This is another two day entry because I was too tired and too burned to write last night.
OWE!!!! I am sooooo red. Nancy and I went to Jici Beach yesterday because it's one of the few beaches that you are allowed to swim at. It's ridiculous. I most definitely put on SPF 50 sun block before we went out, and I even re-applied in the middle of our day, but I am still lobster red! SPF 50! and I'm still bright red! Dang shoot, I've got to be a whole lot more careful when I'm in the sun from now on, because the sun is more intense here or something.
We were going to try to be at the bus station by 8:00am yesterday morning, but Nancy fell asleep when she was supposed to be doing homework the night before, so she had to write a paper before we could go, so we got a little bit later start, which turned out to be a-okay. We got to the bus stations right after 9am and handed the ticket girl a note that one of the mom's wrote for us. The note let them know that we wanted to go to Jici beach and also asked them to tell us what times the buses would come back. So, we got our tickets and they wrote down the times that bus would come back. The manager of the bus station (I'm guessing he's the
manger, but he could not be) told us that we had just missed the other bus and that the next one would come at 10am. I had a feeling we had just missed the bus because the station was pretty much empty when we got there, but it was fine because there was some kind of street market set up along the next few roads, so we went exploring at the stores for a while. The tables and tents were set up all along this one road and it extended for at least a quarter of a mile I would guess, and then it would also flow into to some side streets for a little bit. Most of the booths were fruit or vegetable stands, but there were a few "things" booths that we stopped and looked at. I am really interested in buying at least one pair of shoes here. Some of the shoes are absolutely, ridiculously hideous, but there are some that I am so intrigued by. So I'll probably end up with a pair or two, but yesterday was not a day for shopping, I hadn't taken that much money with me because we were going to the beach and I had money to get me there and back, and more because I didn't know how much it would cost, so I was better safe then sorry. But, I did get to practice a few Chinese phrases yesterday at the market. We saw a watch place, and I needed a watch, but I wanted a cheap one and I had seen one at the downtown market for 100NT$ and so if by some chance one of these watches, that looked way better, were only 100NT$, I would get it. So I asked "doushao qian?" which means "how much is this?" he told me it was 100NT$, so I was pleasantly surprised and bought it. I said "xie-xie", meaning "thank you", and an older man looking at watches turned to me and said "you have very nice Chinese" I thanked him and was pretty happy, but as we were walking away, Nancy goes "it's kind of funny that you said one thing and he thinks that you have good Chinese" yeah, okay, I'm not that great, and I even had Nancy remind me how to ask "how much is it?" But at the market I had plenty of practice saying "bu yao, xie-xie" which means "I don't want it, thank you"
At 9:50 we went to wait for our 10 o'clock bus, but again, we had the tickets but didn't know which bus was ours. One pulled up, so I went up to the door, showed him the ticket and the driver waved his hand. Nope, not that one. When I came back to the curb, an older gentlemen took our tickets to see where we were going. He told us which bus we needed to get on. Seriously, I LOVE friendly/helpful people. We rode the bus for a little over an hour. Oh, it was so funny, I showed the bus driver my ticket and he said "Jici" and bowed and then Nancy came on and he apologized for not speaking English. I think he was just letting us know that he would tell us when to get off. Toward the end, we were getting a little antsy, like we had missed it, so we had our eyes peeled for the beach and the place you have to pay to get in. We saw it and the bus driver pulled over, and I'm pretty sure he was surprised to see that we knew where to get off, because he stood up and turned around to find us to tell us to get off, but we were standing right behind him.
I don't think that there was a bus stop at the place he dropped us off, he just dropped us off at the entrance, so that was pretty sweet. We walked down the driveway, paid 50NT$, and we were in. It was a black sand beach, so it killed our feet to be walking on the sand because it was so hot. As soon as we got there and looked for a place to sit, we laid out our towels, got out our lunches, and ate while we admired the view.
OWE!!!! I am sooooo red. Nancy and I went to Jici Beach yesterday because it's one of the few beaches that you are allowed to swim at. It's ridiculous. I most definitely put on SPF 50 sun block before we went out, and I even re-applied in the middle of our day, but I am still lobster red! SPF 50! and I'm still bright red! Dang shoot, I've got to be a whole lot more careful when I'm in the sun from now on, because the sun is more intense here or something.
