Well, here we are back at the hotel in Sanxia instead of visiting school today. Another American teacher at the school, the friend for whom we also brought items in the "Santa Suitcase", has a migraine today and called in sick. Therefore the person we were supposed to spend the morning with at school is subbing for Melissa, so our visit is postponed until tomorrow. Another teacher at the school had some migraine medicine for Melissa, so we rode Paul and Alana's bicycles down to her apartment on a "drug run" - HAHA!! We then returned the bikes to the school and hopped back on the bus to the hotel. So we'll be productive today and do laundry, update the blog, check email, and rest up a little. We brought Paul's computer with us, so hopefully I'll finally upload pics with this longer amount of time here.
Now for a little update and more details that we've left out in the last few days. On Monday night after all the hiking, Alana looked online for an Italian restaurant, and we took a taxi there. The food was delicious - starting with lettuce salad with some strawberry yogurt dressing, and carrots & pumpkin seeds. The soup was kind of like a sweet corn chowder - yum. The pasta was a little different, but good too. After dinner we walked for a while, then got a taxi to the night market. It's kind of like a Taiwanese version of the midway at the Iowa State Fair, minus the rides. Lots of little stands hawking trinkets, food, and games of chance. It was full of families, little kids, and lots and lots of people!! We didn't stay long since we didn't need any more food after our wonderful dinner, but it was fun to see the night markets. Paul was pleased that we got to smell the famous "stinky tofu" --- it's a deep-fried delicacy that is truly an awful smell, but they love to eat it here. We did NOT try it!! It seriously smells like nasty hog manure that's been sitting out in the heat a while. I can't imagine even getting it close to my mouth!! After we got back to the hotel, we had our complimentary glass of wine and collapsed in bed for a great night's sleep at the Charming City Hotel!!
In the morning, we slept in a little, had breakfast, then got ready to check out. (My new foods for breakfast included boiled kale, some skinny little noodles, and another kind of chicken since there were no eggs. Watermelon is a good staple and is always on the breakfast buffets. I really love the hot tea every morning too!!) Since our train didn't leave until 3:00, and our check-out time was 11:00, the hotel let us leave our luggage in the office for a few hours. We took a taxi to a beautiful beach south of Hualien, where we frolicked in the sea!! The drive was along the coast on winding roads up the sides of mountains rising up almost straight from the ocean. I can't remember if we mentioned that we picked up some beach towels at Carrefour earlier. (We did the same thing in 1984 to go to the beach in Nice, France, so now we have beach towels from three continents.) :-)
The beach was black sand, but very, very soft. Alana didn't get in the water, so she watched our stuff under a big umbrella on the beach, reading magazines we had brought for Melissa. Paul, Tim, and I just had a great time in the waves. The water was very warm, there was a little undertow, but not bad, and the waves were crashing nicely, so we did some body surfing. There were no sharp rocks in the water either, so it was very easy on the feet. We had to leave after about an hour and a half, and there were nice restroom/shower facilities for us to get cleaned up before we left. After another taxi ride back to the hotel (close to an hour each way), we collected our luggage and walked a few blocks to the train station. We were going to have another PBJ lunch on the train, but while we were waiting, Paul and Tim got Cokes at the 7-Eleven in the train station. I spotted some frozen mango sorbet push-up type things that Melissa had highly recommended, so I went with the "dessert-first" theory of nutrition and bought some for us all!! It was delicious, and very refreshing as an appetizer since lunch on the train was so late. :-) The train ride was again full of beautiful scenery - countryside, towns, beaches, shrines, agriculture, etc. There are lots of banana trees!
When we got back to Taipei, we quickly transfered to the MRT and rode the subway to P/A's church where we all went to their small-group meeting. The group is not so small any more, so this was the first meeting where they split up into 3 groups, with P/A being leaders for one group. We enjoyed participating and meeting the others. Everyone else is Asian except one American who was in another group. Afterwards, we headed back to Sanxia again via subway and then bus to our Hotel Fullon - and P/A continued farther to the bus stop in front of their apartment.
When I tried to use the hotel washer/dryer the first time, I could never figure out how to get the washer to spin, so the clothes just drained forever, then I finally pulled them out an wrung them by hand as well as I could before drying them. So today, a Taiwanese man was just putting clothes in the washer when we got up here, so I asked if I could watch him to learn how to operate the machine. Well, there is no spin cycle action for him either, so Tim called the front desk, and now 3 guys are trying to figure it out. We're pretty sure the machine isn't working properly, so it wasn't just me! I thought the first gal who tried to show me the washer had pointed to a button for spin, but it never worked, so I figured I just didn't understand. I'm really glad this other guest could explain the problem in Chinese, so they didn't just think I was stupid or impatient!! We've had a nice conversation with him for nearly an hour already. His high school English is really pretty good, though sometimes it takes several tries for us to understand one another. He's so sweet!!
Paul and Alana have a lot of work to do over their lunch time today (12-2), so they're staying at school and we're on our own. I'm hoping to convince Tim to try their favorite dumpling place again - yum!! :-) Then after school they have to stay late again, so we're playing it by ear for supper. Thankfully, we have Alana's phone, so they can just call us to make arrangements later. That has been so nice for communicating. Well, now I'll go work on pictures and videos.
Love you!!
-M and T-
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