Kavalan Hotel Lotung

... mountains surround you on both sides. Our first stop was the National Center for Traditional arts.

The layout of the National Center for Traditional Arts was designed to resemble older Taiwanese streets. Additionally, we toured the exhibition halls displaying various forms of Traditional Taiwanese art along with ...

... path of vendors to the sidewalk that leads to the beach. A drunken monkey could have found, no offense to you monkeys out there. The admission was 90 NT, I'd never paid to get in to a beach before, but 90 NT wasn't bad. There was a huge bridge that went over a tributary and took us to the actual beach, which was a peninsula of sorts. It was pretty hot when we got there at 10 am and it only got hotter. I was the only one in a bikini for a long time and most of the girls there wore whole ...

... an und unterhält keine diplomatischen Beziehungen zu Taiwan. Es bestehen keine völkerrechtlichen Abkommen. Es gibt nur noch knapp 20 Staaten, die Taiwan anerkennen (zB Malawi, welches im Moment vom Mainland mit einer Entwicklungshilfe von 500 Millionen Dollar gekoedert wird, doch die Seite zu wechseln). Auch bei der UNO hat es keinen Sitz (da Mainland China dort "ein China" vertritt ...

...just without internet access for awhile. Also my new boss has been keeping me busy ever night(I think he's trying to implant some very good first impressions of my new digs :) , so haven't made it to an internet access point in awhile. They also frown(i.e. write people up) for using company time to access personal e-mail, so didn't want to get written up in my first 90 days. :) I have been working with them on easing that up during off business hours/lunch ...

... and then went back into the city for a bit of shopping and dinner. I informed Professor Lee of my plans to return to the apartment at 22:00. When I got back to my room, though, he wasn't there. I was on the verge of going to bed at 23:00 when Professor Lee finally showed up - much to my surprise in the company of Ruby, the other Hospitality Club member who had showed me around for a day on my previous visit to Taipei a week or so earlier. We sat around ...

... sea, past the Wujie Tide Gate. The bikeway leads me north through the coastal flora to the mouth of Dongshan river. For a while I sit in the sand by the coast and watch some fishermen fly-fishing in the ocean. Thereafter I ride south through the dense vegetation and see many wild chicken fleeing in panic. In a small fishing village I sit down under a tree in ...

... with the greatest hits of George Michael (damn hostel and its stupid repeating CD), which makes for an interesting moped ride - 'I will be your father figure', followed by wicked witch music, followed by ''cause you gotta have faith', followed by more wicked witch music! Wow, I just re-read that last sentence - I sound PSYCHO! haha Anyway, I get to the park HQ, grab a map and head off. Basically, the photos can do a better ...

... hopefully help fight the fatigue from all the work you had to do to get to that moment. This big Autumn Moon holiday has led into Oct. 10th's National Day which is particularly interesting this year, but more on that in a bit. One of my first nights here I met Ajay, a guy my age from Bangalore working here on a 6 month contract. An MBA, he talked about both history and the modern world with an interesting, business-minded lens: ("Christianity was in part so successful ...

... pop singer on the radio, and off on our first adventure...First we go to Alice's friends' home for juice, then walk around the corner for a traditional breakfast of fried bread wrapped in baked bread, pork dumplings (not for me) and interesting shrimp/rice squares. Top it off with a glass of iced soy milk and before 8am we are done with breakfast and starting our tour. We walk to a metro station, get off to see a great memorial of Ching Ki Shek (amazing architecture ...

... in Taipei. Unlike our toilets with seats in the States, Taiwan's toilets look much like urinals set in the floor. Instead of sitting, people squat and go. So my college hallmates had been standing on the toilets to go when they first came to America. And because of problems with water pressure and plumbing in Taiwan, used toilet paper goes into the garbage can not down the toilet. Takes some getting used to. One positive ...