Martijn, 3 maart 2010
Taiwan , Kaoshiun 29°

The First weeks....

So here we finally go again, this time in English only as it appears that writing stuff in Dutch only requires too much translating for others. Sorry Dutchies, you’ve become outnumbered..

Anyways, it wil be a very tough job writing about these insane last weeks, but well I’ll start off with week one.

As we me and Tet went down on the first day we happened to meet some nice Americans who after a small morning talk invited us to show the city a bit and take us out for breakfast to a local pancake restaurant. While having breakfast they told us where we could acquire a new mattress and blankets for our new rooms. It took us a good day of finding out where we had to go and another half a day in order to find out how we could get money from cash machines. At the end we managed to do all and even to get a very decent price on all the things!

The next day we went on exploring the town and met quite some people around campus, eventually leading us to be invited to “the Lamp”, a club in the Kaohsiung centre where you pay a certain amount followed by an open bar. During this night we met many more Dutch people and also I encountered Spanish people with whom I spend a few hours speaking Spanish. The night was amazing and after this I fell already asleep in the cab, what a wonderful night it was!

The next day we had a quite relaxing day and stayed in the apartment though at the end of the day we went on having a Thai diner in a Thai restaurant, I had a very good curry (and a good morning after!). Once back in the dorms we spend some relaxing time and watched some movies.

The next day we did some shopping and after this we met up with the Dutchies and Spanish we met a few days before to have some dinner and to celebrate Chinese New Year with them. The diner took place in an amazing bar called “the Lighthouse”, one of the only places in town where the food is actually Western orientated. It is also a bar that comes the closest to an Irish Pub, considering my 5-rules counting way of spotting an Irish Pub. And even better I decided to hold my birthday party the next day here. After this we went to the Love River, YES there actually is a river called “Love” and even better, there is a “Love Pier”. We went there because of the Chinese New Year, where we saw some fireworks and most of all, a lot of lanterns!

The next day, it was MY BIRTHDAAAY! We went with a big group to an island where we swum all day and had a lot of fun. Finally I could swim after all, the weather finally started to clear up and we had a lovely day, only disadvantage, because the weather was that good it took us an hour and a half to get back on mainland instead of the usual ten minutes! But well the night was going to start and we invited all the people we knew to “my birthday party”. At first we were with a small group of people, having dinner at “the Lighthouse” and after it was time to get the dices and start playing some games, off course including a couple of drinks and after a while more and more people joined in resulting in a complete take over and at the end of the night we were able to completely own the bar. Result was in total having more than 45 shots of tequila for free, yes we drunk them appropriately with a lemon slice and salt. At the end of the night, early in the morning, we went home by cab and I stayed faithful to my latest trend and fell asleep in the taxi once again.

During the next few days we stayed more or less near the university terrain and went out once to lamp again. After a couple of these days we decided to do something more active and explore some things the region had to offer. We decided to go to the Lotus Pond, a big lake within Kaohsiung city surrounded by temples. It was a very cold day and after the sun set we decided to have dinner. A few friends from the Netherlands and Spain invited us to a resort/campus/hotel/university in the Mountains where they were doing internships. We had a lovely dinner and had hot pot, a dish where you latterly get a hot pot and you just have to put in some vegetables and meat you please. After dinner we went back to the university with our scooters, a decent thirty minute ride crossing trough a big city, one memorable moment for sure.

The second week it finally got warmer, so it was time to finally get those swim trunks out and start discovering the private beaches the university owns. So there we went a small group just after class. Unfortunately while me and Niklas were swimming we got send back to coast and Tet’s kite managed to break so the swimming part wasn’t very long. That day a few students who were there a bit longer than us asked us if we might interested in joining them to a night market. This is a big market full of food stands and many stores with clothing, bean jewellery, bags and more products to keep all the women distracted every stand. So we started off with trying all the different kind of food stands, and after this the men had to follow the ladies and check out the local products. After a long, long walk we decided to go home and take a good night’s rest for once.

Last weekend was a very busy one, as the last three weeks it was the whole time Chinese New Year and we hardly spend time at the dorms nor had many relaxing moments neither was this weekend. We started on Friday by going to Tai Nan by train. Tai Nan is the former capital, AND the former Dutch capital as well and the old Dutch fortresses are still standing there! So we reclaimed them back for just a day and showed them we still can colonize! After visiting many temples and walking a lot we decided to head home and on the way stop for some food. While moving to the train, Shade (new American buddy and the new logistics man) and me had a great idea to host a party and we called a few people to meet at a bar and have some drinks and get a place to party! Well to skip the long story, we managed to have an amazing time and we now are going to host a welcome party there!

The next day we decided to go to the Brickyard again where one of our dorm buddies was going to play with his bar, needless to say we had another great time and we showed the place what it is to have a big group of Dutchies there, as also our friends from the mountains joined in and we had a great night. On Sunday I at least was dead tired and most of the Dorms went north to go to a lantern festival near Taipei. I decided to have my good night sleep and just decided to stay home with Josh, Shade and Nichlas watching family guy and had a great chillaxing session!

Now those were the last two and first two weeks in Taiwan, See u back in one week when we had our first self organized party and also our first week of actual lessons!

As they say in Taiwan: “Bye Bye”

Met HalloBuitenland.nl kun je Martijn in Taiwan echt goedkoop bellen!