Taiwan's Birthday...

Taiwan celebrated its birthday on October 10th (10/10), and I decided to celebrate by spending my 3 day weekend exploring its many beauties. Seven of the teachers and I, along with our good friend Fenny, who also works at Berhan, spent our time in Hualien, Ruesuei, and on Green Island. It was a much needed break from the stress brought on from everyday Berhanian life. Because the trip was so long and so much happened, I'm going to break it down into separate posts, so bear with me.

Day one:

Friday we woke up at 4:45 am to catch a train to Taichung, and then connect with a train that would take us to Hualien. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to go because my boss was going to substitute for my Saturday class, but he has been detained in America. But my friend, Dustin, was kind enough to merge classes with mine. Anyways, I wasn't sure if I was going to have seat on the 5 hour train ride, and it was seriously a miracle that I was able to get a seat.

Taiwanese trains are heavily air conditioned, and we all froze our bums off. Luckily I had thought to bring a long sleeve shirt, but it didn't help much. (Pictures of us walking to the train station at 5:15 am. We were able to see the sunrise).

Five hours later we finally arrived at our destination along with 50 billion other Taiwanese people: Hualien. Hualein is on the eastern coast of Taiwan and is the home to one of the most amazing natural beauties: Taroko Gorge...but, we didn't go there. We found two taxi drivers that were willing to drive us around the area, plus to our hostel 2 hours away for a little under $100 a car. Split between 7 of us, it was a pretty good deal and worth all the unwanted hassle of trying to take buses around and then finding a train to our hostel. They were at our beck and call. And they took us to these fabulous places:

The day ended with an insane drive through a very narrow and windy canyon. I felt like I was in a high-speed chase, the rate our cabs were driving. And I'm just grateful I made it to the hostel in one piece. Pretty amazing actually. That night, we were pretty exhausted, so we watched "Twister," which was on TV and went to bed.