SVYUJfc_OWHNkyNPy7_fnPfgpjH7CtCeNtJ80KsImHEnTnbSTinxfX0PyJtbAOMXi3vz_TalOOn2VCroSEJWhijBBVhAO4JdX7cwT1FO6lBdcYBqAWcQDWB2pfRFAURw/s200/IMG_0405.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179358701666063682" border="0" /></a> As I ate breakfast, I watched the morning news, and saw reports on the festival. Apparently only 18 people had been injured. They had some random coverage of mostly nude people (just wearing helmets and bathing suits) standing on carts getting dragged around and shot at by fireworks. I wondered where it had taken place. They even had a couple token interviews with white people, one heavyset guy with inch thick foam padding taped all over his body, and another random guy. After breakfast I rode my bike to school. It was the same that it always is, just a regular ride. I wondered if any of the festival had even happened. It all seemed so different with the two familiar cross-walks and the short on campus bike ride to get to school. The sun was shining and during my first class, I stared out the window, and thought about calling Ben in the afternoon, to see if he didn't want to grab his moped helmet, and find a park in the city to nap in. Or better yet, find another festival somewhere in Taiwan, grab our moped helmets and a little money and head there. We could sleep later. Ben and I had talked about this some, and I fantasized about it in class. A whole new style of traveling. Just money, the clothes on your body, a moped helmet, and an open mind. Maybe a towel too. Then you just go, and everything else would sort itself out. I haven't yet had a chance to implement this new strategy, but I do know that the results the first time were unbelievable.<br /><br />I feel like we really lived.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-69110660314550327152008-02-22T00:27:00.000-08:002008-03-07T17:55:55.663-08:00THE CRAZY TRAIN. Part I<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPQ8tIKC3F44enFMw7r8-DXQLZPUFzXr7BR_U00az4l2XrQzTyBCQ5x8epr1gktck2GwegcurE5CMKsGGnBI6rIDg58yc8Qb06SnKoID82NF5h05f_N0ois3KaKPMLB2cASuDfFLfNbHs/s1600-h/IMG_0293.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPQ8tIKC3F44enFMw7r8-DXQLZPUFzXr7BR_U00az4l2XrQzTyBCQ5x8epr1gktck2GwegcurE5CMKsGGnBI6rIDg58yc8Qb06SnKoID82NF5h05f_N0ois3KaKPMLB2cASuDfFLfNbHs/s200/IMG_0293.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174256206324037602" border="0" /></a>I met Ben at the train station at 1:45 on Wednesday. We got the important stuff taken care of first, and Ben gave me my new full-face moped helmet. I strapped mine onto one of the straps of my backpack, under one of my arms, while Ben just carried his. Why were we at the train station in the early afternoon with full-face moped helmets? Fortunately not to go riding mopeds. There is a festival in southern Taiwan called "YanShui Beehive of Fireworks". Ben heard about it last year (one of my teachers had also brought it up in class once), and apparently its just a huge fireworks festival, except not all of the time the fireworks are pointed upwards. We'd found websites with clear pictures of how much protective gear was necessary, and a full face helmet seemed like a must, along with at least two jackets, and probably some gloves for good measure. Most of the other pictures of the event were crappy and unclear, but showed people dancing crazily, backlit by fireworks. We had also read, in the guidebook on Taiwan, that about 100,000 people showed up last year, and they also set off the longest string of fireworks in the world (something like 6-8 kilometers long, and it took 40 minutes to go off, or something absurd like that, I forget exactly). So we had our hopes pretty high for the festival, and I want to say up front, the were not disappointed. This was one of the most incredible experiences of my whole life, and while the fireworks were only a part of it, they provided a build up and the reason to do everything else we did.<br /><br />With that many people going to the festival we were worried about all the public transportation being taken already, so we had bought train tickets the day before. On the ride down we napped a little (I was already tired from my classes, which are getting really intense), and I did a little homework (in my original plan, I would leave after class on Wednesday, and get back before class on Thursday, and aside from being tired, I would be well prepared and in class). As we got closer to our stop we began to be a little worried about the lack of people. We had found one website that said the dates for the festival were "20th-21st", so were were pretty sure it was tonight, but the train had empty seats. If 100,000 people were coming to a festival starting in a couple of hours, we expected that not only would all of the seats be taken, but that there would be no standing room. We hoped that a bunch of people would get off at our stop, to give us a little confidence about being in the right spot, but we the time came, we got off with not more than 20 other people. One of my teachers said she'd heard there was a free bus shuttle service so we asked about the ticket taker about this. He laughed at us and told us to go with the taxi drivers, who were in the background making gestures and noises that clearly indicated 'Fireworks Festival'. I'm not that big of a fan of taxi drivers, and so I asked where the bus station was. There was a round-about right outside the station with a monument in the middle (remember the monument, it'll be important later) and right on the other side of the round-about we found the bus station. From the woman at the ticket counter we found out conclusively that indeed, part of the festival was today, but the bigger part was tomorrow. I had mis-interpreted the calender. I thought it meant that the festival started on the night of the 20th, and went until the early hours of the 21st, <span style="font-style: italic;">but really</span> it indicated that the festival was on 2 days. We were now presented with a decision. Whether or not to stay until tomorrow. While we were thinking we got tickets to Yanshui, where the festival would actually take place, and sat down to wait. We were chatting a little, and wondering (as usual) how we would know which bus was ours. So, I didn't notice immediately when a woman snuck up behind me to look at my ticket. I was a little creeped out (she never really said anything) but apparently she had taken pity on us, and was just looking to see where we were going, so she could tell us which bus would be ours. Even if the woman went about it differently that I would have expected, that was one problem solved. After a couple minutes a bus pulled up and the woman (who had stepped away to wait by the gate) began waving excitedly, so we walked over and boarded the bus. There were only about 10 other people on the bus, which, again, made it seem like tonight's celebrations were going to be a lot less packed that we had expected. While the bus ride was short, it built up further anxiety about the size of the festival we were going to. The bus was riding through small towns for the most part, but there were no people out at all. Even as we got closer, all of the streets remained disappointingly empty.In the afternoon the idea had occurred to me 'What if the need for moped helmets is all a big ruse?' Taiwanese are really big into the group mentality, and I started to wonder if we weren't encountering a situation where one person wore a helmet once, and even though they weren't really necessary, everyone started to wear one, and it would never occur to anyone that they might not actually need to wear a helmet, which would be pretty disappointing.