Ali Mt Resort Chiayi

Mom arrived on Friday at about 5:30am. We left the airport by shuttle bus to the high speed train station. We took a high speed train which travels around 250 km/h to Chiayi and a cab straight to the apartment. First we got some breakfast at the Orange Kitchen, yummy bagels. Then we took naps. After that we woke up, stopped in quickly at my school and then headed to the Freen. We were joined by Erin and Sam. We ...

We all headed out for dinner at the Balcony to celebrate Theresa's birthday! I personally did not have the snails but I thought it made for an interesting picture. We had kung pow chicken, spicy tofu, steamed cabbage, rice, a couple beef dishes and I think at least one more green veggie dish. The food there is very good! We finished off with some cake and the traditional little song for Theresa!

Philippines Trip:



March 7th 2009 – April 23rd 2009



If you can ignore the sweltering summer heat, horrendously ****** drivers and lack of organization anywhere the nice thing about living in Taiwan – besides the lack of snow, affordable accommodation, cheap food, and relatively high wage compared to cost of living – is it's location relative to some truly tantalising vacation spots.

I would imagine that, at this point ...

... costume had to change his clothes as he was drenched, the rest of us settled in for some games. Then all the foreign teachers had to get ready in the haunted house. Now I've been dreading for the past month that the kids were going to call us out for being lame but most of them were scared. There were lots of tears, some only got as far as through the tunnel entrance way when Talitha reached out for them dressed ...

... we can't be there. Yep, definitely ran on into a temple during Ghost Month. There were many tables full of offerings to deceased family members. If we weren't going to pray we had to leave. We were tempted but thought better of it. Next are a few pictures of downtown Chiayi at night. Our scooter lessons! (Theresa was a pro at this point and didn't have to join us ...

Heisse Quellen, dafuer ist Taiwan beruehmt! Aber heisse Schlammquellen gibt es auch hier nur selten, von der Art, wie in Guanziling ueberhaupt nur an drei Orten weltweit!!! Von unserer "Homebase" Tainan ist das auch nur ein Katzensprung entfernt, und so war es klar, dass wir da mal hinmussten... Das Dorf liegt ein bisschen im Gebirge und schon auf der Hinfahrt sind mir ziemlich grosse Tontoepfe (ca. 1m hoch ...

... the company had still been at its old location. He leaves and comes back after 10 minutes with two Tombretta coffees - very nice of him and for us a "real" wake up elexir in the early morning hours. We get the next bus, which comes also early - this time we are prepared and take the advantage - and we arrive in Fongbin short past 7:00am, walk a bit through the village and have breakfast at a local breakfast store. 8:30 we are on our feet to walk the 19 km to ...

... coastal mountain range and into the inner rift valley several times. Today we will begin with a completely new connection, but we are even not sure it is open yet: No. 30 from Antong to a village on the coast. At 7:45am ( 15 minutes delayed ) we get the bus to Antong, one of the hot spring villages in the Rift Valley. We walk into Antong, past several new hot spring hotels and finally have our breakfast ( pau mien and cholcolate ) in the oldest hot ...

... into the house. A few times it looks as if they could succeed, but he always escapes from the house time after time. I watch for a while considering if I should say something or not. Finally I appeal friendly ( as I can ), but clearly that he may be more quiet, hoping that a foreign guest's wish may bring some sense into his empty brain. After about 10 minutes it becomes quiet. All this happens between 2 and 3:30am in the night. I still find another 3 hours ...

... cross way called Ba Tong Guan and end in Dong Pu, a hot spring mountain village on the west side. All the things he carries with him are extra light and extra expensive ( backpack only 1kg, sleeping bag for 0C at 10.000NTD, no tent ). His whole luggage is 15 kg ( similar to mine ) including noodles, apples and tomatoes. As he is a medicine student I ask him for high altitude sickness remedies. He suggest to try Viagra as it has turned out to be ...