Evergreen Transit Hotel Taoyuan

... a SCUBA diving trip with a bunch of Taiwanese people I had never met before. I got hooked up with them through a friend and they spoke enough English to get by. My diving experiences in Taiwan had been thus far limited to Fulong and I was anxious to get some more dives under my newly acquired Advanced Open Water certification. Everyone in Taiwan was always talking about Green Island and Orchid Island

In October I went to Matsu. Matsu is a group of islands that are really close to China...but still a part of Taiwan. Taiwan has a lot of off-shore islands. The Kinmen islands are the closest to China...and Matsu isn't far behind. I went with 5 friends Meghan (my roomate), Megan, Dawn, Josh and Alex. We all took a bus to Taipei early on a Friday morning and then flew to Beigan...the second largest island of the Matsu group. We arrived there late afternoon and noticed ...

So I arrived and was basically exhausted, that's why I didn't add an entry for the 30th. The next we went to meet our friends Daniel and Nadia in Taoyuan. We were planning on having a barbecue, but due to the rain we just grabbed snacks at the ever present 7-Eleven and played poker all night. Taoyuan is a larger suburb of Taipei, technically it's own city and county. It takes roughly an hour ...

... of Taiwan do...so we had to use our fingerprints :p). We gave them two month's worth or rent, the security fee and also paid Century 21 their commission. We moved in on March 23rd. I got my personal trainer from the gym: Jerry, to come over and use his truck to ferry our belongings back and forth. Meghan obviously had WAY less stuff than me. I left Brazil with pretty much all of my worldly possessions...and this was AFTER I had thrown a bunch of **** out and donated a ton of clothes ...

... intuition." Most of the times kids are just clowns and their limited English and propensity to mispronounce things adds to the humor factor. Most of the times I am just in stitches. These are the best teaching days...when they feel more like fun and games instead of actual work. Other days...not so fun. Item #5: So there is this guy who lives on the 4th floor called Alex. His friend Kimmi came down to Taiwan to work as a teacher here for a year. She got a job with this ...

... main countries in the region (Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan), there are several other "breakaway republics" and disputed territories (ever heard of "Nagorno-Karabakh"?). I have only seen this region from high above (a day-flight from Bangkok to Munich), but isn't the Caucasus mountains beautiful? Just wondering when Intrepid or G.A.P. will start offering tours to this region... 5. Central Asia: Also moved up two notches. Most of them are also former USSR republics like the Caucasus ...

Rome to Hong Kong/Taipei flight. Pick-up was half hour early causing a lats minute panic to get out of the room - what have we left behind? Then spent half-hour waiting for next passenger at some toher Hotel before setting off for the airport and going right past our apartment again. Pick-up could have effectively been an hour later. Then we encountered a major traffic snarl caused by a freeway accident and the other passenger ...

... up and have 165 other deities for your worshiping pleasure. Different gods do different things - there's gods for health, 'scholarly pursuits', military things, business... The list goes on an on! In the big house in the middle is the main altar room - it's very decadently decorated, lots of murals, carvings, gold, statues. People hold their incense and bow to the statue again here, maybe stopping to use oracle blocks again or read from some ...

... it's all here. The Kuomintang evacuated the Forbidden City when the Japanese invaded, then shipped it all here from Southern China during the revolution. Most of the exhibits were various bits of pottery, bronze ware, stuff like that. Not too impressive, until you looked at the dates - a lot of this stuff is almost 8 or 9 THOUSAND years old! They even had huge painting scrolls that are about 2 thousand years old. Rather sobering... One piece that was ...

... first experience in Taiwan too. Chinese people like to eat and try the specialities of every region! I am expecting to try a lot of stuff during that trip because of my roomate. We arrive in Taipei and drop our luggages to the a super luxuous hotel (the concierge felt in love with me because I could speak spanish with him). We first go to Ximen to try the famous long and thin min sian noodle in soup. My roomate is so exited about it. Its good but ...