Qingjing Farms & Taipei

 I am alive.

 

To make up for my long absence I am going to write an amazing post…..like AMAZING. Just wait. It is coming. Okay…..Now. I am just going to tell you guys about my weekend because it was the most interesting part of my week.

 

This Friday was the Chinese Language Center’s first Culture Trip and for this trip we went to a lovely place in the mountains of Taiwan called Qingjing Farms. Let me begin the story from the point I woke up. Beep, beep, beep, mehhhhhhhhh. That previous sentence translated into English is “6:11 in the morning is not an acceptable time for anyone to be starting their day, kill me now” (ya that sounded better). I got dressed, packed my backpack for the day and headed out the door preparing for a 2 hour-ish bus ride in the middle of Taiwan’s mountains. **2 hours-ish later** My bladder was on the verge of literally exploding within my body and I thought that I was going to have to tell the bus driver to stop and let me use the dense tropical rainforest as a bathroom. Luckily, we made it to Qingjing Farms in time and I was able to walk (not fully upright for fear of peeing my pants) to the bathroom. Now I was free to enjoy the day ahead of me.

 

Now let me just say that in Taiwan they do school trips a little differently than in America. You know, in America they would be like “oh, let’s all go as a group to all these different places.” Noooooope (Chuck Testa)… not in Taiwan. In Taiwan it is more like, “K, we drove you to the top of the mountain now you have about 6 hours to make it about halfway down the mountain and we will see you at the end of the day, byeeeeee.” Which, honestly, I prefer this way because then you can just hang out with the people that you want to hang out with…..just saying. So the people that I hung out with were as follows: Verena (Germany), Martin (Germany), Julian (Germany), Magalie (France), and Laura (Brazil)…. who are all awesome by the way.

 

Well, I don’t want to go into TOO big of detail so I will just let you know the basics of what happened at Qingjing. We made it there and took a ton of pictures at this castle. We then moved on and started walking down the mountain towards the meeting spot. Along the way we took many pictures with sheep, a windmill, wooden horses, and so on. Oh and also the cliché Asian jumping pictures that are the best ever. We also at one point stopped at a market area to get some lunch and within this market I was called a liar. Long story short, the lady wanted me to buy some medicine, I said I would come back later, she called me a liar and then spit in my face and kicked me in the leg…..just kidding about that last part. Still though, I love how you can just be yelled at for not buying something here, what I am trying to say is that people in America need to loosen up a bit……am I right?? What what! Yes, well that was basically our day at Qingjing. It was very beautiful and had amazing scenery. So we finally made it to the bottom and boarded our bus to drive an hour to a paper making factory.

 

At the halfway point we stopped at a roadside market where us foreigners were heckled at in Chinese to try and buy something. So me, being of white skin, just pretended that I could not understand. Works every time. We got back on the bus and drove another half hour to the paper making factory. This factory was cool. Like, not the most exciting thing that ever happened in my life but it was definitely interesting and I made an awesome picture there so what else could you ask for?? Then it was back to Taichung so that I could sleep……or not…. I was then invited to go Taipei over the weekend. “Of course I’ll go,” I said, “Of course I’ll wake up at 7:11 instead of sleeping in like I really, really want to.”

 