<br /><br />We had hoped that if we just got ourselves to the town, everything else would sort itself out, and I guess in the end it did. We were only at a loss for what do for a shot period, because the woman had taken a Taiwanese couple under her wing, and was leading them away talking about the fireworks festival, so we just decided to keep following her. After a while we got to somewhere with a stage and a bunch of stalls that was looked distinctly more like a festival, the Taiwanese couple broke off from her, and Ben and I moved in to try to figure out what was going on. In short: the big crazy event where fireworks get shot at you wasn't until Thursday night, and there were no hotels in the area (this seemed unlikely, and I've since come to find out that I might have asked for the wrong type of hotel, for example, there might have been motels, but no hotels), but there was a temple we could try sleeping in. Also, from teaching English last year, Ben knew that any English teachers can sleep at any public school in Taiwan, so if it came down to it, we could say we were English teachers and sleep at an elementary school. We felt like we ought to decide pretty soon if we should stay for the real deal the next night. Ben didn't really have anything to do the next day, and I felt like I would never have an opportunity even remotely similar to this one again in my entire life, so skipping school for one day didn't seem like a high cost to pay. So we decided to stay and do what we had come to do, get shot at by crazy fireworks.<br /><br />After deciding we were going to stay our only goal was to find a place to sleep, so we headed off to find an elementary school. The nice woman had given us directions, and following those, we headed off through the night market. On the way we had an opportunity to try new foods, and I got something which most strongly resembled fried coleslaw. They shaped it into big rectangles on the griddle, then put corn and spices on top of it to serve it, and overall it was actually pretty good. We finally made it to the elementary school, so we looked around for someone to ask if we could sleep there, and if we could stash our stuff there (aside from our helmets, Ben only had his helmet and an extra jacket, but I had some food and a textbook too.) We didn't find anyone to ask, so we headed back to the main area. There was a stage set up for the event, and a band playing when we got back, so we went over to listen. Most music in Taiwan is a unique sort of pop, which I'm not a big fan of, but this band was actually playing legitimate music (and it was an all girl band), so we mov<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW_LnWXmm8Jl5sONA7cX5ZN7U1N0wJMPUHYFS4CuaFI6gNFDBOZVh2WCwUMIbttHZaz25xbIlIllaqwLYMwFvK6gErMIGZ4r-karN-YrjXW1-Y0W4JJ1nqDQdm3E-8S6B5pYNX5yFur_g/s1600-h/IMG_0296.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW_LnWXmm8Jl5sONA7cX5ZN7U1N0wJMPUHYFS4CuaFI6gNFDBOZVh2WCwUMIbttHZaz25xbIlIllaqwLYMwFvK6gErMIGZ4r-karN-YrjXW1-Y0W4JJ1nqDQdm3E-8S6B5pYNX5yFur_g/s200/IMG_0296.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174255390280251346" border="0" /></a>ed closer to the stage. Almost everything about the concert from the stage back, seemed pretty American. The band had American style, movement, volume, and they played at least one American song. But everything in front of the stage was distinctly Taiwanese. 1st of all, there was a 10-15 foot gap between the stage and the audience, the group in front of the audience looked like they had been brought out of the retirement home to enjoy some activities other than bingo, and mostly everyone else just looked sullen and bored. Ben and I were standing near the front, but off to the side, out of the way of the old people. A separate announcer came up between bands, and immediately announced that there were 2 foreigners standing off to the left. Then he pointed at us. I was taken a little aback, but Ben threw his hand into the air, and rolled with it. Everyone applauded for us and, interestingly enough, we got generated more excitement and applause than the band had. The announcer then asked us (in broken English) where we were from, and I was about to answer in Chinese, but Ben was on the ball again, and happily returned (in good English) that we were Americans. At this point, the announcer translated what had happened into Chinese and Taiwanese. The announcer asked us a couple more questions, but then the next band came on, and we became a regular part of the crowd again. As the band came down off stage, we decided to go talk to them, but things got off to a bad start when Ben asked if they could speak Chinese and instead of an emphatic 'Yes', the girl he'd asked only responded with 'A little'. I had heard that people preferred to speak Taiwanese in southern Taiwan (beca<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKgLWYbY7CPJGumNd5IGCj6NmDVz56jb8TTbkcdbPnMbP9SFpUwsLeBL0u7f4V5RZpRv9a7NIhG6lXpklLrvREC1mtVYvZrzepCauXytHVrgUo8q3ayw10admbOGmqy20UMzaqEXj-jLs/s1600-h/DSC01213.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKgLWYbY7CPJGumNd5IGCj6NmDVz56jb8TTbkcdbPnMbP9SFpUwsLeBL0u7f4V5RZpRv9a7NIhG6lXpklLrvREC1mtVYvZrzepCauXytHVrgUo8q3ayw10admbOGmqy20UMzaqEXj-jLs/s200/DSC01213.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174531664051566658" border="0" /></a>use there is more anti-China sentiment, and they want to be more independent and different), but we would come to find out this isn't entirely true. We talked to the band for a little while, but never managed to get away from the awkward start. The temple we were hoping to be able to sleep in was only a few feet away, so right before we parted company, we told the girls we were thinking about sleeping in the temple, and asked what they thought. This was the first time in the evening when we told strange Taiwanese people about our lack of a good place to sleep, and then hoped they would invited us back to their house to sleep, or somehow arrange something more comfortable than the cold ground at an elementary school. Every time our hopes skyrocketed, and almost every time they crashed back to Earth. So, the girl band set the trend for the evening by nicely sidestepping the issue, and Ben and I were left to go check out the temple to see if we really could sleep there.<br /><br />The whole thing turned out to be a lot less like a temple than I had imagined. The nice woman had told us we might be able to find a place to sleep on the second floor, so we went straight up there first. I had expected a large empty room with an alter at one end, some carpets on the floor, ornately decorated pillars, incense, and a flat piece of marble where we could sleep. What we actually found was a hallway with closed doorways on either side, just like you would expect at any regular hotel (except that the floor was marble, and the outside looked what a temple should look like). We walked to the end of the hallway, and ran into a sign pointing towards (as far as I could tell) county cultural records. So we went downstairs to find someone who might be able to help us get this sorted out. Downstairs we found a large history exhibit, and after a moment, we found a security guard. We told him our problem and, after pondering for a moment, he just left. We were a little confused, and we felt a little abandoned, but we sat down to wait for someone else to come. About 5 seconds later the security guard came back in. Apparently we were supposed to follow him. This time we followed him <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmsWXyFhnqiCsyZqc-pVA7hyphenhyphenWMdZ9rHpAIRcalPw4JYNKlmaRZCO_0_2MttB0w8p-5fiXw1GhdPoJYi0VKyGCq1OyvjCdjuvtX_7392u3-7FemGkrfzXt1BYdFgxR9B3sKOhxxu8O4iqE/s1600-h/IMG_0339.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmsWXyFhnqiCsyZqc-pVA7hyphenhyphenWMdZ9rHpAIRcalPw4JYNKlmaRZCO_0_2MttB0w8p-5fiXw1GhdPoJYi0VKyGCq1OyvjCdjuvtX_7392u3-7FemGkrfzXt1BYdFgxR9B3sKOhxxu8O4iqE/s200/IMG_0339.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174260733219567666" border="0" /></a>out, where he pushed us off onto someone else, who quickly gestured us over to another, older, set of people and pushed us off onto them. It didn't take us long to figure out that there were no rooms in the temple, but the told us that, indeed there was a hotel down the road a little way, so we decided to go check it out. Although the town we were in was a lot smaller than Taipei, it was still obviously a town, and I wouldn't have even called it rural. So I was surprised when we passed a cornfield on the way out to the hotel. It seemed really out of place.<br /><br />It turned out to be a hotsprings hotel, and it would have been about 30USD a night for each of us. As soon as we found out how much it was, there was never any option of staying there, and we talked about it later, and we don't really even know why we asked. It would have had to be a pretty cheap hotel room to be able to compete with a free piece of ground at the elementary school.