Taiwan, Part Deux

After these 2 nights in Kenting, I made my way up the east coast to a town called Hualien, meeting along the way some interesting tea enthousiast graphic designers from Czech Republic. My plan was to bus up into the mountains in Taroko National Park, apparently one of the most scenic places in Taiwan, but upon arriving there found out that the road would be closed for a marathon the next day, and the last bus already left. It was taxi or nothing, so i forked over the cash (some taiwanese guys helped me find the best deal) and after a long and pricy taxy ride, checked into a hostel up in the moutains, where I shared a room with a French guy doing almost the exact same trip as me but in reverse, so we exchanged advice on where to go. I realized that to make it to Taipei when I wanted to, I would have to get up super early the next day and hike back down to the park entrance with the marathoners.

I slept through my alarm. Good start. Did a 2 hour waterfall trail first that takes you through tunnels actually carved into the moutains under some of the waterfalls, and releases you to spectacular Jurassic Park style views. Absolutely beautiful. I then collected my full pack and started the walk down, with a few thumbs up and words of encouragement from the runners and volunteers. Made me wonder what I was getting myself into. Turned out to not be a 3 hour hike like I was told, but rather a 5 - 6 hour hike, at a fast pace, in the rain no less, and with cheap chinese shoes that fell apart half way down, but not before doing a number on my footsies. But the entire thing is along a very steep V shaped gorge, and the whole thing is like one long scenic lookout. Also, lots of suspension bridges, and I really dig suspension bridges. Finally made it down, after a few spider run ins (signs warn you about venoumous spiders, poisonous snakes, and killer bees), and made it to Tapei eventually by train.

Now, I had been dying to try out this Couchsurfing thing, which for those of you that don't know it, is an online network of people that offer up their couch or a spare room for travellers to crash on for free. They either love showing off their city, love having company, or just love supporting travellers because they were or will be travelling themselves. I had finally gotten someone to accept me, a bearded scraggly looking bloke by this point, who had no prior references to ensure them he wasn't a psycho. Daphnee was willing to take me in. So we arranged a meeting spot at Taipei 101, currently the tallest building in the world. She picked me up and wisked me away on her scooter to another building. Turns out, I happened to arrive on a night of a Taipei couchsurfers party, and it happened to be on the rooftop of a luxury apartment building where a wealthy couchsurfer was renting an apartment for a month, and the roof happened to have an incredible view of Taipei 101 with it's own little cloud hovering over it amidst an otherless cloudless sky. Wish my camera battery hadn't died, cause it would have probably made for one of the greatest pictures ever taken, EVER. So I met pretty much all the couchsurfing hosts, and decided right then to stay in Taipei for 5 days. When we got back to her place, she had a japanese style guestroom for me, gave me a key to her place, had printed directions for me to get back there, and even left me breakfast every morning before she left for work! I got to try all sorts of traditional Taiwanese foods with her, like vinegar style tea. She grew up in Taiwan but had done much travelling and studying abroad, so she spoke very good english, and french as well. So the next day she took me sightseeing, and when she wasn't available to take me around, she arranged for her friends to take over! Saw temples and shrines, one at the top of a moutain, participated in the worshipping at a doist temple, went to many great restaurants, raced swan boats on the river with the whole group of couchsurfers again, went to "snake alley" where I tried snake soup and a shot of alcohol/snake blood with my taiwanese guide, with whom I struck a deal that I'd only try it if she tried it with me.

The coolest thing for me was when the girls brought me to a hidden hot spring a little outside of Taipei. down a small trail, by a river, surrounded by huge mountains, with a cool moonglow to it because this was 11 pm. Sat in the different temperatures of the most legit hot springs I've ever been to, being the only foreigner for miles and miles, it felt like. I realized that people actually use some of the pools as a communal bath when they don't have their own shower/bath facilities at home.

One of Daphnees friends, Samantha, offered to let me stay at her place that night, which was my last night in Taipei, so that she could drive me to the airport the next morning for my 6am flight! Unbelievable hospitality. Her husband is an IronMan competitor and told me of a route where you can bike in a circle around the whole country of Taiwan in only 11 days. Might look into that later on.

The main thing I retained from my time in Taipei though was that after couchsurfing, you end up being real friends with these people and often with their friends as well, and I realized how awesome of a concept couchsurfing was. I was addicted. Anyhoo, the next morning I was off to Japan...

