Ok, so I haven't written anything here in a really long time. Quick update - I'm back in California working at my old job, the one I swore I'd never go back to. Anyways... Since it's been soo long I guess I should explain how it is I am back here and what's happened in between my last actual post that wasn't just photos. And, I won't be posting photos on here anymore... I'm much happier with the layout at photoblog.com for photos. I think there's a link on the sidebar to my page there.
So, where to begin? I guess the last thing I wrote about here was back in like July. At that point I had decided that the next big thing I wanted to do was go travel in South America. Unfortunately I hadn't saved much money while I worked in Taiwan so I needed to save some up fast before I could go to south america. So I decided to contact my old boss and see if he needed any short term help this fall, he did so I gave 2 months notice at my school in Taiwan. Those 2 months flew by. My parents were coming to visit at the end of August when I finished teaching and we planned to spend 10 days in Taiwan and then 4 in Kyoto, Japan.
I realized about a month before I was booked to go to Japan that my visa would expire days before I was to leave. So I had two options, either just overstay it and pay the fine when I left or make a visa run to Hong Kong and come back in and be given another 30 days to legally be in Taiwan. So, the weekend before my parents arrived I went to Hong Kong overnight and came back the day before my parents arrived. As it turns out, I got the wrong stamp coming back in and technically overstayed the visa. I talked my way out of the fine though and everything was ok.
So, my classes were all ending in August. I really loved pretty much all of my classes. I think there was only one co-teacher I had that was difficult to teach with and only a handful of kids that were trouble out of all my classes. I already miss them all a lot! I hadn't realized how strong of a connection I had made with my students until I was leaving. I was just now practicing writing some Chinese and remembered how they'd correct my writing before classes, I'm on my own with it now and it's probably full of mistakes!
My parents arrived and I had 2 days of teaching left. During the day before I taught, we were busy. My Chinese teacher, Bobo, wanted to have them over for tea and then take us to lunch at hot pot. I took my parents to Taipei and to Keelung up on the north shore during those two days. Then the real touring started. We went to the beach I used to surf at where I had my best day of surfing yet (and is also the last time I've gone surfing). Then we took the train down the east coast to Hualien where we rented a car. We drove up into Taroko gorge for the day and returned the car that evening. Then we took the train down to Taitung. The next day we took a boat out to Green Island. We rented scooters out there and had a great time driving around, snorkeling and visiting the salt water hot springs. Then we went back to the mainland and just barely caught a train to Tainan over on the west coast. The next day was spent getting up to Alishan by train. That is the craziest train ride I've ever been on. It was like 5 hours to go 42 miles climbing close to 7000ft. We walked around up there and then the next morning I walked the short hike up to the sunrise viewing area. My parents planned to take a train, but due to some mis-communication they missed it. We got back to Taoyuan that evening. I had one last night out with my friends there before we left for Japan the next day.
Japan was amazing. So different from Taiwan. It was much cleaner and people were a lot more formal. I also liked the food a lot more. We spent all four days in Kyoto seeing all there is to see there. Lots of temples and shrines. It was very relaxing and also really interesting. I took a lot of pictures there, I've posted them on my photoblog site.
After four days in Japan, my parents flew back to New York and I returned for one last night final night in Taiwan. A bunch of my friends, co-teachers and I had a small party and went out to our favorite bar (which they opened just for us since they don't normally open on Mondays). It was a lot of fun and made me really hungover for my 4pm flight the next afternoon.
When I got back, I spent 2 nights down in NYC at my old house-mate from college's place. It was really cool to see James and Chris down there, I hadn't seen James since the day we moved out at the end of university, and I hadn't seen Chris since he transferred to Cornell back in like 3rd year.
While I was home it was great to see all my family and friends that I hadn't seen since I left for Taiwan. I went up to Montreal and saw one of my other old house-mates, Phil. I also went up to Vermont to my brother's fiancee's mother's house near Stowe. That was just before I started driving out to California in a slightly newer BMW than my last one.
The drive was long. I made it to Denver on my second day and stayed with my friends Mike and Anita, a couple that I taught with in Taiwan. It was really awesome to see them, I ended up staying two nights there. I spent the next night in Wyoming and then saw Travis in Lake Tahoe, one of my best friends. And now, I'm sitting in a trailer at a drill site in the geysers in northern California looking forward to my first stretch of time off when I plan to head over to the coast to camp and surf for a bit.
Until then, hope everyone is well! Check out my pictures over on photoblog at this site!