<br /><br />After we got back to the main plaza, we went and picked up a schedule to try to figure out what fireworks were happening, and when. While I was reading the schedule, Ben got ogled by some high-school kids, and beckoned them over. We asked them what was happening and when but they had no more idea than we did. We also broached the problem of not having anywhere to sleep and we came to find out that there was a college somewhere around, and we might be able to find a place to sleep there. We broke off from the kids, and started walking through the night market, towards the college. On the way some a little girl offered us a free sample of some orange juice. We drank it and it was delicious, and afterward we went to hand the little paper cups back to the little girl. She just stared at us, so I asked her what we should do with the cups. She said "Just throw them on the ground, then it'll be alright." I looked at Ben and he looked at me. Then we both threw our cups on the ground, and I'll be damned if it wasn't one of the easiest things I've ever done. No wonder people litter.<br /><br />After going a little farther we stopped off to pick up a beer, and ask for directions. Apparently the college was only about 20 feet from the 7-11 we bought booze from. We walked on and quickly found the front gate of the college. We approached the security booth, trying to hold our beers as discretely as possible, to ask if they had a place we could sleep for the night. Things got a little crazy right away because as the security guard saw us, he immediately stood up and saluted (which might have been more reasonable from someone in the military, but this guy clearly wasn't). The security guard was short, with short black hair, and a easily noticeable paunch. He was also chewing betel nut, which holds chewing tobaccoe's place in Taiwanese society. Betel nut looks like a peeled acorn might. They're small, white skinned, and they usually come wrapped in a small leaf. You bite off one end, then just chew on the other end. It gives you a tiny little buzz, and (in my opinion) tastes a little like meat. It also turns your entire mouth, all your visible teeth, and your spit ... a pretty bright color red (and if you keep your eyes open you can see big red spit spots all over the streets).<br /><br />We were beginning to notice that betel nut is a lot more common in southern Taiwan and especially in rural areas. This security guard confirmed the stereotype and had a mouth full of red stained teeth. After saluting us, the guard walked over to the window and we started to talk. Things got carried away pretty quickly. The guard right away asked if we'd come back to study (they're in between semester break was about over), and something else I didn't understand. I started to explain what we were doing, but then the guard started rolling with his own train of thoughts. He asked us when the last time we'd been back to the states was and when we'd be going again. Then he started telling us about bowling. Apparently he's pretty good at it, and had been to the states to compete, but he didn't do well because in America they spin the ball, so the path from hand to pins is curved (or something like that, I also thought he might have said that American lanes are slanted), so he didn't do as well. Then he got to the real point of his story. Apparently he was in love with a certain bowling ball that you could only get in the states (now you see why he was so intent to know our America related travel plans). We were never able to get out of him if it was one particular ball, or a whole series of balls, but apperently they (or it) were 40 years old, and incredibly important to this guy. We were trying to be friendly but this was getting a little out of hand, so we drew the conversation back to whether or not we could sleep in a building somewhere on campus.<br /><br />As soon as he found out we were there to watch the fireworks, and not to study he immediately tried to loan us his scooter. Just for a quick recap here, we are 2 strangers, not even students at this University, both drinking beer, and not even asking for a scooter. So we follow him as he rushes out of the security booth and over to his scooter, which he proceeds to start. It is a kick start, and after stomping on the lever the first time (without getting it to start) he looks up to tell us that it's easy to start and only takes one kick. After the fourth or fifth kick he gets it started. We realize that this is a bad idea, and again emphasize that all we want is a place to sleep, so the guard rushes back to his booth. In the interim a stranger (I assume his friend) has taken a spot in the guard house. He's definitely not a security guard and actually looks like he's done a lot of drugs in the last 20 minutes. He is also chewing betel nut. As we come in the guard kick this guy out of his seat, and points to 2 chairs we could sleep in. We politely demur, saying they are too small, and so he heads back outside. We follow dubiously as he goes over to a van and lays down the seats for us to sleep in. The van is parked right beside a building, so we ask if there is somewhere in there we can sleep. Apparently there is some sort of pack of wild dogs that roams around inside the building, and it wouldn't be safe for us to sleep there.<br /><br />Creepiness alarm bells go off all over the inside of my head, and we start to extricate ourselves from the situation. I tell him, this looks OK, but that we still want to see some fireworks so we don't want to sleep now. We figure out what time he gets off work too, to give the story some more semblance of truth and reality. Then we take off (on foot, with no moped). We thought we might be able to get to the fireworks (we could see them going off in the distance) by going through campus, but the guard told us it wasn't' so, and we had to keep heading down the road. So, following his advice, we headed on down the road. We weren't really near very many buildings now, but there were still a fair amount of traffic on the road. After a few minutes we came to another road and took it right, towards the fireworks. After a couple more minutes we finally made it somewhere, though it did seem a little dubious. Basically it was a sketchy couple groups of loitering guys chewing betel nut and looking surly, but we figured we're a lot bigger than they are, and we were drinking (which I feel gave us good street cred.)<br /><br />As a side note here, one of the beautiful things about Taiwanese fireworks is that everyone does there own thing, usually in addition to publicly funded displays. While we were walking in the streets this sometimes made things more intense because fireworks could be getting shot off from all around you, but right now it was just nice because there were two separate areas of the sky that were regularly filled with beautiful fireworks. We chose one group and headed that way, finally making it to another temple, and a little rural town square. There were a lot of people loitering, but here there seemed to be more of a family crowd, or at least the sketchier looking people <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqYSVXLMqWeJqHl2xYoxVoJSKB907BGRIJUT6ekEJU0bcqDrE1fYjlCEY_doWeVY20RrFra-AIvgMKk8hlTudPi12qs5U7Tx_MWE_BcbHM8wenh4dLoY7Z_chiJiUWvKYzvZeZUuL6qwg/s1600-h/IMG_0303.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqYSVXLMqWeJqHl2xYoxVoJSKB907BGRIJUT6ekEJU0bcqDrE1fYjlCEY_doWeVY20RrFra-AIvgMKk8hlTudPi12qs5U7Tx_MWE_BcbHM8wenh4dLoY7Z_chiJiUWvKYzvZeZUuL6qwg/s200/IMG_0303.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174256751784884210" border="0" /></a>were just teenagers, so we decided to hang out here for a while. After a while Ben noticed that, where as before we had been surrounded by people in normal street dress, now the only people in our vicinity were wearing thick clothes and helmets. We hurriedly put on our helmets, and just in time too because fireworks started going off right beside us. We weren't prepared, but I turned my back and wrapped my arms around my neck to try to shield the important parts. Fortunately, it didn't last very long, and there were a lot of better prepared people shielding us from most of the intensity.