Mike

Taiwan Part 1

Hi everyone,

Where to begin. I think I'll break this into several segments so its not too long. I can see this getting pretty long if I don't keep myself in check. I'll start with Taiwan, and this will go with the pictures that are now up on the facebook part of the blog.

So in the last blog, Kyle and I were just arriving in Tainan, Taiwan. We were newbies with no contacts so the first thing we did was check into a hotel. The second thing was head to the bar. The Armory is a well known place amongst the foreigners (even featured in the Lonely Planet on Taiwan I believe) and we had heard that from meeting people there, including the owner, everything else would fall into place. It did. Took no time to meet a ton of people and get involved in the sports and game nights that are pretty plentiful around here. After 4 or 5 days, Kyle and I found a 3 bedroom apartment for about 7000 New Taiwan Dollars, which is roughly 300 Canadian dollars a month! Pretty sweet location too. So we moved in started to settle. We rented scooters and checked out the area, including a beach nearby, and just kinda hung out for a while.

We knew if we wanted to stay longer than 30 days we would have to leave the country to pick up a visa eventually. With this in mind, and since I already wanted to check out these countries, I decided one night that I would make a 'side trip' to Japan and South Korea before coming back to teach for a while. There was a really big soccer tournament coming up that Kyle wanted to stay for (I'll let him tell about that), so it would be the first time I break off to travel alone. I also decided that before I flew out of Taiwan it would be fun to do a quick weeklong tour of the perimeter of the country. I met a Taiwanese family who helped me plan out my itinerary, and the next day I left.

I caught a train up north a little and hired a van to take me up to a small town in the moutains called Alishan that is famous for it's sunsets. Met a budhist munk (or nun?) along the way who gave me a bagged lunch for having helped her load her boxes into the van, which I thought was very cool. Did some hiking there amongst the ancient temples and massive 1000 - 2000 year old trees for a few days, amazing mountain views all around, and got up at 4:30am to catch the train to the summit for the sunrise, that is supposedly the fastest in the world (only a few seconds to clear the horizon). There's also often a sea of clouds covering the valley, making it even more picturesque. Some of my favorite shots from this trip were taken up there.

I headed back and bused, trained, taxied all the way back to the southern tip of Taiwan, to a beach city called Kenting (took the wrong train and ended up on a subway type run that lasted 3 hours longer than expected). Arrived at 9:30pm with no hotel, and to my surprise, thousands of school kids flooded the streets, celebrating a holiday that I happened to arrive on. Found a cheap place and crashed for the night. Next day, rented a scooter, rode around on mountain trails (have to go back to try a hiking trail where you can mingle with wild monkeys), and settled on a beach for a while.

I met a Taiwanese woman who studied abroad (actually now lived in Spain) and she treated me to a beer on the beach, as well as invited me to use some of her umbrella shade that you normally have to pay for. Side note...before this, my bag was sitting in the sun, the sun moved, the shade cast by the umbrella touched my bag, and the woman in charge of renting out the parasols instantely came running to collect money from me. Anyway, 2 beers on the beach and a meal later, she decided I was going to be the lucky person to whom she would pay forward all the hospitality she had received throughout her travels in her younger years (not the last time this would happen to me throughout this side-trip either). So she told me to make it back to that same spot for 5pm and she'd drive me to a great hot spring.

I hoped on my scooter and cruised to the south so I could say I walked along the most southern point of Taiwan, and continued on a highway along the other coast that cuts back across to where I was before. A quick dip, and a shirtless bike ride to dry off, and I made it there for 4:59. She drove me to the hotsprings resort about 30 minutes away, complete with every type of water massage you could think of, and the view of the silhouetted mountains in the darkness wasn't so bad either. She covered the quite expensive bill, I realized she was wealthy hehe, and she dropped me back off at my bike. Don't think I even got her name throughout that whole thing. Anyway, I satisfied a craving for western food with pizza at Smokie Joe's (with a big sign on the door that says 'no smoking'), learnt a bit about Taiwan from the bored waitresses since I was the only person there, caught some live music and called it a night.

Mike

PS. Taiwan Part 2 coming soon...

Just noticed how long that was. Holy cow!

And Justin, the ball is in your court for a blog post.

Mike

PS. Bunch of new pics up on our Facebook 'Tree Loose Moose' page!

