虎山

Monday after work, after everyone bailed on us, a friend and I hiked up 虎山 in the pre-typhoon weather. Despite the dark clouds and occasional rains, we still went up to see the view of Taipei and the 101 building. It took about 30 minutes to hike midway to a scenic overlook, and maybe another 20 minutes up to the 9-5 peak, the tallest in the area. We only hiked midway because it was getting dark and we wouldn't be able to make it back down before the sun sets. The overlook was called 復興園, and it had an unobstructed view of 101. In the distant, we saw rain clouds moving across the city and covering up the faded sunset. As we were packing up, it started pouring, and the two of us only had my tiny umbrella barely enough for one person. We want to hike up to 9-5 peak some other day when the weather is nicer and get a better view of Taipei. One thing I love about Taiwan is that although I live in a major city like Taipei, it is so convenient and close for me to take a hike or do something outdoorsy. 

I really wish I met the new friends I made this weekend earlier in the program. The past few days have been much more exciting than the first four weeks of my internship. I only have three more weeks left here in Taiwan, so I gotta make the most out of it. 

Dark rain clouds hovering across Taipei.

Family Day

I had a really good time last night at Luxy clubbing with a bunch of people I just met. One of my favorite things about TTT is the opportunity to make new friends. It's harder to meet new people at school when everyone is already in tight-knit groups and hang out with the same people. I wish the freshman year introductions with strangers could be a norm throughout all of college. But anyways, I met a lot of cool people last night, some from TTT and others just friends of friends. It's great to start conversations with people you've just met and discover the differences and similarities you guys share. Finding out more about each other is definitely one of the most interesting parts about meeting new people, and it's a great feeling to stay in touch with them afterwards.

This morning I left my house at 9:00 to go to 三峽 with my grandparents, two uncles and aunt. I kind of felt bad for always going out with friends when I'm back in Taipei, so it was nice to spend a whole day with them. We went to 三峽 to visit the most famous temple in Taiwan, with more than 80 years of planning and construction. Sadly, I don't remember the name of the temple, but it had really detailed stone and wood carvings, the most detailed and culturally-infused in all Taiwan and China. Afterwards, we walked down 老街 in the scorching heat and saw the Japanese-styled and early-Taiwanese-styled houses. We got lunch at a famous 甕仔雞 restaurant. There was so much food we had to pack almost every dish back home. Next, we drove to 大溪 to visit Chiang Kai-Shek's summer vacation house and look at the view across some river. The view wasn't really breathtaking, but it was nice walking through the park and the pre-rain breeze felt comfortable. My uncle then drove to 石門水庫, but the dam wasn't releasing water and we didn't see the fancy water show. I asked him to let me drive, since I was getting bored sitting in the car; I ended up driving the rest of the night. We walked across the dam and the view from up top was pretty amazing. Beautiful skies, clear water below it, and mountains in the background. For a pit stop, we took a break at a coffee shop and had a mid-afternoon snack. Right after we just had our afternoon tea, we headed to Carrefour for dinner. I wasn't hungry at all, in fact, I was still pretty full. So at Carrefour I ate at a sushi place where you take plates off a conveyor belt, and they count how many plates you ate. I only ate four plates and I was stuffed. For the rest of the night, we shopped at Carrefour and another place similar to Carrefour. Ended up getting home at 10:00. It was an exhausting day, but had a great time hanging out with the family.

So my uncle said I can drive his car to go out and explore with friends. I don't have an international license, but the police doesn't do random checks during the day time. So maybe I'll take a day off this week and plan something. Before that, Bryan and I have to finish planning our trip to Kenting next weekend. It's definitely happening, and I'm SO excited!

Creme brulee from the coffee shop!

Fried platter.

Really needed coffee today.

Windsurfing

Today I tried windsurfing for the first time. It's a lot of fun, but also very tiring. It took us about 45 minutes just to assemble the sail, tie the appropriate knots, and get all the equipment ready. Then the grad student who has windsurfed before demonstrated to us while me and another grad student went out on kayaks. It didn't look so hard watching someone else windsurf, but it was really hard when I tried at first. There's an extra rudder added to the board so it was much steadier than a regular surf board. The sail rests on top of the water, and I had to pull on a string to lift the sail up. Once it's up, I had to maintain my balance and hold on the the sail, without being blown off the board. When a wind came and hit the sail, the sail either gets pushed away from me or towards me, and the pressure was really strong. I fell a lot just trying to get the sail up, and once it was up, I couldn't keep my balance for too long. After many attempts, I finally got a few successful runs. The direction of my sail was just right and the wind blew me forward. I was going so fast I saw the water splitting apart at the tip of the board. Felt so accomplished. Eventually I got the hang of it, but still couldn't figure out how to adjust the sail to control the board's direction. I'm going to windsurf again tomorrow afternoon, so maybe I can work on that.