<br /><br />After hanging out there for a while we got approached by a 20 something Taiwanese girl, dressed up in full protective gear, and asked if we wanted to chat a little. Ben and I didn't hesitate before whole-heartedly agreeing. We both thought she just wanted to talk to us, but we were soon mistaken as she beckoned on the camera crew. I had see a guy walking around earlier with a firework-proof camera, but now he was accompanied by: a guy with a light, a interviewer, and some sort of all around guy who wrote down our names at the end of the interview. The guy talking didn't have any super specific questions so we just chatted a little bit. I asked where he was from, and when he said 'Japan' I jumped at the opportunity to ask someone, who, for all I can tell is a native speaker, how his Chinese got so good (apparently he also lived or lives in Taiwan). He didn't think it was quite as funny as I did, but we kept on chatting. They were with a news channel in Taipei, but I didn't ask which one. After a little bit the girl who had first talked to us gave the interviewer a couple of other questions to ask, but the interview was still pretty short overall.<br /><br />We decided<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8YP7M_c7-CUguooGafbS5uOH6XqDlIWuWjDf2fTtSJyXV2bXdoejiL6kX7cfVCtRyoyKPpFQCNMezz9BUnMBkJ5a6e7Li20rIlHtDHEh-P7YQk1PhA6FKuSxl0sD8y7PFaVxWkcGP9PE/s1600-h/DSC01256.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8YP7M_c7-CUguooGafbS5uOH6XqDlIWuWjDf2fTtSJyXV2bXdoejiL6kX7cfVCtRyoyKPpFQCNMezz9BUnMBkJ5a6e7Li20rIlHtDHEh-P7YQk1PhA6FKuSxl0sD8y7PFaVxWkcGP9PE/s200/DSC01256.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175170945343705986" border="0" /></a> to go check out the temple and see if we couldn't sleep in this one, or they might be able to recommend somewhere for us to sleep. There was a large string of fireworks laid out on the patio in front of the temple, and we stopped to ask a guy standing there what time they were going to be set off. Our communications problems became apparent right away when he told us they hadn't been set off yet. We tried again, but the conversation only went downhill from there, though we finally did figure out that the fireworks were going to be set off shortly. There were a few people sitting in the temple looking out at the fireworks so we grabbed a couple chairs and joined them. After a moment one of the women started talking to us, and it soon became apparent that we were looking for a place to sleep. We talked a little more, and told here really all we needed was a place to lay down. She told us we could lay down there. Major Score. We chatted with her for a little while longer, then stashed out stuff there, and went back out to enjoy the fireworks.<br /><br />Pretty soon a truck pulled up, and we chatted with the driver for a while. Each side of the back of the truck had <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFevCypKJAm_jzF2fAo5XopCLdQBJ_uOib3D9kRxaN4Cq3TWAcSkmq-lRgpWpbvP_H0oYHVKh9JcxIlbzMlFzYMZamKNiVm61mQXD4yfS3v3TJ7QkIVQu2peLk1KYVw3NwenOsuO_6xXQ/s1600-h/DSC01265.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFevCypKJAm_jzF2fAo5XopCLdQBJ_uOib3D9kRxaN4Cq3TWAcSkmq-lRgpWpbvP_H0oYHVKh9JcxIlbzMlFzYMZamKNiVm61mQXD4yfS3v3TJ7QkIVQu2peLk1KYVw3NwenOsuO_6xXQ/s200/DSC01265.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175171349070631826" border="0" /></a>a large board attached to it that looked like it had previously been used for advertising, but now it was old and worn. There was also a ladder in the back that you could use to get on top of the bus, and there was someone up there but I don't know what they were doing.<br />Anyway, for whatever reason, the guy parked the truck there for a while and so we chit-chatted. While we were chatting they set off another one of the 'beehives of fireworks' and it definitely increased excitement for the next night. It looked like a solid sheet of sparks (from the fireworks flying into the crowd) were coming off of the cart. Just after that we talked with a couple random people who were participating in tonight's beehive of fireworks, and one guy showed us where a hole had been burned in in the finger of his gloves. Although the gloves weren't that thick, seeing that only further increased anticipation of the next night.<br /><br />We kept <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3DNMjNp40RlaYkL1BozjehJ6H7x0PlYA16s-nrtuh-Tkg2IHegM99WGMRfx142GdtSnl9ZMww7iMtseEdLNWAvuOUpurKJIT8m0G5Ac5qGgJGG2LBJl-wAqJgsTM8c6dFJppWgjpiOoE/s1600-h/DSC01264.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3DNMjNp40RlaYkL1BozjehJ6H7x0PlYA16s-nrtuh-Tkg2IHegM99WGMRfx142GdtSnl9ZMww7iMtseEdLNWAvuOUpurKJIT8m0G5Ac5qGgJGG2LBJl-wAqJgsTM8c6dFJppWgjpiOoE/s200/DSC01264.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175173792907023266" border="0" /></a>chatting it up with people and watching fireworks (although somehow we missed the really long one that was laid out in front of the temple) until about 1:30, when we decided we ought to further finalize our floor space in the temple. I went back in, in search of the woman who'd previously authorized us, but she was no where to be found. One of the same guys from earlier was sitting in the temple, so I thought he might work there, and asked him if we could sleep there. He, indeed, was just enjoying the fireworks like everyone else, but he did say that the woman in charge was around somewhere so I kept hanging out, awaiting her return. While I was waiting a Taiwanese man came up and asked if I was Dutch. I understood him the first time, but the question was so unexpected that I had to ask him to say it again. Sure enough, he wanted to know if I was Dutch and, after I told him I was American, he seemed satisfied and left. The woman <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-hxeUV4kogyF7AfpKmhEQ9HFksiOtDrZzatSnxF92LNWHiYt5QxGtA5lNcAVC1hjgiadK7n8lX44P_ErxUg4Ph8jCbqp_8RMjHLFYbrnRC_drOZ4cN6hvI3eVUFLKVL8rV_MwKFJ6ZoE/s1600-h/IMG_0319.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-hxeUV4kogyF7AfpKmhEQ9HFksiOtDrZzatSnxF92LNWHiYt5QxGtA5lNcAVC1hjgiadK7n8lX44P_ErxUg4Ph8jCbqp_8RMjHLFYbrnRC_drOZ4cN6hvI3eVUFLKVL8rV_MwKFJ6ZoE/s200/IMG_0319.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174258929333303314" border="0" /></a>never did show up again, and by this time, Ben and I were starting to get a little tired, and ready for bed. So, we started to get ready. Earlier we had devised an incredible, ingenious strategy for making our sleeping circumstances more comfortable. Wear our moped helmets to sleep. Not only would they provide further insulation, but they would serve as a sort of built in pillow. Whichever direction we turned our head, it would still be propped up by the moped helmet. So, because we were sleeping in our clothes, and hadn't brought tooth brushing materials, all we really had to do to get ready for sleep was put on our helmets.<br /><br />We sitting around, wearing our moped helmets, and decided to try to talk to the last guy in the temple, to see how OK it was for us to sleep there, but we ran into problems right away. His Taiwanese was a lot better than his Chinese, and though he could understand what we were saying, and make coherent sentences of his own, he had a hard time doing it. He asked us a few times if we spoke Taiwanese, but I guess he finally believed our assurances that we couldn't. We did manage to make clear to him that we wanted to sleep there, and he continually assured us that we could. He was telling us it was no problem, right until the moment we got kicked out. The guy we had had communications problems with earlier (we asked him when the fireworks were going to go off, and he told us they hadn't yet) came in and told us we had to leave. We told him that we had been assured earlier in the evening that we could stay there, but he just kept repeating that they were closing, and so we had to leave. We argued a little bit, but it didn't seem like we really had any ground to stand on, so we got our stuff and left. The other guy followed us out, and seemed genuinely helpful and sorry that we had to leave. We walked out into the street, and found that the street crews were already at work cleaning up the leftover from the fireworks. It was pretty much a crew of somewhat old women with brooms, who swept all the paper rubbish into one pile and then let it on fire. Because it was made from fireworks leftovers, it became a sort of exploding bonfire as the fireworks that hadn't gone off earlier went off in the fire.