Once again, I am sorry for not writing a new blog in quite some time, but if you have my picasa website, then you would have noticed all the pictures I have posted from my recent trips.
So since my last blog, A small group of friends and I celebrated the New Year with a cookout on Marcin and Ola's apt rooftop. We had steaks, chicken, salad, my baked honey with honey mustard salmon, and for desert we had banana's split in half with chocolate in the middle to melt. The banana's and chocolate were amazing, as well as everything else, but eating the banana's with a spoon really topped off the night.
After New Years, I found out I had a few key fixes to make on my Thesis before printing off the copies for my professors and then had to prepare my powerpoint presentation for my proposal on January 22nd. January 20th, my lease had finally run out and I moved in with Kyle and his dog Taco who he adopted from the humane society last year. Long story short,I successfully completed and passed my Thesis proposal.
Now my proposal was over with, we had our first trip planned for the 2010 Chinese New Year. Nina and I planned a week long trip to travel around Taiwan, but the first 2 days would be spent with (clark, kyle, marcin, ola, sander, maria, judy, isy,daying, nina and me) a group of great friends at Lisong hot springs which was an 1.5hr drive through the mountains from Taitung which is on the east coast of Taiwan (4hrs car drive from Tainan). Marcin's crazy self drove his scooter from Tainan to the hot springs which is about 6.5hrs each way. We finally made it to the place to park our scooters before the 1.5hr hike down to the river, but first we had to pay 50NT ($1.50) for each scooter parking. The guy collecting the money is about 235 years old, but can still make it down the small hill where his shack is. The pictures don't show it, but one of his legs are twisted out sideways and he walks with a stick and only says "wu shi" which means 50NT. Nina tried talking to him in Taiwanese and Chinese, but he only replies "wu shi" and then began to write it in the dirt with his stick.
Well we were all really excited for this trip, especially me since this was me and Nina's first camping trip together and she has never been camping or hiking, so this was a big step to take since this was no easy hike. Half way down, the narrow trail steepens and has guide ropes for the rest of the trail down do the rocky river bank. We were in no rush to get down and we all had heavy bags with tents, clothes, and food, so we took our time and slowly crept down the mountainside with Nina's confidence growing every step and obstacle she past. That is until the last 60-70ft of the trail which was not quite vertical, but it took a lot of strength and patience to work ourselves down the slippery, rocky terrain. Well we all finally made it and were very exhausted after setting up camp and it was time to hike a little further up river to get to the natural hot springs pouring from the mountain walls. I am not sure the exact temperature, but we could have boiled an egg in some sections. The key was to dig pools lined with larger rocks and let the ice cold river water mix to set the temperature the way you like it. It was fun laying down in the pool of scolding hot water and then jumping into the freezing (not really freezing like with ice) river and then quickly running back out to warm back up. The scenery was like something out of Jurassic Park with the huge river valley and steam rising up with the lush green trees and plants I never knew existed in Taiwan since spending most of my time in Tainan. To sum that it, it was very very beautiful and relaxing. The pictures will speak for themselves.
We had to get back to camp to start the fire so we could have dinner. Marcin is always the man for this job, and by the time i made it back to camp, he had the fire trying to start which is a difficult task since most of the wood was damp. For dinner (for 11 people) we had two bags of potatoes sliced, 5 or 6 ramen noodle packs, a couple packs of sausages and some bread. We mixed everyones food together and it turned out really tasty and everyone was full. We had as much water as we needed straight from the river, but of course we boiled it first before using. I will admit, i did not sleep to great that night as the ground was hard and it was pretty chilly. I was glad to see the day light the next morning and slowly got out of bed to make my way with the others to the hot spring pools. It was a perfect beginning to a day and my skin felt so soft and smooth after laying in the pools for over an hour. We finally left the hot springs and made breakfast with whatever leftover food we could find and packed up to head back up the mountain.
It took just as long to make it back up the mountain, but we finally made it back to Taitung where Nina and I stayed one night before catching a train to Hualien to stay with her friend Jiu Jiao and his family. They had a nice home which had just been cut in almost 1/2 since the government was putting a highway in front of there home and need more space. Their family was very economical and had an outside wood stove to heat there home and water. They made a nice dinner with shrimp, corn, fish, and a few other snacks, but it was delicious and got us ready for our day trip the next morning. We woke up early and Jiu Jiao took us to rent a scooter to take to Taroko gorge which was about a 45-1hr scooter ride. Its weird to say, but the scooter we rented was really cool. It was a red yamaha 125cc sports scooter which made my poor ORY look terrible. It was nice to have a good dependable and fast scooter for the mountain roads we encountered driving through Taroko national park. There were many stopping points to check out the beautiful scenery, but it really is a must see place to really grasp its marble gorge natural beauty.