We were going to try to be at the bus station by 8:00am yesterday morning, but Nancy fell asleep when she was supposed to be doing homework the night before, so she had to write a paper before we could go, so we got a little bit later start, which turned out to be a-okay. We got to the bus stations right after 9am and handed the ticket girl a note that one of the mom's wrote for us. The note let them know that we wanted to go to Jici beach and also asked them to tell us what times the buses would come back. So, we got our tickets and they wrote down the times that bus would come back. The manager of the bus station (I'm guessing he's the
manger, but he could not be) told us that we had just missed the other bus and that the next one would come at 10am. I had a feeling we had just missed the bus because the station was pretty much empty when we got there, but it was fine because there was some kind of street market set up along the next few roads, so we went exploring at the stores for a while. The tables and tents were set up all along this one road and it extended for at least a quarter of a mile I would guess, and then it would also flow into to some side streets for a little bit. Most of the booths were fruit or vegetable stands, but there were a few "things" booths that we stopped and looked at. I am really interested in buying at least one pair of shoes here. Some of the shoes are absolutely, ridiculously hideous, but there are some that I am so intrigued by. So I'll probably end up with a pair or two, but yesterday was not a day for shopping, I hadn't taken that much money with me because we were going to the beach and I had money to get me there and back, and more because I didn't know how much it would cost, so I was better safe then sorry. But, I did get to practice a few Chinese phrases yesterday at the market. We saw a watch place, and I needed a watch, but I wanted a cheap one and I had seen one at the downtown market for 100NT$ and so if by some chance one of these watches, that looked way better, were only 100NT$, I would get it. So I asked "doushao qian?" which means "how much is this?" he told me it was 100NT$, so I was pleasantly surprised and bought it. I said "xie-xie", meaning "thank you", and an older man looking at watches turned to me and said "you have very nice Chinese" I thanked him and was pretty happy, but as we were walking away, Nancy goes "it's kind of funny that you said one thing and he thinks that you have good Chinese" yeah, okay, I'm not that great, and I even had Nancy remind me how to ask "how much is it?" But at the market I had plenty of practice saying "bu yao, xie-xie" which means "I don't want it, thank you"At 9:50 we went to wait for our 10 o'clock bus, but again, we had the tickets but didn't know which bus was ours. One pulled up, so I went up to the door, showed him the ticket and the driver waved his hand. Nope, not that one. When I came back to the curb, an older gentlemen took our tickets to see where we were going. He told us which bus we needed to get on. Seriously, I LOVE friendly/helpful people. We rode the bus for a little over an hour. Oh, it was so funny, I showed the bus driver my ticket and he said "Jici" and bowed and then Nancy came on and he apologized for not speaking English. I think he was just letting us know that he would tell us when to get off. Toward the end, we were getting a little antsy, like we had missed it, so we had our eyes peeled for the beach and the place you have to pay to get in. We saw it and the bus driver pulled over, and I'm pretty sure he was surprised to see that we knew where to get off, because he stood up and turned around to find us to tell us to get off, but we were standing right behind him.
I don't think that there was a bus stop at the place he dropped us off, he just dropped us off at the entrance, so that was pretty sweet. We walked down the driveway, paid 50NT$, and we were in. It was a black sand beach, so it killed our feet to be walking on the sand because it was so hot. As soon as we got there and looked for a place to sit, we laid out our towels, got out our lunches, and ate while we admired the view.
Did I mention there was like noone at the beach? Maybe 5 surfers, and maybe 5 other people on the beach. Definately not crowded.
After lunch we ran into the water. It was colder then the water we felt at our beach when we stuck our feet in on Tuesday, but it was still warm and it felt so nice. The current was pretty strong though. It wasn't dangerous or anything, you just had to be aware of what was happening. Mostly, it would pull us to the side and away from our stuff, but there were a few spots that would pull us back and away from shore. After realizing that Nancy wasn't used to swimming against the current, we decided to play it safe and stay way near shore.