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgogsJ769lsL-n50gUb4cvuzOaascKu-cq2gf9Fhq9sZIzNytTNO821ogKNJ0lOQyTbXNL6to6EKvmqnId7WY-APyAnCtGStK1h-m4MFcJna5n8OCv3a0vz4xln4TQhqb5VM5s1qwwSvE8/s1600-h/IMG_0325.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgogsJ769lsL-n50gUb4cvuzOaascKu-cq2gf9Fhq9sZIzNytTNO821ogKNJ0lOQyTbXNL6to6EKvmqnId7WY-APyAnCtGStK1h-m4MFcJna5n8OCv3a0vz4xln4TQhqb5VM5s1qwwSvE8/s200/IMG_0325.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174259294405523490" border="0" /></a> I was a little cold and went to warm myself by the bonfire, but the nice stranger pulled me away, and went back to trying to think somewhere for us to sleep or a way for us to sleep in the temple, or something. He had seemed in complete control of his faculties when we were sitting in the temple talking, but now he seemed really drunk. He just kept saying "Hold on, let me think", and stumbling around. We were hoping to get invited back to his house, so we could have a warm piece of floor to sleep on, but after a while he just kept stumbling so we thanked him for his help and took off.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-39826628278666841452008-02-13T05:02:00.000-08:002008-02-16T22:15:25.773-08:00My New Year's CelebrationWe got ten days off for New Years, and I had had grand plans of going backpacking, or at least leaving Taipei, but in the end I didn't do much exciting. The weather has been pretty crappy for a while (basically almost always cold rain), but I'd heard that the southern part of Taiwan has much nicer weather. I planned on going down there, and even found a hotspring on the east coast of the island that I'd have to hike in to (I hoped this would reduce the number of people I encountered) and if it turned out that there were too many people, then there were other hotsprings in the area that didn't have official trails to them, but which probably had 'paths' and I thought they might be less crowded. All of this turned out not to matter because I kept an was keeping an eye on the weather and saw that rain was forecast for the area of the hotspring. I thought about it and decided that I could go and if it did rain, the hotsprings would always be there, but in the end I decided I could hang out in hotsprings all day, and I wouldn't die, but it would probably get old after a while, and I probably wouldn't be that comfortable. So I scrapped the whole idea.<br /><br /> Some highlights from the weekend and the first part of the week are:<br />1. Actually went out to bars for first time this year, and got to know some classmates other than Luke.<br />2. Found a bar that sells Irish Car Bombs for a decent price, then spent the next day terribly hung over (actually I only had one car bomb, but it was a highlight of the night).<br /><br />Jerry invited me to spend New Year's Eve (Wednesday) with his family, and naturally I took him up on it. In the morning I went to get eggs because I knew the woman I buy my eggs from was about to close up for a few days. The first time I ever bought eggs from her, she burst out laughing when I spoke Chinese, but that must have just been a weak moment because I think she's actually really nice. A stranger came up to me the other day while I was buying eggs (to talk to me because I'm American) and chatted at me for a long time (apparently he was 70 and his head had been opened twice and he was a soilder and construction worker when he was younger but now teaches some thing to do with the oceans, or something like that) and after he left the woman I buy my eggs from asked me if I knew him, so I launched into the whole story, and we chatted for a while. She asked if I had been back to the states since I'd been here and, when I said I hadn't, she asked where I had been for a while. Then I realized I <span style="font-style: italic;">had </span>gone to Thailand, and that was what she was talking about. It was nice to realized I'd been missed by the woman I buy eggs from. Anyway, on New Years Eve when I bought eggs from her she threw in a small cake-like muffin with the eggs. It was neon pink, really good, and very moist (I think it had been steamed). So that made my morning.<br /><br />After I got back I took the bus to Jerry's house, early enough to watch the end of a movie with him. Then we drove over to his Uncle's house were the shin-dig was going to take place. Right as we got there they were finishing up a small ceremony with the food. They had it all laid out on a table, and I assumed it was all for us, and we were about to start eating. Then Jerry's dad told me it was for the ancestor's so then I thought it was their's. <span style="font-style: italic;">Then</span>, after they finished the ceremony, they started taking the food downstairs, and I realized the food wasn't completely for their ancestors. It was the ancestor's for a little while, then when the ancestors got done with it, it was ours to eat. Among the goodies were: a whole fish (aside from spicing and cooking it there appeared to be no preparation at all, it was served with the head, tail, and skin on, which was fine, but serving it turned out a little difficult because flaky fish is hard to pick up with chopsticks), a whole pig thigh (I think the skin was still on), and a whole duck (which had been feathered, but all it's appendages were still attached). I, however, couldn't eat any of those so they whipped up some veggie dishes for me, such as: bamboo slivers, cabbage, brown hard boiled eggs (I'm pretty sure they were boiled in tea, giving them the brown color), some sort of green beans, and something else which was good (and had been ok'd as vegetarian) but which I couldn't hazard a guess as to what it was. One of the best things were some beans. They looked exactly like black beans (same shape, size, and color), but were sweet. Deliciously sweet.<br /><br />The actual meal was pretty interesting, if nothing else it was the most crowded around a table I've ever been. We (I think there were about 12 or 13 total) were sitting around a circular table, about 5' in diameter. Basically, everyone got their own bowl, and just grabbed anything they wanted (and could pick up) with their chopsticks. I did fine with everything, but I had to get some help with grabbing the hardboiled eggs, I'm not quite that adept yet. The table itself, aside from being surrounded with people, was also completely covered with food. When they brought out the special vegetarian stuff there was barely room to put it, and I ended up with no room to put my bowl, which was OK, because I spent most of the time shoveling food into my mouth (in a polite manner).<br /><br />After dinner we went into the other room, started watching TV and eating some more. At first they brought out some unique peanuts, which were delicious. They were like no peanuts I'd ever eaten before. From the outside they looked like regular peanuts (except some of them had 4 nuts per shell), but when you cracked open the shell, instead of the individual nuts being wrapped in little red paper like substance, they were wrapped in little black paper like substance. And more importantly they were sweet. After we about polished off the peanuts, they brought out some plum tea, oranges, apples, and cherries. All in all it was an amazing feast.<br /><br />After Jerry dropped me off at my house in the evening the fireworks began, and they continued, fairly constantly, for the next 3-4 days, regardless of the time of day or night. Apparently not all of the fireworks are just nice to look at, they are also to scare away the demons of the New Year, and because of this, some fireworks dropped all pretense of being pretty, and were just really loud. Because the fireworks kept going so long, and were pretty consistent, sometimes at night it felt like a war zone. Except a war zone without terror or danger, just lots of loud noises.