Sun Moon Lake 3.3k swim

Last weekend we went to a famous event in Taiwan.
22,ooo people swam across Sun Moon Lake on this day.

We woke up at o'dark 30; 12:00 am. We got to the lake at 4:00 am and watched the sun rise over the misty mountains. once we arrived there it was amazing how many people surrounded us...everyone busy getting their swimming caps, and supplies.

it took 3 hours for us to cross the scenic, high altitude lake.

it was a surprisingly relaxing experience, we had lifeguard-style-floties, so it wasn't as hard core as 3 hours may sound.

this was an amazing experience. i have never done anything with 22,ooo people before! i felt motivated to keep swimming the whole time because i was surrounded by people.

the wait for the bus to get back home was a little torturous because of the sun and heat, but for the majority of the time we were lounging under a shady tree.

This day is the only day of the year people are allowed to swim in the lake, and it commemorates a catastrophic earthquake that claimed the lives of many Taiwanese people several years back. It was nice to be a part of something so much bigger than me.

What's going on in J i u B e i ?? Where are we going?? Who are we seeing??

F r e q u e n t e d Places:

Oak Tree Language Institution:
we work here 8:30 - 6:00 with a 2 hour lunch break Monday -Friday.
I Love working with kids. they are so full of energy and lovable!! Yes, they drive my to the edge at times, but it's worth it.

Nanliao:
This is our favorite chill spot, its a recreational strip along the cost of hsinchu. You can go Swimming on a sandy beach, check out museums and marine research centers, there are lots of paths to hike on, grassy mountain tops to gaze off into the ocean on, and scenic roads to cruise on the scooter. The highlight is definitely the fish market, last time we went there we ate 3 baby hammer head sharks! any weird/normal/delicious types of seafood you could imagine are sold in nanliao (south port) straight off the boat for cheap.

Hsinchu Sports Center:
we work out here 3 times a week. we are on a strict diet/weight training program now. We have met many foreigners at this gym, and the people who work there are really nice. They have tons of classes, but in chinese--they do ballroom dancing on saturdays.

The Flower Market: this market sells orchids for $2usd! My mom loves orchids, i want to bring her here so bad! Connected to the flower area is a general open air market. We stroll through and get lunch--it seems a lot like a night market, but its open just in the day time. At one outer edge of the market is the entrance to the ZOO!! i love this zoo. we saw a monkey escape from it's cage here--an old lady kept shaking her net at it, and it eventually jumped back into its cage! so funny :) Its a decent zoo, and only costs $0.30usd to get in.

The Oasis Hot Pot Restaurant:
we go here just about every Sunday! the owner always comes and sits with us at our table, and brings special dishes. he gave us free "sneak peek" tickets to see the movie "the hangover"---which i highly recommend, great comedy. This restaurant looks sooo vip inside, the decorations and interior design are amazing, and the food is awesome. they set out a hot pot with a divider in it so you can get 3 different flavors of broth to cook your meat and veggies in.
We like the Thai broth the best. there is a hagandaz/movinpic buffet there too!! naughty, i know-but we limit ourselves to one ice cream frenzy per week.

The Buddhist cafe next to our school:
the first time we went there we ordered a pot of rose tea, told the shop keeper it was great, and she just gave us 2 canisters of rose hips! she was worried we wouldn't know where to find it because we were new in town. Recently I brought 2 of my students here for a tutoring lesson and they loved it, their parents were so happy. Plus it was really nice for me to get out of oak tree for a change.

Shrimp Fishing bar/shrimp pool:

Jason's:

"The Alley":

Dante's Coffee:

The hot n' sour soup place:

High Speed Rail:



P e o p l e We met in Jiubei:

Angie:

Chad:

Abe:

Alex:

Reggie:

Matt:

David:

Scott:

Ryan:

travel agent girl:
hot pot store owner:
carefore guy:



E v e n t s in JiuBei:

sky dancers in the street:

Chee's Wedding:

kenting:

lantern festival:

Huge Family School Trip:

ballroom dancing lesson:

Possible Master's program:

several long nights out in Hsinchu/JiuBei/Green Pool:

one day's events

dont worry, that's not our scooter! this isint an account of a difficult day



we diddnt adopt any lovable puppies either, though very tempting

diddnt go to Paris

or Hollywood

Just a simple day off of work, Chillin in the city of JuBei.