We made it back to Jiu Jiaos place before night fall after hiking some of the trails around the park and taking lots of pictures. The next morning Jiu Jiao took us around Hualien and to a beach beside an airforce base to take some pictures and then took us to a huge farm where they had just about any animal you can think of from camels to zebras. Since the farm was so big, we rented bikes which ended up being much more work than we expected since the bikes did not seem to be well maintained. After a few hours and Nina getting to bottle feed a baby calf (so funny and another first for her) we were ready to go so Jiu Jiao picked us up and it was time to head farther north to Yilan where we would meet and stay with Nina's friend Ashiang (the spelling is probably not correct.
Ashiang was also very nice and welcoming to us and his father was high up in the police ranks so just mentioning his name would have probably got us a discount or something if we really needed it. They had a nice place and since it was night time we just relaxed the first night and went to bed early. The next morning Ashiang took us to rent a scooter to take a day trip, since he had to go to Taipei for the day for work and to meet his g/f. So Nina wanted to visit a National Traditional Art center which turned out to be a lot of fun and we saw some really cool things like a store that specializes in cardboard (hats, bags, statues, etc..), a charcoal carving museum, and even an old ink stamp store where we made our own envelope stamp (which we lost later that day :(. After the art museum we went to a "water park" which was just a river to do rowing activities or ride around the river on a doubles bike which we did :)
Skipping on to the next day Ashiang took us to another hot spring which is not even possible to compare to the Lisong hot springs we were just at. These hot springs were located where tourist can easily get to hence all the garbage littered across the river bed. We boiled eggs to eat, but I was happy to leave that area especially after seeing some nude hot spring bathers a hundred yards away. The next stop was a good one. It was the Kavalan Whiskey distillery which is owned by a very wealthy group called the King Car Club. The Kavalan whiskey is Taiwans first whiskey ever (made in 2008), but they built a beautiful factory near the mountains and hired a whiskey specialist from scotland to help them get started. At the end of 2009, Kavalan has already won awards from the International taste competition in California so be on the look out for this whiskey near you.
We finished the night off with some karaoke at Asiangs place and the next day took our rental scooter back and caught a bus to Taipei and then back to Tainan to end our week long trip. It felt nice to get back to my apt (1am) and take the next week to unpack and move things around in my new apartment before I left on my other vacation trip to the Philippines.
My Philippines trip was set to take place over Valentines so Nina and I had to celebrate a couple days early. Since last year she made me a delicious candle lit dinner, I felt it was my turn to spice things up. So I made chicken quesadillas. We prepared and cooked everything together, which saved me a lot of time and was also a lot of fun and good bonding experience. I had bought some tortillas (before i found a store that sold them) from TGI Fridays so they started the day off on a good note. To make them a little different, I sautéed some onions and mushrooms to add inside the quesadillas. They turned out amazing and I would recommend trying them with the onions and mushrooms as we did. I bought her a big brown teddy bear which was another first for her, so now she has a cuddle buddy when im not able to be around.
So finally off to the Philippines with a few upper classmates of mine (Sarah and Tim) and a couple they knew as well as a friend already in the Philippines waiting for us. We found some great tickets from a new airline which just opened called Spirit of Manila and got our round trip tickets for around $220 US. I was really looking forward to going to the Philippines again since this time would be at the beaches which they are world famous for since last year I went up north to the rice terraces in Batad. After spending one night in the capital (manila) and seeing some old friends who just had graduated, the next day we flew to Busuanga, Philippines which is a remote airport where we took another 45min shuttle ride in to Coron where we would stay at a hostel. To get to the beaches we would have to rent a boat man to take us island hopping which is exactly what we did the second day after a long night of tasting the Filipino rum called Tanduay which left me with a bruise and scrape on my arm the next morning which will come into play a little later in the story.
My stomach was trying to recover from the night before so we went to a beach to relax for the day and the boat guys cooked us fresh fish, rice, and veggies. Before heading back to our hostel we did a quick snorkeling ship wreck that ended up being just a hollowed out ship that looked like a big canoe. Back at the hostel I talked with the owner "patrick" a real nice swedish guy who moved there with his Filipino wife (3years ago who grew up in Sweden and opened up a nice homestay for backpackers. The next day we planned an all day scuba trip to dive 3 WWII Japanese ship wrecks.