<br /><br />On Sunday night I went down to Yilan (about 1.5 hours away from Taipei, on the west coast of the island) for a Toga Party. Last year Luke taught English in the area, with a Fulbright program, and still had some friends there. The party not only gave me the opportunity to wear a toga (a personal first), but I got to see the fireworks from the roof of some friends' apartment building, which was very enjoyable, and sort of exciting because almost all of the fireworks were set off by regular people so they were coming from all directions. If you saw a flash, you had to turn as quick as you could to try to see the actual fireworks.<br /><br />On the way back to Taipei, the next day, we stopped at a hotspring. It was the first commercial one I'd ever been to, but it was pretty cool. Before we went, Ben described it as a 'wonderland' and I think it completely lived up to the description. Basically, everything they had from saunas to hot tubs, came in a bunch of different flavors. They had the regular fruit flavors like orange, but the also had flavors like 'Chinese Medicine', 'white liquor', 'milk', and surprisingly 'sulfur' (which was neon yellow, but didn't actually smell very much like sulfur). They also had a 'hot rock' (a hot rock that people lie on, pretty straightforward really), a small heated fish pool (which people sat in and got nibbled on by fish), and a killer water slide in to a hot tub (which I went down twice before stopping to read the sign at the top that says you have to be under 140 cm, which I was disappointed about because I'm about 190 cm).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-47836967782141682142008-01-30T05:55:00.000-08:002008-01-30T06:20:55.274-08:00I was not ready.Well. I knew that my room was really dirty, but I got a big slap in the face the other day. I had cooked rice the night before, and I left it in the rice cooker to cool down (so it didn't heat up the inside of the fridge). Anyway, I forgot to put it away before I went to bed, and what is worse, I also forgot to put the lid on, so it sat open all night long. In the morning after I woke up, I went to get some rice for breakfast and as I spooned out the first I a cockroach scampered out from under the pot, and headed for underneath the TV. I had only been awake for moments, and I was <span style="font-style: italic;">really </span>not ready to see a mouse sized cockroach (it wasn't that big but the only 'vermin' I've had experience living with before have been mice, so I thought this was a mouse at first too) run out from underneath what would soon be my breakfast. Because he was under the TV, I didn't feel like I had much hope of a successful attack, so I finished making breakfast, and retreated to my couch. I had been eating for a few minutes when I saw him slowly, maybe even casually, making his away across the floor. I grabbed the first thing that came to hand, <span style="font-style: italic;">Freedom of the Hills</span> (700 page fatty 'bible' on how to climb) and tossed. It was a beautiful high arching rainbow shot, that landed squarely. Actually, as I threw it, I thought I might have missed, but then I realized that I hadn't seen it make any last minute sprints for cover, and that the book was propped up on something. So I went and stepped on the book for good measure, and heard the poor fellar crunch. I wasn't ready for the crunch either, but I probably should have expected it. I think it sort of comes with the territory. It wasn't until a few hours later (while I was in class) that I realized the cockroach had probably been running all over my rice, pooping or peeing or eating or whatever it is cockroaches do. It made my stomach turn, but I experienced no real stomach aches or troubles of any kind. Later I talked to my one-on-one teacher about it, and apparently cockroaches are fairly common here. I asked her if cockroaches carried diseases like ticks and mosquitoes, and she said that some did. Apparently when she was a kid, her parents told her, whenever she killed a cockroach, to always be sure to close her mouth, to be sure none of the guts sprayed into her mouth. So I went home and sanitized the cover of <span style="font-style: italic;">Freedom of the Hills</span>. Just for good measure.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-4958299581586487852008-01-25T00:25:00.000-08:002008-01-26T01:24:16.409-08:00HomeI made it back to Taiwan without any troubles, and it was really good to be back. I think partly because it is my home now, and partly because I can function here. Going to places where I can't speak any of the language made me realize that, while my Chinese isn't fantastic, I can function. Right after I got into the airport I asked someone for directions to the bus station right away, just so I Chinese to someone. And on the bus ride to Taipei I talked to the woman who was sitting beside me for about 45 min. After I got home and cleaned up, I went out and got some food. The food was delicious and incredibly satisfying because I ordered it all in Chinese, and there was no pointing or sub-par communication. And I got a steaming bowl of soy milk, which was amazing because it was cool outside.<br /><br />The first week after getting back I was swamped with homework, partly because my classes are a lot more intense this semester, but also because I skipped the first three days of school, so I was having to make up for that. I'm taking 'Talks on Chinese Culture', 'New Radio Plays', and a news class. The news class is the favorite because although the articles are short and in a textbook, they were all written by a journalist for regular Chinese people to read, not by a teacher for students to read. 'Talks on Chinese Culture' is really interesting too though, because the texts are all about more substantive topics (last semester they were all crappy short dialog's just designed to use the vocab for the lesson). And I'm getting to learn all kinds of fun new words like 'feudalistic' and 'UV rays' and 'consciousness'. And some words we don't have in English like 'universalality'. So thats cool.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407303326115980825.post-57392834691602445922008-01-15T02:13:00.000-08:002008-02-03T08:07:08.724-08:00Climbing in Laos ... Yeaahhh.We got into Vang Vie<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDkpyw1J_8gGChnpcaShJd1mj0LCRplSRYqdhL3p99buSpvy0ACdGjmw1edsDP549ZFapf0tHubzw_9vChiW3kg-lck1s-Bm7d2m3zoReMHfyuhmXlGGRY_6pT-Cq8pOJ7L3ATs0XuViE/s1600-h/IMG_0275.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDkpyw1J_8gGChnpcaShJd1mj0LCRplSRYqdhL3p99buSpvy0ACdGjmw1edsDP549ZFapf0tHubzw_9vChiW3kg-lck1s-Bm7d2m3zoReMHfyuhmXlGGRY_6pT-Cq8pOJ7L3ATs0XuViE/s320/IMG_0275.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158988973193528466" border="0" /></a>ng at about 2 in the morning. We walked across a gravel field (which later turned out to be the airfield) and found someone awake in the back of a guesthouse. He turned out to be the owner, and put Alonzo and I in his room, and Jessy and some Australian guy who we met 2 minutes before at the bus stop, in another room. (This picture is from the multi-pitch I talk about later.) The roosters started going at about 5:30 or 6:00, and I slept through it for a while, but between that, feeling weird sleeping in the hotel owners bed, and having to pee, I got up at about 7:30. Alonzo got up to, so we went out to look around. We knew there was climbing here, and had some idea of the topography from the bus ride down the day before, but the reality was stunning. The scenery was gorgeous with big steep hills of land everywhere, many of which had sheer rock faces on the sides. We finally made it out climbing a little before noon. Everyone here is out to make a buck (which I can't really hold against them), but I try to avoid getting taken in by every little scam. So we walked through the river to keep from having to pay the toll over the bridge. Then we just kept walking towards the mountain, through some rice paddies. Along in here we picked up some kids. They couldn't have been more than 3-4 years old, and just kept running up behind us, slapping as high as they could reach (usually butt or backpack) and then falling over in hysterics. They asked for money too, but mostly they fell over and laughed. Except for one kid. I didn't see it happen, but I had hung back to take some pictures, and the flock of kids followed Alonzo and Jessy. When I caught up there was one kid crying his eyes out, and Alonzo trying to comfort him. Apparently he was just running full out, and took a digger. Right onto his face. As we got closer to the mountain the kids headed back home, or wherever it is they hang out. Then we found the 'guide' (aka, last scam before we get to the rock). It was $1 each, and he took us to the climbing. It wasn't actually terrible, because it probably would have taken us a long time to find it, but then again, they could use signs.