Saturday April 26th 2009. a little over cast. very very windy.


9:00 wake up, the bird is chirping like she is my alarm clock. I get up and say good morning to her and she stops. exhale. I eat a healthy breakfast. Bert is searching the internet all morning, trying to find a cheap way to ship protein powder and other health supplements for our new diet. Bodybuilding.com 3 month personal trainer-video transformation program.

I take care of some bills on line. received an e-mail that Comcast is after us again!! geez!!--they didn't end our account properly, and now we have to repeatedly attempt to fix it. we just received our second collections notice!! Sticky situation, moving on...

We decide to pick up our new mini laptop computer before going to work out in the gym. I try to call ahead, so they know we are on our way. I feel so proud because i can decipher the location name and correct phone number written in Chinese characters on the claim ticket..i call, and my Chinese language skills are not quite good enough to explain the situation... But at least they know some confused English speaking foreigners are on their way :)

We hop on the scooter, drive over the tall windy bridge to hsinchu. we go to the technology district near science park, to a mall like area named NOVA. we cram our scooter into a tiny spot--i am so impressed with Bert's scooter maneuvering abilities!! wow, like a pro! Two guys on a scooter ask us--in English if we are headed in..

On the way back home while Bert is weaving the scooter around cars, people, stopping, going...

I--in truely Taiwanese style--am checking out our text messages. we got an invite from a local cser to hang out and meet her family over dinner. our friend angela decided not to get together for coffee because the weather is supposed to get bad tonight. Angela's transportation is a bike, i give her props for being green, and all, but she rides 40 min. to school every day 2 times. Pretty much anywhere is a 40 min. or longer ride. sometimes in the COLD WINDY RAIN.

now off to the gym. we did the most difficult workout of the week today shoulders, abs, and legs. felt good. at one point bert made me wear this butch looking weight-lifting belt...LOL!! The gym we work out at has a stadium and a huge complex for other sports. Today there was a festival going on I could smell the fried foods and hear the karaoke:) sometimes they have huge community garage sales there.

after the work out we go to the SPA. ooo la la!! this place is SOOO great $4usd gets you into this huge area with 15 different pools, steam saunas, medicated hot springs, 25m lap pools, and the highlight......20 different types of "water massage" machines. We jumped into the large pool and went straight for my favorite massage jet..you rest your head back and all of these bubbles come up from under you and lift your whole body up so you feel weight less. another favorite of mine-you lay on your tummy and gushing streams of warm water fall all over your back and body--it really feels like someone is giving you a full body massage. The guy who we first met when we went there comes over to us and chats for a while. he gives us some goggles so we can do laps in the big pool. we spend about 1.5 hours there, then go to Dante's coffee to meet up with our friend Chad.

Chad is an x-employee of Oak Tree. He is Taiwanese, but has lived overseas and traveled a lot. His English is great. We ate a salad and sipped down 3 "Dante's Special"s catching up on things. It was raining out side and we didn't bring any rain coats--we are rebels when it comes to raingear! it is a pain in the butt to haul coats/ponchos around, so we just get wet and deal with it most the time.

On our way home from this area (This area = near the High Speed Rail station, There is an OutBackSteakhouse, the SPA, many cheap restaurants, a new department store is going up, Dante'sCoffee), we have to go down a special street that is only for scooters, under the highway system, it's super secret agent spy like because there are 3 tunnels we zip through--such tiny roads just barely big enough to fit 2 scooters on. The echo in the tunnels is great! we zip home, and now bert is playing with the new computer trying to connect it to our wifi router, and i am updating our blog.

there you have it. Saturday in Jubei.
Meg

The NAMES in my life JuBei, Taiwan

Oak Tree is the name of the ESL school we work at.

Xian Sheng Er Lue is the name of the closest recognizable street we live on.

Duke is the name of our scooter.

101 is the name of the exotic pet store we frequent.

Burger Master is the name of the sandwich shop under our apartment.

Google and Yahoo are the names of the (adorable) dogs on oak tree campus.

Carefour is the name of our grocery store.