After a 2hr boat ride we were ready to make our first dive. I felt great and was real excited to dive 34metes or about 115ft into a Japanese warship and actually swim inside using flash lights to navigate our way around. There were some really tight squeezes to fit into and since I have not dived in over a year, it took some time to get my buoyancy back to normal. I got the hang of it again and Its really hard to describe the feeling so I would suggest getting an open water dive license and dive a ship wreck. After the first dive I felt some pain in my shoulder, but didn't think waited around until we were told to get ready for the 2nd dive an hour later. It was another ship wreck dive, this time an oil tanker which they said burned for 22 days before finally sinking to the bottom around 60-70ft down. It was another beautiful dive going in and out of old doors and wholes in the ship which haven't been used in over 50 years.
After finishing the 2nd dive they made a big lunch (our dive master was also the cook) which consisted of chicken, fish, rice, and of course fresh vegetables. My shoulder pain was still there and it had moved down to my elbow and within an hour my whole arm was aching as if someone had been standing on it for a long time. I knew this wasn't normal so I told some of the dive masters and they quickly put me on oxygen since I showed signs of having the "BENDS". It did not feel like it was getting much better so I went to the local doctor to see if I need to do the decompression chamber or not. The doctor said I showed some signs, but not the major ones, but could still get into the decompression chamber for a couple hours. I found out the price was 30,000 peso's which is about $700 USD which I did not have so I talked with the dive master and asked if he really thought it was necessary and he said no since I did not have the dizzy symptoms and the blue skin rashes, so i decided to do an hour of oxygen treatment and wait it out until the morning. The pain got worse so I called home to get the insurance information and since it was around 11:30pm the dive store with the only decompression chamber on the island was closed so I had to wait until the morning. A friend had some 600mg Tylenol pills, so i took one and went to bed. Amazingly I woke up the next morning with no pain and looked forward to the over night safari trip we were planning. I didn't have a chance to use a computer to call home and tell everyone I was ok which I found out 2 days later I had given everyone back home a big scare and I am really sorry to upset everyone and really want to thank all of you for caring and praying for me. My own conclusion was the bruise in my arm from the night before had so much pressure when diving that it just caused some type of painful reaction to the deep levels.
The over night trip was really nice. I have never seen so many stars in my life and the milky way was so bright, it looked like white band was wrapped around the earth. Our boat man June was really nice and made some delicious meals through out the day and for dinner. The over night trip consisted of island hopping where we went to two lakes, one called Barracuda lake which was some of the prettiest water I have ever seen and the other lake called twin lagoon where the water had fresh and salt water mix which created an oily look to the water. It was really cool to see the water clear and if you waved your hand across your face, then it was blurry from disturbing the water.
For that trip we met up with Tim's g/f and her brother and a friend of theirs, who are all from South Africa. It was great getting to meet and learn a bit about them and enjoyed listening to their accents. So we all enjoyed the trip so much and our boat man June, we planned another over night stay and June promised to take us to a very excluded island far away from anywhere. That is exactly what we got, our own private island 2hr boat ride away (slow boat ride). We stopped on the way to snorkel another ship wreck we could swim down to which was exciting and I impressed myself with my ability to dive down around 20ft without fins. We finally came to our private island which had one small family living on it who were there to maintain the island and sweep the beach every morning. I probably saw 20 shooting stars on another beautiful star filled sky. It seemed like every place we went, there could not be any place better than the last. But sure enough as we continued on, it only got better from the snorkeling, to the food, and to the scenery.
It was a very memorable experience, especially since we woke up every morning around 5am due to there being a rooster every where we stayed, even on the private islands that crowed at 4am well before the sun was coming up and even the sounds of pigs being slaughtered every morning outside our hostels. The trip was from Feb 12-22nd where I made it back just in time for my first class of the semester.
Its now April 03 and Easter Sunday is tomorrow morning. Nina and I plan to wake up and ride to a temple called Madong I think and its theme is heaven and hell. I have seen pictures from friends who have gone before and it really looks like a must see place. I will post pics as soon as I can.
So now, I have class mon-wed, chinese class wed-fri, and teaching tues-fri. I have a lot to do on my thesis so it is crunch time now.
I hope everyone is doing great back home and I miss ya and love ya. Don't forget to look at my pictures from the trip on my picasa web albums.
Luv always,
Logan
PS: sorry its another long blog ;)
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