<br /><br />The rock was grea<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisZ8LSVzdZ8QSnWT21Q1OEnvw7v4atPKIhqIWJA6ppZ8xUbgB8yL3Vvt8j_oIyYp9nkXfTt8M4N6mvoZ2tIe80ybQS2Vc1NRsORP91gUAKtTQRikX0bTinHbKOFrQUPn7vvjXAV8DbpAo/s1600-h/laos+sunset.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisZ8LSVzdZ8QSnWT21Q1OEnvw7v4atPKIhqIWJA6ppZ8xUbgB8yL3Vvt8j_oIyYp9nkXfTt8M4N6mvoZ2tIe80ybQS2Vc1NRsORP91gUAKtTQRikX0bTinHbKOFrQUPn7vvjXAV8DbpAo/s320/laos+sunset.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158691276125340770" border="0" /></a>t though. There were only about 8 climbs at this one spot, and we did most of them. And the view from the top of some of the climbs was really spectacular. We climbed until just before dark and timed it just right, so that we caught the sunset from the rice patties. It was one of the most amazing sunsets I've ever seen. It started really beautiful, and just kept getting more and more so. Then Alonzo noticed some bats coming from a hill on the right and streaming over the setting sun. They kept streaming out for 2-3 more minutes, while the sunset peaked. It was unbelievable.<br /><br />With the sunset, the moon rise, the scenery here, and from the bus last night ... I pretty much fell in love with Laos right away. Because we had climbed most of the routes there, we had to go to a new place the next day. There were quite a few in the guidebook, and we decided that the 'Sleeping Wall' looked like a good place to go. We were in the mood for some adventure, so we decided to walk out and try to find it.<br /><br />The guidebook said it was 2 km north of town, which didn't seem that bad, because we assumed that we knew where the end of town was. But after we'd been walking for a while, we began to realize that there wasn't a very distinct edge to the town, so we weren't really sure where we should begin estimating the 2 km before our left turn. After a while, we found a dirt road that seemed like it might be right. There was a very bleached old sign that seemed like it said something like the guidebook said it should, so we turned off there. I don't think we really believed it was the correct road, but we knew we would have to cross the river eventually, and walking along (or possibly through) the river seemed a lot more pleasant than walking beside the road, so we headed off. We passed a couple houses, and one playing loud (and in my opinion sub-par) Asian music. After passing a couple forks we finally made it to the banks of the river. We could see some rocks on the other side, so we dropped down the shore. We stumbled upon a bamboo platform with a man selling beer. We decided to stop and enjoy a Beer Lao and the scenery. The beer was warm, but the scenery was nice, and after we had been sitting talking for a while the guy gave us a delicious orange. After we finished our beers, we asked the guy for directions, and he pointed down the river, back towards town. We waded out into the creek, and down stream, looking for a place to stop. After a couple hundred yards we came to another stream side bar, and they had a little ferry service, so we got a shuttle across. We were looking for the 'Sleeping Wall', and we ended up finding the 'Sleeping Cave'. It was absurdly overhanging, and there were some bolted routes but most of them looked really dirty. We climbed one, but there was a stream flowing through the bottom of the cave, so it was hard to find a good place to belay. And the climbing was just as dirty as it looked. We decided to head back to the bar to relax. After all, it had been a hard day. I mean, we must have walked at least a mile and a half. And then did one and a half climbs. Definitely time for another beer. We walked back, and past the first bar we came to. Our goal was a second one, about 100 yards farther down stream, that looked like it had a pretty sweet rope swing. Right as we got to the second bar, we stumbled upon the 'Sleeping Wall'. There was one canyon, and another face, both tucked right behind the second bar. After we saw the climbing, we got excited again, and decided to climb more. Climbing here was certainly a different experience from the climbing yesterday. Not only was it harder and shorter, but there was mediocre European techno blasting from the bar (there were a few French climbers there to, and they got there first, so I guess they got to choose the music). There was even a campfire, and a slackline (tight-rope made from webbing). It was just a lot more of a social scene. The rope swing turned out to be as cool as it looked. It was fun, and there was really no room for hesitation. The bamboo platform they had built up to swing from, was really rickety, so it was scarier to stand there than it was to jump. This bar had a free shuttle, so after cooling off in the river, we headed home. It turned out that the road we had chosen was actually the right road, we had just turned off too soon.<br /><br />Most of the rest of the time in Laos was well spent. One of the main tourist things to do is tube down the river, stopping frequently at bars along the way to get drunk. When we rented the tubes the company wrote their initials on our hands, in big black water-proof letters, so no matter how drunk we got, we would still know where to return the tubes. They are clearly experienced with foreign tourists.<br /><br />We followed some friend's advice, and waited until the early afternoon to get started. This turned out to be a mistake because we ended up coming back after the sun had gone down, and the water wasn't that warm. At the put in, there was an Organic Farm that supports fair trade, shade grown, local agriculture, and all sorts of dandy things like that, with much of the profits going back to the local community (westerner's also go there to volunteer, and feel good about themselves for being socially responsible, and helping indigenous communities). The Organic Farm wasn't above opening a bar at the put in, so people could start the day off right, and one of these clever foreigners had made a sign that said "Please, Drink for the Children". So we stopped and had a shot of some sort of banana liquor. For the children. Then we set off. The first bar we passed had a zip-line, which would have been neat to try, but we saw a couple other people try it, and when they got to the block on the wire (to keep them from zipping all the way to the end of the line) they hit the block with force, which swung their legs up and most of them ended up doing a flip into the water. It looked sort of fun, but it looked like you got flipped pretty forcefully into the water, which was more than we wanted. All of the bars had people standing on the banks with bamboo harpoons, to throw to the lazy foreign tubers, so the lazy foreign tubers could get dragged to shore. The next bar we passed was advertising free whiskey shots, so we flagged down the harpoon man, and he tossed out the piece of bamboo and pulled us in. The whiskey sign turned out to be false advertising, so we walked down to the next bar, where there seemed to be more people.