It kind of hurt, because the bottom was rocky. Not sharp rocks, they were smooth, but they were still rocks, so it hurt if a wave dropped you and your foot hit a rock. The worst for me what that I have a bug bite on the top of my little toe, and that kept on getting scratched by some of the larger rocks. We didn't spend the whole time in the water, we rotated between swimming/floating, playing in the sand, laying out in the sun, and exploring the beach (there wasn't too much to explore). The schedule the bus station gave us listed the first return time as 4pm. So, seeing as we got there at 11am, we spent 5 hours at the beach, which was a really long time considering we were ready to leave at 2pm.
Luckily I was paying attention when we got dropped off, and I had seen the bus stop we needed to be at when we wanted to catch the bus back. There was a schedule of pick up times there, and they were a little different then the one we'd been given (times were rounded down on the one we'd been given at the bus station) and it turns out that we got to the bus stop one minute before the bus was supposed to come. So, we reached into our backpack to pull out the money right as the bus turned the corner. We scrambled to get exact change, and got on the bus.
The bus ride back was a litt
le less then an hour because there was more down hill. Once we were on the bus, we could see and feel the sunburn setting in. And the redness only intensified as we drove. Oh yeah, we saw a dead puffer fish on the beach, and I thought it was funny. There were no seashells or anything on the beach, only sand, rocks, wood, and trash- we saw a couple sand crabs, but this was the only creature we really saw, and it was dead.
After the beach we came home and showered to get ready to go out with a family that Nancy tutors for to celebrate the oldest girl's 13th birthday. Nancy was told that we wouldn't go until 8pm, but right after I got in the shower I heard Nancy talking to someone. They had come to pick us up at 6:00pm. I took a super quick shower and got ready and we went to their house. The mom had made an incredible spread of food. All of it was so good. Scratch that, she made chicken leg or something, and that was not enjoyable. But there was some spicy coconut stuff that was amazing, and I would have had more, but it was pretty hot. After dinner we had cake. It was honey cake (that's what they have here, it's just a lighter cake with not a whole lot of flavor) with a layer of cake, layer of pudding (not regular pudding texture, all the pudding here is more like jell), a layer of cake, a layer of tarro paste, and a layer of cake. It wasn't my favorite, but I liked it well enough.
After dinner and cake, we went upstairs (instead of having different rooms in their house, they have different floors, so the bottom is the dentist office and kitchen, there there's the living room on floor two, third floor was the game/music room, and I think the fourth floor was the bedrooms, but I'm not sure, I didn't get a tour, this is just what I saw on our way to the music room. The 13 year old played the Chinese piano for us. It was so awesome. Apparently there are only a few people who learn how to play it. It's this long piece of wood with strings attached to it that run in different directions. Okay, I did a terrible job of describing that, but look it up on google to figure it out, I guess. The songs she played definitely sounded Asian, but it sounded good and the way her fingers moved so quickly was seriously impressive.
Nancy and I weren't ready to go to bed by time dinner was over, so we went to the bakery and supermarket to buy food for today and took it back home to decide what to do. We ended up choosing to go for a walk. We walked to the fruit stand so that Nancy could flirt with her boyfriend. I guess I have a boyfriend there too because the other guy that works there like to have me try the fruit. If I ask what something is, he'll tell me, and then he'll pick one up and go cut me a piece. It comes in handy sometimes, especially when it's something that I wouldn't want to pay money for because I don't particularly enjoy it. We ended up walking pretty far, but turned around because it was getting late. And, because we were in flip-flops, our feet started hurting and we knew we shouldn't walk too much further.
When we got home, I went to my room, lathered on the aloe, and went to bed.
This morning I was still red, and I figure that I will be red for a while. We went to church an hour early because there was another baptism. It was a rough day at church though, because Nancy and I were so tired. We hadn't gotten much sleep Friday night, and being in the sun all day yesterday took it out of us. So, although the lessons were great and the talks were good (well, mostly good), it was so hard to sit there and stay awake. Oh, but at church today Nancy and I each got a CD with the pictures from Taroko Gorge on it. I haven't looked at them yet, but I will and I'll put some up later. I'll probably put them on the post of that day (last Saturday) so look for them there.
After church I napped and wrote in my blog. No big plans for today, obviously, so I'm going to go make dinner and chill.
