Katy in Taiwan: 2011

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Kenting 2

Saturday-Monday, June 4-6 (Dragon Boat Festival), 2011

So Jenny came up to me and said, "For Dragon Boat Festival we're thinking of going to Kenting." My immediate response, "YES!"

Betsy, Charlene, Jenny, Kailey, Sunny, Shantelle, and I took the High Speed Rail and got to Kenting in the afternoon. Betsy had arranged surfing lessons for her, Shantelle and me. So our instructor picked us up from our hostel and we headed off to the East side of the Kenting area.

After about an hour my arms, sadly, ran out of any energy thus leaving me with time to take pics of the beautiful beach and Betsy and Shantelle (who actually work out and lasted about 40 more min.).

To the right you can see the cliff where, during my previous Kenting adventure, we saw the sunrise.

Beach we went surfing!

Katy's shadow

The creepy tunnel you took to get to the beach . . .

Creepy beach tunnel

Unknown local

If you look really closely you can see 3 people surfing.

Betsy catching a wave, Shantelle and surf instructor getting back on their boards to catch the next wave

I'm still not used to taking self pics. and you can see just how exhausted I was . . . but I needed proof that I was there ;)

Surfed-out Katy

Further proof

Betsy and Surfboard

Katy and Surfboard

Shantelle and Surfboard

On the way back to our hostel we watched a beautiful sunset!

That night we went to Kenting Main St. where they have the night market and I, having not eaten much that day was in real need of real food, so I went to dinner and then Betsy, Shantelle and I went to a club.

The next day Shantelle and I slept in then went back to Main to get breakfast and an impromptu foot massage! We tried to meet up with the others, but just ended up chilln' at the beach for a while.

Shantelle in her beautiful new dress as the subjected to me trying to figure out how to use my camera in the dark.

I wasn't very successful as you can see in this pic.

Me, Air particles I didn't want to know I was breathing in that whole time, and the surf!

Then followed a game of spot the crab.

These creepy things are everywhere

We eventually met up with the rest at the hostel where they brought amazing dumplings, from the night market, for dinner.

Later we went back to the beach to see the luminescent . . . krill? Whatever they were they glowed in the dark when they were agitated, but only for a second, so no pictures :(

Then next morning Jenny, Betsy and I went to a coral beach and fortuitously saw a place to rent snorkeling gear so for 100NT (3USD) we got a mask an flippers and went snorkeling!

Finally it was time to turn in our gear and the scooters we rented.

I finally got the pic I had been meaning to take with the cool green retro looking scooter I rented . . . sadly I wasn't gutsy enough to go up the it after we had turned it back in . . .

Me trying to be inconspicuous with my previously rented scooter . . .

All in all, Kenting is always awesome~!~

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Sun Moon Lake!

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Alexandra (Alex) Liu and I treated ourselves to a birthday day-cation at Sun Moon Lake in Nantou.

When we got there the lake was covered with fog and, while most people would be bummed, I was delighted! It was to perfect temperature and the fog . . . mist sounds better . . . was beautiful! (and of course no sun is always a good thing for me;)

However, due to the fog no boats could go out . . .

Sun Moon Lake is beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So we headed to the aboriginal village.

We took cable cars into the mist . . . at points you couldn't even see the mountains . . . it was so great!

The aboriginals seem to be more related to the Polynesians than Chinese.

Again, Beautiful!!!!!!!!!

Ok, cheesy tourist moment ;)

Katy

I don't really know what the significance of this is, but you know me and architecture.

Katy

This is one of the roller-coasters I went on . . . we got wet! The other one I went on was crazy fast! I forgot just how fun they are ;)

The fog/mist dissipated so Alex and I headed to went to catch a boat across the lake and ran into a group who wanted us to take their picture, so we had them take ours!

Katy, Alex

While we were too late to catch our package boat, we got a great deal with another boat and it included a stop off at the island in the lake

Katy

Alex

Katy

Now just enjoy the beauty of the lake at sunset

ctrl-click on a pic to see it full size!