<br /><br />Indeed there were more people at the next bar. It really reminded me of crappy hip hop clubs in Taiwan. The music was absurd and too loud, there were the young drunk people dancing and making fools out of themselves, and the place was even complete with older people sitting in bamboo huts looking sullen and bored. There were a couple exceptions though. One was volley ball courts. The other was the huge rope swing. We decided to get some drinks and sit down, and the most well advertised drink is the so called "Bucket". Naturally, in the spirit of trying new things, I decided to get one. Sure enough, it was a bucket, first filled with ice, then half filled with whiskey, then a Pepsi and energy drink for taste. It really wasn't bad. Alonzo and Jessy both decided to try the rope swing, but I was starting to get sick, and was already wearing my long john shirt to stay warm, so I didn't think the rope swing would be a good idea. After they did the rope swing we headed down stream again. I think we stopped for one more beer, but mostly it was a long, cold, mildly buzzed float back to town. We got our tubes back to the right place (thanks to the engravings on our hands) and went to get warm and clean. There is a little island in the river, just near town, and coincidentally it is packed with bars, so we went there to ring in the New Year.<br /><br />Midnight didn't take very long to arrive, and after the countdown was over, I realized I had a little fever, and my throat hurt so I left. In the end, it turns out that drinking a lot wasn't a sure fire cure, and actually probably negatively affected my throat. So I took a couple days off from climbing. At one point, we were eating, and Jessy asked how I was doing. "I've got a fever, my throat hurts, and my nose is completely stuffed up, but I know if I try to blow it, it will start bleeding." (I'm pretty sure I just had strep throat, but for some reason it was accompanied by nose bleeds every day for over a week. For a few days, they were like clockwork, coming within a few minutes of each other. Every morning, unprovoked, at about 8:30.) So, I slept a lot, and towards the end I got some throat lozenges, and it sorted itself out.<br /><br />That Thursday was my last day in Laos, and there was a multi-pitch I wanted to do before I left. The cliff was behind the 'Sleeping Wall', and was easily visible, so we didn't think it would be that hard to get to. This proved not to be the case, and the approach turned out to be one of the most intense one's I'd ever done. The main difficulty at first was finding ou<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWyG-AmnPDoY6aspwF5prNaBEFKrn-kGoM3usqiGBp8-jL-ddQYq6F2WEP1oYYla3puOUBaslRDVVzCQq83dNIA5DnIUug050Gr9k7S6yQDkDzhyphenhyphensrFkdKibkN8pgfWrcT20fkvKmBKVI/s1600-h/IMG_0254.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWyG-AmnPDoY6aspwF5prNaBEFKrn-kGoM3usqiGBp8-jL-ddQYq6F2WEP1oYYla3puOUBaslRDVVzCQq83dNIA5DnIUug050Gr9k7S6yQDkDzhyphenhyphensrFkdKibkN8pgfWrcT20fkvKmBKVI/s320/IMG_0254.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158692757889057906" border="0" /></a>t where the trail was, but after 3-4 false starts, we finally got the right one. Shortly thereafter, the trail truly got sketchy. It was through a jungle, but the sketchy part was the rocks we were walking on. The way they formed, it was basically like a bunch of knives laid down with the sharp edge facing the sky. Then we walked along these sharp edged rocks (they were sharp enough to make noticeable gashes and holes in the soles of my shoes, just from 40 min. of walking on them) balancing and hoping they didn't break (though you could see where previous pieces had broken off). Most of the time you could see down through the gaps between the slivers of rock, maybe 8 inches or a foot to the ground, so that if a sliver did break, you would actually fall a little. Mostly I think we were afraid of getting a knee-cap shorn clean off. All in all it still wasn't as terrifying as a couple of the moped rides. After we made it to the cliff, we en<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdDMGvq3ihGEHdu5cRiOhYajo058AaQMLhAhiC8BvQXW86v0JYHHCMiR0Mgetv526VqHT-mMkuuUImcvG3JuEX6xv5zXqcd8xx3r7iGGKTN_qeAy3WvKQ4Q6_qbEs8kCxuSVpgNZkICdw/s1600-h/IMG_0258.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdDMGvq3ihGEHdu5cRiOhYajo058AaQMLhAhiC8BvQXW86v0JYHHCMiR0Mgetv526VqHT-mMkuuUImcvG3JuEX6xv5zXqcd8xx3r7iGGKTN_qeAy3WvKQ4Q6_qbEs8kCxuSVpgNZkICdw/s320/IMG_0258.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158987478544909442" border="0" /></a>ded up getting on the wrong climb, but the one we did was fun, and the view's were beautiful, so it was OK. <br /><br />On Friday I departed Laos. The first bus ride was 4 hours, down to the capital of Vientienne (the capital of Laos). Then I got a tuk tuk down to the border, where I encountered some difficulties. After I made it through immigration, I was immediately targeted and a woman tried to sell me a bus ticket into Thailand. I figure the first person to try to sell you stuff is the most expensive, so I always say no right away. In hindsight I think the woman was running the only 'public' bus system, and was probably just trying to be helpful. After the tuk tuk ride, I only had about $2 left (in Laotian currency) and for some reason, I thought that I had to spend it all, or maybe it would be a good idea to spend it all before I got any Thai currency. So I shopped around, and found some interesting boxes of cookies and bought them. That was the point where I realized my mistake. I should have first bought transport away from the spot I was (no town really, just a border crossing with some stores), then gotten food. Border control was pretty loose, and I had seen an ATM in Laos before I crossed over, so I walked around the border checkpoint, and back into Laos. I was surprised how easy it was just to walk back in. Anywhoo, the ATM didn't take VISA cards, so I was faced with a real predicament. No money, and no way to get money. And I had to pee, but they charged for the bathroom, and I didn't think they would except cookies as payment. I walked back into Thailand, and found a taxi driver I had briefly haggled with before buying the cookies. I think this was the peak of my haggling success, especially since I didn't actually have any money. We bartered back and forth, with neither of us moving. I expected him to come down gradually, but after we chit chatted for a bit, he just yelled to some of his fellow cab drivers, and someone appeared who was willing to take me to the train station for my price. I'm pretty sure the guy who took me used his own personal truck. It certainly didn't seem like a regular cab. And he ended up having to loan me some money so I could make it through immigration on the Thai side. THEN, the other cab driver had lead me to believe there was an ATM at the train station, but there wasn't so the guy drove me to an Tesco where they had an ATM, so I could get money. I was really grateful to the guy, but at the same time, the train station turned out to be about 1/4 mile away from the border crossing. I think I could have walked there in 20 min, so I'm pretty sure the guy still came off with a big profit. And from the looks of his truck, it didn't seem like he was hurting for cash. I had been worried some about the travel, because of still being a little sick, but the train ride to Bangkok ended up being great. I was in the sleeper car, and I had previously been warned to try to get a lower bunk, because it minimized the rocking of the train. When I bought my ticket there were none left, so I got the top one. It was good though because it's been a long time since I was little enough for my momma to rock me to sleep, and I ended up really enjoying the rocking of the train. After the train got in, I had to catch a couple buses to get out to the airport. On the second one, just like clockwork, my nose started to bleed. Fortunately, I had come prepared, so I tilted my head back so the blood ran down my throat, the fumbled in my bag for some tissues, which I pressed to my nose, and waited for it to sort itself out. After I got to the airport, it was just a long wait for my plane to leave. Then a short flight back to Taiwan. I did see a bunch of Eastern Europeans, with a fetish for taping their baggage closed. Lord only knows why, but a few of them used a whole roll of tape just to make 2 really thick bands of tape around their bags. Whatever the reason, the did seem to enjoy taping their luggage closed, so I guess it was alright.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0