One Hong Kong and a Macau later

So the Tree Loose Moose have split up. That's right. It's now Two Loose Moose and a Solo Loose Goose. Justin had a really good setup in Shanghai so he's sticking around there for now and Kyle and I took off on thursday afternoon. Wednesday night we ended that leg of the trip proper with an open mic performance of a few covers and a song we wrote on the trip that has been stuck in all of our heads. "Pretty pretty baby, your not my mommy so don't tell me what to do (what to do)". Then we boarded the overnight train to Hong Kong, and a crazy weekend ensued. Arrived and met a Chilian dude travelling alone, and found a hostel with him...the cheapest one in the book (about $11 CAD a night), on top of a mountain near downtown HK. Hoped in a cab, rode for a bit, only for the cabby to stop at the base of the mountain road that leads to our hostel, saying it is closed (turns out, because of construction the road is closed every weekday from 11 to 6). So we start hiking with our full packs on.....30 minutes later and about 5000 stairs, we walk into reception, the sweaty messes that we were. The view of all of Hong Kong more than made up for it...incredible. We cleaned up and headed back to town about 7pm, jumped into a high speed hydrofoil boat, and an hour later we were in Macau (different 'country'....so had to do the customs thing to get there....FYI Macau was a Portuguese colony so many streets, buildings, etc. have Portuguese names. Hit the first casino...weren't feeling it, so we stumbled upon another, which turned out the be the biggest casino known to man (probably)....an endless maze of chinging, dealing and yelling. Tried my hand at blackjack and was on fire for a while....people betting on my plays. Made up for my loses at the slots, then as we were gearing up to leave, noticed a few Craps tables, and we had heard that these were the best odds in a casino. Got the Chinese attendants to explain it to us, and starting playing alone. Before we knew it, we had a full table, full of people cheering and high fiving each other, and small fortunes were won and lost. I was on the 'lost' side hehe, but still managed to end up by a few bucks, and Kyle won a bunch. By the time the boat landed back in Hong Kong, it was 5 am and we had to sneak back into our hostel under the back gate.

Next day, we hit up a hiking trail about an hour away that we had heard about. Completely amazing views....the "Dragon's Back' trail takes you alone the ridge of a mountain, with a view of the ocean to the right, and a gulf to the left. At the summit, we spotted a beach with massive waves, and decided to try to make it down there. An hour of walking and jogging later, we found an incredibly long set of stairs that took us down to "Big Wave Beach", where we jumped in and body surfed on the gigantor waves, in the dark at this point. Had a beer and headed back.

Later at night, we headed back to town and went up a 45 degree tramway to a famous lookup point, where we could see a different view of the city lit up. Heard about a bar strip, took a cab there, and turns out it's more like a bar neighborhood, with like 200 bars within a couple of blocks, on a really steep hill. Drank among the hundreds/thousands of people until the wee hours of the morning, met a bunch of travellers, got separated from each other, and somehow pulled into the hostel at the same time as the sun was coming up. We went to sleep (in the dorm room with about 38 other beds).

I woke up in the morning, and casually glanced at my watch....it was 12:10. Our flight was leaving from the Hong Kong airport, over an hour away, at 1:45, and we had slept through our 9am alarms. I thought about it for a while...was it worth panicking and trying to make it, or was it a lost cause? Once you put that kind of thing in motion, theres no stopping. Decided we had to try, and it quickly turned into the begining of "Home Alone", bags been stuffed, things being left behind because there was no time. We got there at 1:20, after the most expensive cab ride of my life, and the front desk tells us they don't let you check in after 40 minutes pre flight. So there. She put us on the 3:30 flight and we had time to relax finally.

Later that night, we land in Taipei, go to the visa office, and find out not only did we need to have an onward flight booked from taiwan before they'd let us in, but we also needed to get our visas before arriving. So rather than staying for 2 or 3 months and working, now we must leave the country before 30 days goes by, and get the 'visitor' visa to come back with. The airline helped us out and whippped up an imaginary itinerary to show the customs officials that we had an exit flight booked, which they never even asked for in the end, and a high speed train later put us in Tainan, where we have made a good contact already and are joining a soccer team later this week. Staying in a $15 CAD a night hotel right now and starting the job, apartment, motorcycle, guitar, cell phone, djembe and mandarin lesson hunting process now. Looks like we'll be here for a month, then will hit up Japan before coming back for another month with the proper visa. Oh yes, and throughout all that, Kyle's been walking around with a sprained ankle. AND, they wouldn't let him leave the train station at first, because you need your original ticket to open the exit gates, and he had lost his, and apparently that's a 'big deal' and he would have had to pay for another whole ticket just to open the gate. After like an hour of detainment, I found his ticket that somehow ended up in my pocket, and the security guards let him leave. Ok that's it. More updates to come! And good pictures, lots of them, I swear.