Before heading home we grabbed some dinner: from the left, around Rice, veggies, deep-fried-whole shrimp, soup, veggies, deep-fried-whole fish with ginger, rice, and (in the middle) wild boar with skin (my favorite!).

Yes, I ate that ;)

I had an awesome Taiwanese pineapple smoothy

Alex had a fabulous Taiwan-style passion friut smoothy!

I couldn't figure out why it wasn't otopT, then I finally figured it out . . . like today . . . ;)

It was a wonderful day filled with serendipity!!!! From Having to go to the aboriginal village first, and catching the last cable car back (both times), to getting a boat at the perfect time for the sun-set, and having a great friend to experience it all with!

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Random Happiness, Taiwan 2011

Impromptu photo shoot in my writing class

Miss Katy

Thanks Yenna!

So I've been asked by a few fellow international travelers what the weird idem is on the McDonald's menu. Well here it is.

Shrimp Burger at McDonald's

Sadly by the time I went to get one they were gone . . . but the ones at MosBurger was good . . .

So . . . about a week after I got to Taiwan (the first week in July) I got two big spots by my collar bones, I didn't do anything about it because it never changed. . . . Then in March-ish it started getting hotter and I got more spots . . . . Finally I went to the dermatologist and found out that my own sweat was causing a dermal-fungus (at least that's what I got through the translation).

. . . fungal-spots . . .

Destiny's 24th birthday was on March 28 and on the Saturday before we went to a great Thai restaurant that her Chinese Lao Shi brought us to.

This was a great coconut dessert ;)

Katy, Chinese Lao Shi, Awesome Thai Elephant, Destiny

On her actual birthday we went bowling!

Destiny and her favorite pineapple-cake

Katy, Allison, Destiny, Shauntelle

HAPPY B-DAY MISS D!

On April 2nd Destiny and I went to Taipei. We went to the temple then to a dance production at the Sun Yet-sen Memorial of traditional Chinese dancing with a few Chinese operatic solos. The group also had a a strong political agenda. They were trying to get the word out about the Falun Gong (Dafa) issue in mainland China. The whole thing was very interesting.

Katy, Destiny, Sun Yat-sen as a statue

Only in Asia Ad:

Can you guess what this is an advertisement of? Look closely, what is he holding? You can see the top half of the product at the bottom of the pic.

Yep, that's Matsumoto Jun of the Japanese boy band, Arashi, and he is advertising Mascara . . .

Good-bye Greenes! The Greenes were the couple missionaries in our branch. Elder Greene was a counselor in the branch presidency. They were both so amazing, they were very missed when they left.

Elder Greene, Katy, Sister Greene

Jenny, Sister Greene, Elder Greene

On May 14 I went to Hsinchu to hang with my good friend Erin Shaw. We went to a great burger place, randomly came across a beautiful temple . . .

Erin Saw

Katy

Then we decided to get our hair cut! While we waited for our appointment we went shoe shopping!!! Two shoes later:

Katy, Erin

On the 21st I went 'camping' with some of Berhan's Chinese staff including Frances and Gerald (who's birthday was apperently that day, so they had to go get cake, which he doesn't eat . . . but we liked it!) We also were able to go see the fireflies!!! Fireflies are such a trip!

The people camping next to us must have been a dog-lovers-group. How many dogs can you see?

There are at least 8 dogs just in this picture!

Uncle, ?, ?, ?, ?, Cindy, Peggy's daughter, Peggy, ?, ?, Gerald, ?, Seth, Katy, ?, ?, Frances, ?, Andy

Thursday-Friday, May 26th-27th, 2011: My 27th Birthday!

You see, I got a second Golden Birthday! How? Well, I was born at 8:22pm MST on the 26th, but that was 10:22am CST on the 27th. So, because I was living in CST I get a second golden birthday!!!!

Betsy took me to chill-out at Starbucks (Thank you!) and then Thursday night I had my night KE class soooooo . . . photo shoot!