So the next morning I was off to Taipei. First stop, the Taipei Zoo….A.K.A the largest zoo in Asia. Ya, they weren’t lying. After walking the entire day yesterday, we were about to do it again. It was totally worth it though. We got to see a lot of cool animals and even though many of them were sleeping it was still a cool experience. Hmmmm, yup, I don’t have anything more to say about the zoo. You all know what a zoo is like. Well, after the zoo we took a little train within the zoo to the Maokong Gondola station where we proceeded to take a gondola to the top of the mountain. It was really beautiful and was a very clear day. Oh, and Magalie and Leila are both scared of heights so that was interesting. Well, we made it to the top where we walked some more and walked to the Tea Plantation Visitor Center. They had complementary tea and we sat and chatted for a while to let our legs rest. We also learned that the entire mountain was the tea plantation. So, basically, I want to live there. On our way back to the Gondola Station we stopped and ate at a café where we had bagels, waffles, and coffee and watched the sunset. It was amazing. After this, we headed back down the mountain, rode the MRT, and made it to our hostel which we reserved for the night. Well, we thought we reserved it. Apparently they aren’t into the whole “looking at the computer for reservations” thing so they just took us to a room. After about a five minute walk we arrived at a fancy hotel and walked in the back door. We took an elevator to the 3^rd floor and then opened the door to a room that possibly once belonged to the hotel. Like really. It looked like a flat, ya know, where the bottom has a t.v. and couch and then you walk up the stairs to a bed. Wellllllllll, not anymore. Now it was a hostel room. It had a bunk bed at the bottom, a big bed at the top of the stairs, and it had items such as lotion and shampoo indicating that we were possibly just living in somebody’s room while they were gone for the weekend. But this is Taiwan, so it was alright. Well, we didn’t want to go to bed yet since it was still early so we headed out of our room. On our way to the elevator we were pleasantly surprised to see what we were fairly certain was a prostitute walking into the room next to us. Once again, it is Taiwan, so it was alright. We then headed out to the Shilin Night Market which is a famous Night Market in Taipei where we walked around and shopped!

 

After a long day we finally got to sleep. We were all also excited that the next day we were going to Wulai Hot Springs to relax and just sit for one day.

 

HA. Ya right. Why would we ever think that it was that easy?

 

Well, 9:01 a.m. comes around and we are all awoken by the sound of my alarm. I think I should just mention that “Let’s Have a Kiki” is my alarm music…yaaaaaa. We get ready and left. About three hours later we arrived at Wulai Hot Springs. It was so beautiful. We first walked through the streets of shops and then up the green mountains of Taipei. After about 40 minutes we saw an awesome waterfall and about 100 pictures later we moved on to the Visitor Center where I proceeded to ask the lady in Chinese how far it was to the next area. Well she told me, in super fast Chinese since she thought my Chinese was amazing T_T, that it was about an 80 minute walk. Well, taxi cab it was. 15 minutes later we made it up to the highest point of the Hot Springs and saw more waterfalls and beautiful scenery. After about 1 ½ hours we came back to the front of the gate where I called our taxi driver and we waited….for 40 minutes. After waiting that long I finally asked the lady at the booth to call our driver and she totally chewed him out. Needless to say, we had a taxi in about 3 minutes. Once again, it is Taiwan so it is okay. Finally, we thought that after another day of pure walking that we could finally relax. That was a funny thought. It was already pretty late and we needed to head back to Taichung. Also, it was as though you were paying for like 10 dollar bath soooooo none of us cared enough to pay. Back to the bus we went, then the MRT, and finally the main station where we found the fastest bus out of there (even though the tickets were more expensive).

 

Well, we soon found out why they were more expensive. If you want to travel in style in Taiwan you should probably take an ‘Aloha Bus’ because, people, it was ritzyyy. We all pretty much lost it when we found out that each of us had our own huge comfy chairs, game controller, and t.v.’s. We all lost it even more when we saw the massage remote in the armrest. This was the reaction of my friend Magalie when I showed her the massage controller….**thick French accent** … “No, are you serious? You’re kidding me.” It was priceless. About a 2 ½ hour drive later we finally arrived back in Taichung where I could soundly sleep.

 

Oh wait, just kidding. Totally had an 8:10 o’clock class the next morning. No sleep for you!

 

But once again, it is Taiwan!

 

I miss you all!

 

-Clint 艾克林

 

 

**The pictures are out of order and I am too lazy to fix it, this guy needs to sleep**

QingJing

Wulai Hot Springs

Wulai

Wulai

Wulai

Wulai

Paper Making creation

The WiFi at our hostel

Cafe at Tea Plantation

View from Tea Plantation

Gondola

Taipei Zoo

Taipei Zoo

View from Tea Plantation

Gondola...Leila (Finland) is scared

Butterfly Gardens at Zoo

Zoo

Qingjing

Qing Jing w/ Magalie

Qingjing

Qingjing

Qingjing

Qingjing

Qingjing w/ Laura

Qingjing

Qingjing w/ Magalie and Verena