Ciao

Mike

Shanghai

Nihao! Our apologies for the century it took for us to update you. We are still in Shanghai, and have been contemplating our next move. We slowed down the pace a little and have been focusing more on chillaxin' after a month of fastpaced sightseeing. Justin landed an english teaching gig with wee kids a few times a week, Kyle and I decided to extend our visa's for another month and are heading to Taiwan after that to try to find our own teaching jobs, hopefully with a visit to Hong Kong first. So...we've been staying with Kendra, SOnja and Cori for over a month now, and today we are moving into a place we will rent for the remainder of our stay here. We've seen some pretty cool stuff so far. A highlight is definitely Shanghai biking...pretty chaotic, and incredibly fun. Also very interesting to see highrise buildings here, and then small alleys with chickens and ducks running around everywhere. Also lots of small hidden restaurants, shops (bags and watches...you buy...good friend....7 for 100 RMB!) small barber shops, excetera. Had a birthday on Saturday, my 26th one. Was a pretty sweet day....started it off with a game of Risk, then had a bunch of people over, played drinking games and 'catchphrase' (do yourself a favor and look into it), had a roundtable freestyle with some guitars. Then headed out to a few bars in the wee A.M., and woke up without a hangover. It was like magic. First taste of Canadian Club for a while too...it brings you back. Checking out an acrobat show on friday, and did a bit of travelling to a small town nearby with a very scenic hike around a lake. Also paid a visit to a mansion that people rent out for parties the other day. It doesn't take long in Shanghai to start seeing the same foreigners at the bar and at parties...very cool that we already know a lot of them. Hopefully will be checking out some more mountaineous regions before we settle down in Taiwan for a while and the Tree Loose Moose split up to 1 and 2 moose and meeses respectively. Haven't had any crazy food really, but we have seen tiger paws, snakes and toads, and lots of pigs feet in grocery stores. Kyle's been playing football (soccer) a few times a week...Justin and I went to watch the last game...and drink...turns out they needed some goalkeepers for the game to happen, so we filled in, beers in hand. Try playing soccer in sandals on turf and not spilling your can. Went to see a live band at a music venue the other day as well....first time in a Chinese moshpit, rocking out to lyrics I don't understand. Linkin Park, Kanye West, and Avril Lavigne shows coming up before we leave too...might have to bite the bullet and check out one of them.

So, as you can tell, not as much sightseeing over the last month....really just soaking in the Shanghai experience. Hopefully will fit in some Shanghai go-karting and paintball, and maybe some shark diving if we're lucky (tried once already but missed our ride). Also gonna have a bunch of suits tailor made for us for incredibly cheap, and send them home, so the next time you see us we should be pretty spiffy lookin. Will try to get some more pics up for you, and start updating more regularly again. Cheers and thanks for checking in!

Mike

Pictures

Helloooooo. Here are some pictures. Half of the best ones from my camera are on here, the other half on our facebook 'Tree Loose Moose' page. Sorry they're not in any order or sometimes rotated properly. Enjoy!

-Mike

Olympic fever

Ni hoa!! Beijing was GREAT! It lasted about a week. We visited the great wall, the forbidden city and Tian na men square. All of which were AWESOME! Then, it was OLYMPIC FEVER!! and let me tell you, we were infected! All three of us meese were in full fledged canadian outfits which led to a papparazzi photoshoot that would outdue Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's mysterious affair with a texan midget and his seven foot bearded wife. Can you just picture Justin in his clown mask making faces to the sea of Asians?!?! We then headed to a man made lake surrounded by bars and joined the hundreds of people dancing in the courtyard. We grabbed a bite to eat and played a chinese version of hacky sack for hours on end. Also, at another bar strip we met the middle eastern guy from 'This hour has 22 mins'.He was there filming skits and we were the only ones to recognize him. We ended up buying tickets for the track and field finals from a scalper(dont ask how much!)where we were the rowdiest group in the whole birds nest. We truly dont know how CBC missed us. Thanks for nothing Ron! Beijing Beijing wor ai Beijing!! To give an idea of how big Beijing is, we watched the closing ceremonies fireworks on tv, and only heard them once it was done being aired. It sounded like the city was under attack!
We just arrived at my cousins Kendra's place in Shanghai where we plan to stay with her and her GORGEOUS roomates for a couple nights till we figure out our plan of attack for Shanghai.
Peace!