Taken with my phone. Me trying hard to maintain my balance without the rudder.

Cliff Diving

Yesterday I met a pretty athletic grad student from the lab next door and he invited me to go 跳海, cliff diving, with him and his friends this morning. We left NTOU at 6 am and rode motorcycles to a rocky area in 潮境. First we had to climb down from the road area and trek through rocky areas to get to the edge near the water. The rocks weren't that high, and the cliff wasn't very tall either, probably 1 or 2 stories. But we were at the edge of the shoreline and there were big waves coming in from the sea. There was a stump piled up at the highest point, and we jumped off from there into the ocean. The water was deep enough and actually pretty clear. One of the jumps I tried head first, after seeing someone else jump first. Pretty scary. While swimming in the ocean, I saw a school of fish swimming and crabs crawling through the reefs. The grad student and I swam towards a rock about 50 meters away and looked at the sea creatures along the way. Then we decided to attempt a swim towards a building-like structure in the middle of the ocean further away. It didn't look that far from the cliff, but when we were actually in the water swimming, we realized how far it was. Halfway through our swim, we looked at each other, and decided to swim back. The waves got bigger and bigger the further out we swam and it also got windier. Better to swim back before it got too dangerous.

Now I'm so exhausted from swimming in the ocean. Takes a lot of effort and energy to swim in open water.

Stump we jumped off of. 

The structure we tried swimming towards. It's a tough journey. 

Sunset

As I was leaving work today to eat, I saw the sunset through the window and it was beautiful. Fortunately I had my camera with me and took a few shots.

I only have 4 more weekends left in Taiwan and I feel like I haven't done enough yet. I was talking with another TTT intern earlier today, and we both felt like we need to plan more trips and more events in the last four weeks in Taiwan. Right now, we're planning a small-scale trip to Peng Hu in two weeks. I also plan on traveling back to Taipei more often on a week night because there's more stuff to do there. Got to make the most of this summer in Taiwan.

Sunset from the window of my work building.

和平島

Last time I went to 和平島 with my uncle, my Nikon ran out of battery after a few shots. This time around, my camera was fully charged and the island wasn't as hot. Went there on my way back to NTOU from Taipei with Jennifer and Tammy. The rock formations there were very cool, shaped by the waves constantly crashing into them. The flat rocks where we walked on had very orderly perpendicular cracks through them - like a tofu. 和平島 offered very unique landscape scenes to photograph, with the yellow rocks, rocks by the sea, waves, mountains and clouds in the sky. Today's weather was also very unpredictable. It was sunny for the whole day, but there were periodic drizzles. The dark clouds were further away, but the wind was so strong that it brought the rain over to the sunny areas. I was also able to capture the sunset and the reflection off the water. One of the downside of 和平島 was the sea cockroaches crawling on the rocks. Nasty.

Shoreline with Keelung Island in the background. 

Felt great dipping my feet in the water. 

One of the many rainbows I saw today. 

Beautiful. 

Lots of people doing different activities on the island. 

Tofu-shaped rocks.

Caught the sunset. 

Clubbing and 烏來

Clubbing last night at Room 18 was really good. Met a lot of fellow TTT interns and counselors and had a great time with everyone there. I would say clubs in Taiwan are better than clubs in the U.S. The music and DJ were pretty good; it was actually a white person DJing. Everything in Room 18 looked very clean and neat, and the dance floor was big enough for everyone there. At one point, cops came in and checked everyone's ID and it took about half hour until they were done making sure everyone was at least 18 years old. Last night was the longest I've ever partied. We arrived at Room 18 at 10:30 and stayed until it closed at 4:30. By the time we left the club the sky was just beginning to get brighter. We had to take a cab because the MRT and buses don't run that early, and then I walked the rest of the way and got home at 5:30 in the morning.

I went to sleep at 6:00, and woke up at 9:30 to go to 烏來 with Jonathan. It was awful at first, because I was super tired from just three and half hours of sleep. At 烏來 we got lunch at a random restaurant and tried finding the waterfalls there, but failed. Ended up at a shoreline and took some photos there. The place is actually pretty small and there's not much to do there. Most people go there for hot springs, so there wasn't much left for us to do since we didn't want to go to hot springs. On the way back, we took the bus directly from 烏來 to Taipei Station, and I had a really satisfying nap on the hour-long bus ride. 

Pretty view from the shoreline. 

Really comfortable dipping my feet in the cold water.

Bridges were decorated with aboriginal people's designs.

Suspension bridge.