Mei Lin is my new Chinese name=pretty Forrest

Bringin in the Chinese newyear with Michelle and her family :)


Now that I am settled with a job and an official apartment, I realize that life in Taiwan is very different than I thought it would be. Less convenient in many ways, more challenging in some ways, more simple in many ways. I don't mean to make it sound bad at all, i actually like living here much more than i thought i would. in fact, we are considering staying for another year.

People have such a different outlook on living here. I could give you random examples of this..i have attempted to on a video in a previous entry, but it really doesn't do any justice to my point. I am glad to have the chance to soak up this culture--slowly--one day i see something that i think is so weird, funny, gross, smart, different. I see that same thing a week later, ten times again...and eventually it seems perfectly normal. sometimes i start to do it myself--like--i eat straight up dried sheets of seaweed everyday. it is delicious. i smack all over my body randomly to assist in circulation. I choose chopsticks over western utensils. i count numbers on my hands with different fingers now.

I haven't had any serious bouts of home sickness yet. i feel very lucky for this--i was sure i would be depressed missing all of my family, of course i do miss them. But i am not upset about it at all. The point of this entry, is that things in Taiwan are basically nothing like i expected them to be...but full of life changing twists and turns.

bag 500NTD Sweater dress 200NTD the perfect orange priceless!!





thank you for hanging with my Soliloquy :)
Meg

the big move to bamboo north city (jiu bei)

we no longer live in the shi da area of taipei.

we have moved to jiu bei city.
jiu=bamboo bei=north

neighboring cities are xin jiu, jiu dong, jiu nan, jiu xi
(new bamboo, bamboo west, bamboo south, bamboo east)

this place is a 1.5 hour drive south east of taipei,
a 36 min ride on the high speed rail.

now we live in the middle of dozens of rice paddies. riding up to our apartment is mind blowing. you zig and zag through vibrant green rice fields with
bright yellow flowers. it smells really fresh here.

this area is rated the best place to live in taiwan in 2008 studies. lucky us. it really is nice. much less traffic than taipei, air smells much better, blooming cities, much more money being put into the construction of the buildings here.

we start training tomorrow.

wish us luck!!, we will keep u posted

Some Semi-Random things you will see when relocating to Taiwan

This is the Fine Arts Muesum of Taipei. This place is one of my most favorite buildings in Taipei. The exibits were ok, (they were doing renovations to the inside when we went; but we got to get in for free because of that!)

Here is Meg check'in out the scene on a police moped.

Santa is still alive on the streets of Taipei!

Me and my Leo like Topiery friend poseing for the camera.

The Koi [fish] lov'in up on Meg. This tranqual pond surronded a temple-turned-icecream shop.

I am Chiang Kai-Shek's long lost second cousin Bill. I am ready to sleep on his couch after a collect call from outer space! ha-ha (inside joke)

This is a flower bed turned into a real clock at Yangmingshan national park.

Some giant tree at Yangmingshan that we both decided would make an excellent tree fort. Or better yet if we run out of money we could commender the tree as our home and live as tree piriates.

We walked all the way over to this sulfer pond near Lengshuikeng Recreation Area and what did we find. A hole full of milk looking water that stinks. As you can see from Megs expression, she is clearly less then impressed.

Here we are at at grocrey store called "Welcome". Yes that is the real name. This is a serve yourself clam staion.

This is the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall at night time. We will have to go shot this during the day time. This place is freak'in huge. The door to this place is huge. There is a statue A'la Abraham Lincoln of Chiang Kai-Shek that is inside that is equally as big.

Inside the park there is a sign that States: No walk dogs, vending carts, moter bikes, NO Kite flying?, no booze, an no M-80's.

1-Bert-1-Cup. I was going to fill the cup with a homemade fudge-cicle and lap it up right out of the cup for you. But by the time Meg got the camera ready, I already cleaned the cup with my finger Bill Cosby style. Maybe next time! "The Cup" is a brand of Sake. This cost like $3.50 for this little cup, but it well worth the picture.




Taiwan

Megan Dupuy

Albert Dupuy

The long train to Danshui

Right after getting off the long, yet scenic MRT stop in Danshui we found a lively crowd awaiting us. There is a gathering that some small university put on with a stage, a band, some chairmen from the university, maybe a semi-significant school function. Well, we couldn't figure it out. But, hey there was music and people, you can't beat that. Some guy even hit a gaaaaaoooooooong!!!