Mongolia/China

Hey folks. Last update was from Lake Baikal, Russia. Later that day, we went to Irkuustk and did a little sightseeing, then hopped on a train that would cross the Mongolian border to Ulaanbataar overnight. This was the first time we really started seeing lots of other backpackers, and it hasn't really stopped. Quite a community of travellers out here. The border crossing actually took a while, with passport checks and custom declarations on either side, so we had 6 hours in a small russian border town. After several hours killing time in the hot sun, we decided to bust out the guitars and entertain the train full of passengers sitting around the platform. Everyone gathered round, clapped, swayed and sang as we played for the 40 or 50 people from all walks of life. One guy in particular joined in by making up lyrics in Korean....a really cool moment where language barriers didn't exist. Anyhoo, we made it to Ulaanbatar the next day and were swept away to the a national park on the outskirts, where we did some bad ass/horse back riding (not that sissy walking in a row stuff...these horses could giver..."choo!"), some hiking, some fine dinning, even some basketball. Incredibly friendly people out there. Then we spent a few days roaming Ulaanbataar, capital of Mongolia, and saw stuff like the Black Market, a buddhist temple, a Mongolian rock band at an Irish Pub, and some more night life. Lots of coverless manholes in that city..watch your step. Then, overnight train again to the Chinese border, another long wait, then onto a Chinese Sleeper Bus with like 40 beds, each one seemingly designed for midgets. No joke, the bed ended just below my knees. Overnight on that thing, with about 5 random stops for passports throughout the night (Olympic security), and now we're in Beijing. Feel somewhat like a celebrity out here, because we get way more stares and waves here than anywhere else so far. Some people ask for pictures, especially if we're playing guitar. They also like our arm hair. Gonna hike on the Great Wall tomorrow, and maybe the Forbidden City, and try to get some tickets for the Olympics. Next update will probably be from Shanghai. All the best to the west! Pictures to come...

Goodbye Russia

Hey all. Well, our time in Russia has nearly come to an end. After St Petersburg, we took the overnight train to Moscow, and trust us, Moscow never sleeps. Did the tourist stuff (the Kremlin, Red Square, Lenin's Tomb, Cathedrals, boat rides, you name it) but also had the real Russia experience of an attempted mugging, a near arrest, a subway pervert, and defending an innocent woman from her abusive boyfriend, all the while drunk as skunks. That sounds bad, but it was all in 1 night. The good far outweighed the bad! Good = amazing sites, beautiful woman, good food, fantastic company, and vodka. One of the sweetest things about Moscow is the Metro system, very cool. We parted from Aussie Drew and Ray from TO, and jumped on train to Lake Baikal (3.5 day ride!)with the other 3 guys in our group (2 Brits and 1 Prairie boy). The train ride itself was something else. Now we're at the end of a 4 day stay at a small village near Lake Baikal, the biggest/oldest lake in the world, holding 1/5 of the global freshwater supply. Did some hiking, same bartering at the market, ate fish, went swimming (brrrrrr), snuck bikes out in the middle of the night and met many locals. Now we're heading back to Irkuust for the day and jumping on a train yet again to Ulaanbatar, the capital of Mongolia, and will be camping for a few days. Won't have access to any technology while we're there, so the next you'll hear from us, we'll be in Beijing. Watch for us painted red at the Olympics, screaming "CAAAANNNNAADDAAAAA!!!!". We'll try to update you on the event we'll be watching (whatevers cheapest). For now, thanks for the patience in waiting for an update, and we'll talk soon! Justin, Kyle and Mike.

How are things?

Justin, let us know how things are going...we are very interested....

 

Nat, Bob & Joel

Continued from Sweeden

sweeden Rocked. Beautifull people. We had a blast are first night in Russia. Chilled out at the hotel met some locals and drank. One of them happend to be secret military police, showing us his id and then the gun. Later that evening I had the chance to shoot it off as we saluted Canada and Russia relations. People love us as soon as we tell them were Canadians. It's still all catching up to us so will digest then talk more but for now know that we are the Canadian sensations.

Travel Blog Launch

Hey everybody! Our blog is up. Leaving on Thursday...first stop: Russia. Pre-departure post to come.