After about two and a half or three hours we had arrived in Hualien, from the train station we took a taxi to our next Hostel because it was quite a hefty walking distance, and we really didn't have the energy to get lost and make it an even longer walk. Our hostel here was called Monkey Surfing and it was super cute; you walked into front gated patio area which lead inside to the dinning and kitchen area and had a staircase that lead to all of the rooms. We found our room, put our stuff down and went to go find dinner. Similar to home, we just walked down the street until something looked good. We hit a jackpot and found super amazing dumplings and soup. On our walk home from dinner, we found a book store that had second hand books for sale, of course we went in, were teachers! We spent at least an hour here, and easily could have spent more. Most of the books were in Chinese, but a good number of them were in English, we even found a pile of old children's books. Let's just say its a good thing we all have to be mindful of how much stuff we are bringing home. Once we made it back home we set off to bed to get some sleep for the next day.
Monday morning, we woke up and walked to the bus station where we were going to take us bus to Taroko National Park. We planned to be gone all day, so we packed waters, lunches, snacks, sunscreen, the whole nine yards and headed out the door. The bus was about an hour to hour and a half until to got to the furthest point of Taroko. Our plan was to hike a few trails, which seems like a do-able plan, but it was schedules to take us all day; and it did. We hiked three or four different trails, and I think we were done by about 5 pm. The views were again, incredible. Nothing I have ever seen compares to them. And as I have said many times before, I almost don't want to post pictures of this day because they really do not represent anything close to what it was like to be there in real life. I was telling the others after we finished hiking, that this was going to be the first day that I was not excited to see what kind of pictures we got because they would not compare to what we had just finished seeing. By the time we got done, we were so physically exhausted once we stopped moving around, we pretty much went home, got dinner, and went straight to bed... again!
Ashley and I got a little closer on this day as we would hold hands through all of the dark caves we had to walk through in which you could not see a single thing! Eeeeek!
Tuesday, our last day before we returned home. This day was an interesting day, we had plans to go white water rafting, and no one really knew what to expect from the day. We had pre-determined plans that one of our coordinators set-up for us, which was super awesome because booking transportation and tickets is next to impossible without speaking some Chinese. So, that being said, we were super thankful to have it all sorted out for us, but for that same reason we were a little uncertain on what was supposed to happen and where we were supposed to be at certain times. We originally thought we were taking a train to Ruisui in the morning and getting picked up by the rafting company to be taken to the river. We found out that was not the case Monday night, and started scrambling to figure out what the actual plan was but it was a little difficult because the rafting place was closed so we could not ask them. Joyce, one of our coordinators, came in to save the day again and called them to figure it out. In the morning, the rafting company's transportation crew picked us up right outside the hostel which was awesome because we did not have to worry about getting anywhere in the morning. We checkout out from the hostel and brought all of our stuff with us when we got picked up. The van brought us to the bus station where we got on a bus and rote that for about two hours to Ruisui where the rafting company was located. Here is where the adventure started. We were the only Americans there, which is not a huge shock, but no one here that worked at the rafting company spoke any English, at all. So when we showed up we had no idea what to do or where to go beyond paying for the rafting at the front desk because we knew how much it was from the planning. After we paid, we were literally just standing around probably looking like lost puppies while everyone around us ran around. We started aimlessly walking around trying to follow what other people were doing when one of the people who worked there came up to us and started speaking in Chinese like it looked like we could understand him just fine! HA when he finally figured out we had no clue what he was saying, he just started leading us around and modeling what we had to do. So first we went to get rafting shoes, leading us to a room in the back of the shop which is always scary at first. Once we found our shoes we then got taken to put our backpacks in a giant zip duffel bag which he proceeded to to then zip up and then zip tie the zippers together...there went access to all of our belongings, phones and all! It was all good, we just had to get through it, this was a good experience for us all to feel what some of our students might feel like when thrown into a completely different environment and language. Anyway, the workers started collecting everyone for a safety briefing, which was alllllll in Chinese and no modeling or examples at all. Keep in mind that I have never been white water rafting, so at this point I really thought I was going to die when we got out there because I was going to have no idea what to do. The guy talked for a good solid 15 minutes, all that we had no idea what he said and then they were distributing life vests and helmets (I was thankful we got them, at one point in time, I was unsure that we were going to). Then we took a walk down to the river where our rafts awaited us, we were grouped with five other Taiwanese guys that looked to be about our age but couldn't know for sure. We got on the raft, which you straddled the outer edge, I was unaware that this was not normal until the others expressed so. Once we got into the water we quickly found out that the people we had been paired with had no idea to paddle. The water we got put in at was very slow moving so we could get an idea of our barrings and how to maneuver the boat. I almost wish we just went right into the rapids because we seriously had to teach the other five how to hold the paddle, which way to move it in the water in order to move forward, how to turn by only having one side paddle... fewph! It was a long start to the day. THEN, out of nowhere as another boat was passing by our side, the five guys just yelled "ATTACK!!!" at the top of their lungs and started throwing loads of water at the other boat with their paddles, we were cracking up in complete. We were glad they knew how to use their paddles for something! lol Okay so longer story short... other things that happened... Zoey lost a paddle and a shoe which was fun, Ky's shoes were about six sizes too small because big feet really do not exist here, we had no tour/boat guide and I guess that is not normal, the guides were in their own motor powered boat, they would drive as fast as they could at our rafts and ramp their boats into our in order to redirect us if got off track.. yeah its was probably the most dangerous part of the experience! The first time white water rafting was an interesting one, and the 'rapids' were pretty low-key, but I guess it was better than being too intense. I will probably have to try it again in the US sometime! About three hours later, we finally make it to our destination, got out of our raft (found a random sandal on the shoreline that we made Zoey wear so she could climb up the rocks - yanno, since she lost one of her rafting shoes) then we got to change and eat lunch, which was good for everyone's insanity! Oh, and we got our belongings back so that was a nice surprise haha
It was time to head out of there and get to our train home! We were under the impression that we would take the bus and get dropped off at the bus station, but again, no one we were with could speak English... so when an older guy approached us motioning of us to get into his van we all had different thoughts racing through our minds. Eventually, three guys that were also going to the train station and could also speak a tiny amount of English reassured us that this was where we were supposed to be. It was in a similar looking van as the one we took this morning so it seemed legit. About 10 minutes into the drive, all three of us girls were fast asleep, the day must have been too much to handle. Good ole' Ky, who has acted as dad for us many other times on this trip, stayed awake to make sure that were going to the right place and what not (and to take funny pictures of us sleeping). We made it to the train station, and had about an hour to spare but we had no energy to walk around and explore especially with all of our luggage with us, we we found some benches and waited... well we fell asleep and Ky waited again, to make sure that we did not miss our train! We would still be sleeping there if it wasn't for him. We made it onto the train, and had a bout a four hour ride home. I never thought I would be so glad to be back at my apartment in Kaohsiung, but man it felt good to be back. Now we just had to scrape up the energy to get through three days of school ahead of us.
Our last day of vacation might have been a chaotic one, but I still don't think I would have traded the experience for anything else, we had fun and make some unforgettable memories together! Plus, now we have been the first Taiwan student teaching group that has traveled the entire island! woot woot
We love Taiwan!!
We are officially over half way done here, we are all having some mixed emotions about that fact! Definitely excited and ready to go home to see family, but will probably miss Taiwan more than we are ready for 💗
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