Once in a Life Time... Day at the beach!

Our day started out as just a normal day... we walked around through the street vendors in search of food before heading to the beach for a day of relaxing adventuring!
To get to the beach we take the MRT, which is an underground public subway station, then walk to a fairy and ride the fairy to this very small island. It is a little bit of a long haul, but it is worth it in the end of the day, especially with the day we had today!

Today's events:
First - Once we got to the island we made our way to the bottom of this small mountain that we were going to climb, looking for some killer views. We found this small local shop that sold cute survivors, we picked up a few postcards and what not; if you recall, everything here is incredibly cheap!! The best thing we found at this shop was a little drink, that almost looked and tasted like a plastic bottle of sprite, however it opened like champagne! You peeled the top off, pushed down the cap, and then when you released your thumb, the top went flying into the air! It was definitely a fun way to kick off our day we had laying ahead of us.
Next - we were off to climb up the mountain, with our refreshing drinks in hand. After a brisk workout on the legs and lungs, we were at the top where a small light house was located, over looking the island and the main continent. We got a few awesome pictures, caught our breath and then were on our way. Next stop along the top of this mountain was a old abandoned military base. Which also had an incredible view of the island and the beach we were detouring to. There were many levels to the military base, but all wide open to the sky. We even got to see the rooms in which the soldiers lived in. So many cargo ships and boats lined the horizon as far out into the ocean that we could see, the sight was impossible to capture by picture and unable to be explained by words.
After that - we headed back down the path on the mountain to head to the beach! We were walking down the road the bordered parallel to the beach, when we found this local surf shop. Zoe had aspirations to learn to surf on her trip here, and now looked like a better time than any, so we were all on board, but their were no waves today where they taught lessons, so we would have to wait for a later day! That was okay, the people were very nice, and they had a bar at the surf shop that we were definitely going to come back to later, we had yet to grab a beer since we have been here!
Finally - we get to the beach, get all set up and all of our sunscreen on to finally relax. It felt great to just be laying in the warm sun feeling the warmth of the sand seep through the towel and onto your back while the cool breeze blew across your skin, listening to the waves crash in the shore (that specific description was mostly for those of you enjoying the cold Iowa winter back home still hehe)
Water time - Man, im not sure where they teach surfing lessons, but it definitely is not on this same shore because the waves were awesome! We jumping over them, bearing their strong hits, diving through them, having a great time. Apparently the water was a little too rough for the guard's liking on duty because we got the whistle blown at us for being out too far without some time of board. That's alright, we could have probably used a break anyways.
Beer-Thirty - it was time to take a walk back to the bar and grab a beer to accompany us at the beach. We were listening to"Toes in the water, ass in the sand" and if you have ever hear that song, it is impossible to not want a cold beverage. Us three girls went to go retrieve the goodies while Ky held down the fort on the beach. This was a bad idea because we ended up talking with the people who owned/worked at the bar for quite some time. Everyone here is very friendly once we can find someone who we can actually communicate with, and these people were no exception! They own a single hotel room that is above their bar, we were very confused when they wanted to show us it because we really had no idea what they meant. The hostile over looked the beach, had its own room, porch, bath on the deck, dinning area, it was amazing, and right above the bar! You cannot get much closer than that. One thing I realized from talking with our new friends was that everyone leads such different lives, and it is so interesting to hear about them. Some moving here from Malaysia after growing up in the Philippines. Some who have lived here their whole life. Most of the people here worked day jobs of sorts of engineers and then surfed all weekend. Some surfed every day all day and just worked at the shop. We actually met a police officer that works in the district in which our apartments are located! A Taiwanese air-force pilot (who was wearing a USA shirt, haha)! We met someone who grew up in Colorado, who has been living here for four years and loves it! So many stories, its so very cool. Coolest part of making new friends and taking the time to learn about them and their life, you get invited to cool things...we got invited to their exclusive surf party that they were hosting later this very evening! We were unsure about going, but how incredibly awesome! So after a while we thought we better go back to the beach and rescue Ky and assure him that we are in fact still alive.
Our last dip - Not 100% sure how or why but we ended up getting back in the water one last time before wrapping up! The sun was starting to set and the water seemed if it had gotten warmer and the waves were bigger. We were intrigued by these guys who had been skim boarding all afternoon, like a mix between surfing and knee boarding kind of i think, they were still st it at this point and were closer to our area. We ended up talking to them and they convinced us to try and teach us how to do it. Sam, a older retired guy, said he comes out to the beach everyday to do this, it showed, he was way better than all the younger ones! What a life to live! We tried.. key work tried, it was a lot harder than it looked. He also taught us how to physically do a flip in the air over an oncoming wave, it looked so hard and we thought we were all going to eat it when we tried, but it was the easiest thing ever, and it looks so incredible to watch, who would have thought!
Decision time - we informed Ky of the party we had been invited too, not sure if we wanted to go. It was already getting dark, so we thought it wouldn't hurt to stick around a little while longer just to stop by. They did go the extra mile to offer us exceptional hospitality at the bar, so we thought it would only be right. we showed up, and it was so awesome, they were just having a party to celebrate spring and kicking off the year with their friends. We felt so honored to be invited to such an exclusive event. Everyone there, even if we did not already meet them at the bar, so so welcoming to us foreign people crashing their party. It was such a unique experience to have, going to this small party. We got to see how regular people living in Taiwan might have a get-together or celebration. At this party in particular, they all brought gifts to be exchanged and then they each received a number that connected to a gift. They had to do something, like a dance or a game, in order to earn their gift. There were a ton of young children just strapped to their mothers, becoming familiar with the surf family life. I was unaware that anyone here really 'partied' from the lack of bars that we have seen; but these people proved us wrong! We stayed for a while, and met some more incredible people, I have actually started keeping a list of names of people we have met and a small reminder quality about them for memory. Once we decided to head home, it was only about 8 o'clock, but it felt like about midnight!! We walked to the fairy, rode it back to the main island, and got home not too long afterwards.
Needless to say, we got home and slept very hard this night.
What an amazing day! Literally everything that happened today was such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we were so shocked by everything that we had just done. It was like living in a dream. We never thought when we were eating lunch, before starting our day that we were going to have such amazing opportunities as these.
Today set the bar high for the weekends to follow!
Here are just a few pictures below, I wish I had more to share with you!