As we walk along the rows of tents promoting this collage, we see a full parade quality marching band assembled putting on a show. The group is part of the Divine Performing Arts group, like we were supposed to know.
I guess we were supposed to know! The woman that was promoting the show (the chick standing next to Megan) saw Meg and I (the sole Caucasians in the crowd) taking pictures with the band and what do you know..... She calls us up in front of the three hundred or so people watching the show! She asks us " Where are you from?... huuh from Michigan; Do you like the show?...0oh yea we love this band; So you have heard of the band, we play in the US!...... hum, no not really; well give them a hand, and hundreds are clapping for us, yea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So we move a long to grab a coffee and a snack at the local Dunk'in Doughnuts, which has a beautiful view of the river and a huge covered patio. This is probably the best D&D's that I have ever munched at. Then we lazily cost down down the boardwalk from the Danshui station.

The fenced off area behind Meg is a roller skating rink. Who would have guessed?

There are a lot of tourist shops a long the boardwalk by the Dunshui MRT. Some gift shops even sell life size cardboard cut outs of crazy foreign tourists.

There are lots of yummy treats sold from street vendors like this one that set up shop under the sideways tree. The motorcycle-clayoven-sweet-potato-mobile is a must stop if you can catch this hot potato! All I want to know is what came first; The house or the tree?!!
The local squid-on-a-stick vendor waving his fish like a flag trying to distinguish his squid from the other 15 stands selling the same thing. Well anyway, we were sold and bought some! (tasty-tasty) : )
I really enjoy how the Taiwanese integrate religion with everyday life. Only in Taiwan you could eat some street food, play the claw game, buy some souvenirs, finish the perfect evening off with a little prayer upstairs, then jump on MRT.
This was a perfect way to spend an afternoon in Taiwan!

When you are moving to Taiwan you definitely have to come and check this place out!

Xingbeitou--Hot Spring Area Northern Taipei--ReLaXaTiOn

If you want to let go, and experience COMPLETE and TOTAL relaxion—you need to check out the hot-springs in this city!! You think you know about R & R…but trust me, you are a rookie compared to these professional hot springers.
Xingbeitou is well known for its hot springs. It is located north east of Taipei, and takes us 40 minutes to get there from our apartment. We’ve been back to Xingbeitou twice since we took a 3 day weekend there.
The mineral buried deep in the ground by the opening of the hot springs is RADIOACTIVE!! But don’t worry J by the time it reaches you, its no longer a threat…it transmutes into sulfur and other beneficial minerals before it reaches the earth’s surface. Here we are at Hell Valley. Its a very famous tourist destination-- a big open air pool of the hotspring water, you can see huge tufts of steam wafting from itThere are several free touristic points of interest in Xingbeitou; the hot spring museum (the above pic is Bert at this museum), the Xingbeitou library, the aboriginal Indian museum

Here is the outdoor public hot spring we like. It costs $1.00 USD to get in, and the scenery is great—other than the prunie old people schloping around giggle giggle (go there and you will see what I mean). Bert had to buy a Speedo the first time we went there woo hoo sexy man—no swim trunks allowed! The rules are pretty strict at hot springs here.
Bathe before entering, keep hair from touching the water, bathe yourself with the hot spring water before entering the bath, no swimming, no sitting with just your feet/legs in the water, obviously don’t drink alcohol and bathe, don’t talk loud, etc.. there is this guy with red shorts on who will blow his whistle at you if you are doing something wrong, he will also assist you in your bathing—suggest which pools to go into and when.
There are 3 temperatures of hot pools and 2 COLD pools. It feels SOOOO good to go back and forth between cold and hot. You get out of the hot—and have dense clouds of steam evaporating off of you—it’s very visible by night, especially when people are back lit. Everyone is walking around with trails of steam following them.
When you get into the cold pool, you feel your heart beat really hard. It almost feels like your heart is in your neck!! You can see ripples around you from your own heart beat. The first time I experienced this I thought I was having a mild heart attack! But then we learned it benefits your body in similar ways to exercise—your heart is working very hard pumping blood. I f you let yourself relax while in this state, you almost feel buzzed—reality is defiantly altered—you feel pure and rejuvenated.
We had our own private hot spring in our hotel room. The typical Japanese way to bathe is to submerse the entire body (up to the neck) in water until you feel uncomfortably hot—out in, out in, then dry off and rest for ½ hour under a warm blanket. In our hotel room we had a feather down comforter—I totally melted after all the bathing and knapping! We went to this famous Japanese Tea House at the top of a mountain in Xin bei tou--awesome experience-great food!!
Bert looking the expensive tea house menu over--we ended up getting unbelievably embellished and presented sushi, fruit, salad, custard, kimchie, jasmine tea, and some house black tea
administering the "bert brewing technique"