Okay, the whole thing about me putting up pictures of Taroko Gorge was a lie. I just watched the DVD (not a CD) and I don't know how to get pictures off of the movie. But it was so funny. I definitely was not expecting to be watching a 20 minute video of all of the pictures, complete with music and captions (granted, the captions were all in Chinese characters so I have absolutely no idea what they say). I guess I'll have to have a movie night when I get home and people can look at the pictures then.
After the beach we came home and showered to get ready to go out with a family that Nancy tutors for to celebrate the oldest girl's 13th birthday. Nancy was told that we wouldn't go until 8pm, but right after I got in the shower I heard Nancy talking to someone. They had come to pick us up at 6:00pm. I took a super quick shower and got ready and we went to their house. The mom had made an incredible spread of food. All of it was so good. Scratch that, she made chicken leg or something, and that was not enjoyable. But there was some spicy coconut stuff that was amazing, and I would have had more, but it was pretty hot. After dinner we had cake. It was honey cake (that's what they have here, it's just a lighter cake with not a whole lot of flavor) with a layer of cake, layer of pudding (not regular pudding texture, all the pudding here is more like jell), a layer of cake, a layer of tarro paste, and a layer of cake. It wasn't my favorite, but I liked it well enough.
After dinner and cake, we went upstairs (instead of having different rooms in their house, they have different floors, so the bottom is the dentist office and kitchen, there there's the living room on floor two, third floor was the game/music room, and I think the fourth floor was the bedrooms, but I'm not sure, I didn't get a tour, this is just what I saw on our way to the music room. The 13 year old played the Chinese piano for us. It was so awesome. Apparently there are only a few people who learn how to play it. It's this long piece of wood with strings attached to it that run in different directions. Okay, I did a terrible job of describing that, but look it up on google to figure it out, I guess. The songs she played definitely sounded Asian, but it sounded good and the way her fingers moved so quickly was seriously impressive.
Nancy and I weren't ready to go to bed by time dinner was over, so we went to the bakery and supermarket to buy food for today and took it back home to decide what to do. We ended up choosing to go for a walk. We walked to the fruit stand so that Nancy could flirt with her boyfriend. I guess I have a boyfriend there too because the other guy that works there like to have me try the fruit. If I ask what something is, he'll tell me, and then he'll pick one up and go cut me a piece. It comes in handy sometimes, especially when it's something that I wouldn't want to pay money for because I don't particularly enjoy it. We ended up walking pretty far, but turned around because it was getting late. And, because we were in flip-flops, our feet started hurting and we knew we shouldn't walk too much further.
When we got home, I went to my room, lathered on the aloe, and went to bed.
This morning I was still red, and I figure that I will be red for a while. We went to church an hour early because there was another baptism. It was a rough day at church though, because Nancy and I were so tired. We hadn't gotten much sleep Friday night, and being in the sun all day yesterday took it out of us. So, although the lessons were great and the talks were good (well, mostly good), it was so hard to sit there and stay awake. Oh, but at church today Nancy and I each got a CD with the pictures from Taroko Gorge on it. I haven't looked at them yet, but I will and I'll put some up later. I'll probably put them on the post of that day (last Saturday) so look for them there.
After church I napped and wrote in my blog. No big plans for today, obviously, so I'm going to go make dinner and chill.
Okay, the whole thing about me putting up pictures of Taroko Gorge was a lie. I just watched the DVD (not a CD) and I don't know how to get pictures off of the movie. But it was so funny. I definitely was not expecting to be watching a 20 minute video of all of the pictures, complete with music and captions (granted, the captions were all in Chinese characters so I have absolutely no idea what they say). I guess I'll have to have a movie night when I get home and people can look at the pictures then.
2 comments:
as lucky you got a picture of the one creature on the beach, did you notice the "crab hole" right at the nose of the dead fish? If you had waited, the fish might have been gone. Sorry you are so red but the beach does look beautiful and the water is pretty. In Hawaii I wore sandals on the beach and in the water to protect my feet.
I am surprised that you didn't get blistered in the sun. I am home now. I have been to Brent's. We went sailing on his boat. It was fun.
Tell your teachers that if they were here they wouldn't know everything and how to do things perfect. How dare they critize you so openly. Love the picture of the puffer fish. I had never seen a real one.
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