Some weekend fun

After 3 full days of working at the hospital. After hitting a wall (that's me being extremely tired for a few days) I finally regained my energy and felt good. Perfect timing. It was time to take our weekend trip to a place called 'Hualien'. None of us knew what to expect. We've just been hearing the word 'Hualien' ever since we got here. I've learned that our professor doesn't really have a habit of telling us information ahead of time. Haha, it really makes this trip all the more adventurous…

So Thursday morning, 5 am, came around. All four of us girls in the same room start to drowsily wake up from our night’s rest to get ready to leave for our six hour ride to a place we hardly knew about. We met the others in our group down stairs by the door, our usual meeting place and headed off to catch our 6 am ride on the train/ high speed rail to Kaohsiung, then eventually Hualien.

“Amigos. We need to get to Amigos.” I kept hearing Kris, our professor, tell the taxi driver. I thought to myself… we’re in Taiwan… are we really staying at a hostel named “Amigos”? Who would have guessed I would find a Spanish word among all the Chinese billboards and signs here in Taiwan.

The hosts at ‘Amigos’ were very very kind. I am getting the impression that EVERYONE here in Taiwan is very kind. Hospitality is apparent in the culture here. All 9 of us girls were placed in a room filled with bunk beds. The whole situation, 8 girls and one teacher unpacking and claiming our beds, reminded me a lot of girls camp back in the day. Ha ahh how I miss those days… girls camp was fun now that I think about it, although I didn’t quite realize exactly how fun it was back then, I do now. We had a community shower, 2 bathrooms out in the hall. Living in a hostel wasn’t THAT bad. I would totally stay at a hostel again… hopefully in Europe somewhere next time (:

The first day in Hualien, we went downtown and shopped around. The second day, the taxi drivers that chased us down the second we got off the train (a bunch of Caucasian people in an Asian dominated area must be a sure sign we’re tourists or something…) that got us to agree to hire them to drive us around for the day for 2000 NT or around $72 US dollars, picked us up from the hostel that morning. And that was the start of our tour. We drove to all the main attractions of the gorgeous Toroko gorge. I did not expect to see the things I saw. Toroko gorge is beautiful. Truly beautiful. Hiking was awesome. One of the best hikes I’ve been on. Our tour of the gorge took almost all day. The taxi drivers dropped us off at around 4 or 5. We spent some time later that night at the jade market, where I bought 2 jade vases… I hope I made a good purchase, 42 dollars for 2 jade vases isn’t bad right?.. good purchase or not.. I decided that would be my souvenir from Taiwan. No more unreasonable expenses for the rest of the trip. Haha.. That day, some of us girls did some research to see what fun things we could do in Hualien. We decided on River Tracing. The following morning, 4 of us girls were picked up by a van and taken to a river. We changed into wetsuits and went river tracing! It was AWESOME. It was so much fun. There’s nothing like being out in nature, in the river, looking around and seeing green luscious mountains on either side of you. Misty skies right above the tops of the green mountain tops, And seeing clear blue water along some parts of the river. It was awesome. We found places where the water gathered in places and became deep. We jumped off small cliffs into the water; it was unforgettable. Mostly because of the environment I was in. I couldn’t help but look around and gape at all the trees, the water, the mountains. It was like we were in the middle of a jungle or rainforest.

After river tracing, we met up with the other 4 girls and watched “Water for Elephants” at a theater nearby. It was wonderful to actually sit down and watch a movie. I felt like I haven’t done that for a while.

We bummed around the receiving area of the hostel that day until it was time for us to board our train back ‘home’ to Tainan.

It was a goooood weekend. I love seeing the natural beauty of nature. I think that’s what made this weekend so good. It was a gorgeous trip.