Here in Taiwan, 17 objects are necessary to brew a proper pot of tea, here I am (Megan) beginning the demonstration....are you paying attention!?!!

The outside facade of the famous mountain top tea house -- notice the cat..we were calling him over, tryig to get his attention and he disappeared behind the building, then as we took this shot he dashed out -- into the picture!!

Megan Dupuy

Relocate Taiwan

Albert Dupuy

The Story Of Hualian and the Deep, Dark and Dangerous Taroko Gorge

**************************Hualian************************
We arriaved to Hualian 2 days before my birthday. Hualien is a small city on the less populated eastern coast of Taiwan. People from this area wear home-made-yarn embellished purses—hats—belts. These people are direct descendants of the aboriginal Indians that lived in the mountains.
We noticed more BETLE NUT here than any other place we had been. Strangers would smile as they passed by—exposing their BRIGHT RED teeth and gums. Why it turns red in the mouth I have no idea, it is green when you buy it. Look down at the street, and you’ll see red splotches all over the place.
All the people we have talked to about Taroko Gorge complain about how boring the city of Hualian is—that the only reason to go there is because of the gorge. I disagree. I met many interesting people in this city—played dance dance revolution with the locals, spent 2 hours and exchanged numbers with this amazing woman from “Angel Nails”…it was fun.
********************Taroko Gorge********************* 10:00AM we took off on the local bus to Taroko Gorge. As we passed the entrance gate I looked at the time 10:40AM..We finally arrived to the drop off point and it was 11:40….We had to walk from the drop off point to the entrance gate before night fall….and it took 1 hour to drive that distance by bus…sounds like trouble to me!!
There are many trails that veer off this main road, and these trails are the most beautiful/famous spots in the park—so our walk is now not only the 1 hour bus ride distance—but add on any trails we decide to walk down.. Honestly, I am totally freaking out at this point, unsure of how we will make it to that entrance gate by sunset! Bert is convinced that it won’t be a problem—that we will easily cover the distance…so we walk
First stop was this famous waterfall path—we saw a family of monkeys along the way, they were very curious, but wouldn’t take the food we were throwing their way. The air was damp and fresh here.

Every direction you looked in you couldn’t help but notice the MASSIVE marble gorge. The mist in the air made the marble look even more translucent and reflective.
We proceeded towards the entrance gate, went on many trails that were amazing—like something out of a movie. I doubt I will ever see a mountain scape so vivid and rich again. Everything looked like a scene from a Japanese ink painting. REALLY! This is a very accurate description of the scenery!!

Forward we marched—we were the ONLY people walking on the main road—everyone else was riding on a tourist bus, then getting off at the famous trails and walking. As the sun began to descend we saw fewer and fewer tourist busses..we kept walking towards that entrance gate…
Now it is pitch black outside, and we have reached the part of the road laced with tunnels. Some short tunnels, some very very long tunnels. pitch black. No flash lights. No light at the end of the tunnel. Some tunnels didn’t even have a walk way for pedestrians. When cars drove by you felt the air current suck you in..and the exhaust from the cars posed the threat of carbon monoxide poisoning. Not to mention the danger of walking that close to fast moving traffic in a twisting turning pitch black tunnel, on the edge of a gorge..you get the idea…
After 45 minutes of this we came across a particularly large VERY long lit tunnel. About ½ way through I saw graffiti on the wall that said “Don’t Die”—I began to think I was having a bad dream and I would wake any minute. AND THEN out of the blue—an taxi approached us, and delivered us safely to our destination.

Megan Dupuy Relocate Taiwan

Albert Dupuy

Megan Dupuy Relocate Taiwan