Green Island and Taroko Gorge

Another week come and gone with a feast of activities and happenings! It's really hard to figure out where to begin. Good news first i guess; The results from the Portfolio Management exam finally came. I got 73% which though it seems as only acceptable was actually one of the top grades in the class. The passing grade for masters degree is 70%, which ony 3 exchange students (Mathilde, Guillaume and I) and 8 local students managed out of about 30 8|. The funny thing is that Mathilde sat next to Guillaume, who as it happens sat right behind me and slightly to the left... So the midterms are over and all hurdles cleared which is nice.

As for the weekend, Andreas, Jenny, Martin, Andreas and I planned a little trip to Green Island which was prolonged due to a trip to Green Island and Taroko Gorge to save some money in the form of not having to buy train tickets to the other side of Taiwan again (expensive due to the fact that you have to go around the huge mountain chain in the middle of the Island). Andreas, Andreas and Martin set out on Friday morning while Jenny and I stayed behind because we had the season opener of the basketball reguar season! We took the game 35-18 and yours truely recorded 3 points and a couple of assits (and 2 obscure fouls :D). In the evening Jenny and I joined the two Andreas and Martin in Tai Dong. In the morning (Saturday) we took the boat to Green Island. The island itself was gorgous!A volcaninc island with lush tropical vegetation and coral beaches perfect for snorkling which we did plenty of, i can tell you! The weather was amazing which didn't hurt. In the evening we headed to the hot springs and watched the sun set while soaking in the hot water while enjoying a cold Taiwan Beer :). On Sunday we had breakfast by the sea and then returned to Tai Dong.

We left Tai Dong in the afternoon and took the train to Hualien (north taiwan, east coast, 15km from Taroko) Half way there some Taiwanese showed up and told us we were sitting in their seats!?! We were sure we were in the correct seats as were they, the tickets matched perfectly. It was then that we noticed the fine text: our seats were only good up to half way, and so we had to stand the rest of the journey... complete crap i say as we payed the full price... weird system they have here... Finally we arrived in Hualien and got a cheap hotel room by the train station (thanks to Lonely Planet).

We arrived at Taroko around 8am which was perfect as the sun had just risen and there were no other people in sight. The gorge itself is huge and devides often with several rivers running through it. It was absolutly spectacular and almost put the grand canyon to shame... not kidding here. The river was completely clear and clean enough to drink. We hiked around the area until 16:00 covering close to 20kms of pathways. We saw awesome waterfalls, caves, temples, shrines and everything else you can think of. I can't wait to thow you all the fotos (1000 in total, thanks to Martin) when i get back ^___^. Enjoy the teasers though!

We left in the afternoon, exhauseted and blistered. We got to the train station, and there were ofcourse no more trains to Kaohsiung so we had to take a train to Tai Dong and transfer there to a bus to Kaohsiung, which ofcourse was cancelled (next one at 23:50) which meant we arrived at 4am on tuesday morning... nice.

Once again, enjoy the fotos and take care!



Rant of the week:

Feeling a little jaded as there is little to do now that the major part of the travelling is done and there is only really school work left :(

Bonus of the week:

Basketball match tomorrow! Absolutly amazing trip!

Song(s) of the week:

Jimmy Eat World - The Sweatness
Suburban Tribe - While the world awaits
Angels & Airwaves - The Adventure

p.s: This section is not for the faint of heart or anyone under the age of 18... (its not that bad really... but should be avoided by grand parents and perhaps some younger sisters)

During the past two weeks there have been a couple of incidents which serious repercussions for us exchange students. Theres one thing you have to know first to understand all of the following: The floors of the dormitory are devided into two sections each with its own bathroom facility. The facility is a large room with 2 urinals, 2 sinks, and four cubicles which conatin 1 squat toilet, 1 regular toilet and 2 showers. Anyways... About two weeks ago, David from the Czech Republic was taking a shower as you do... All of a sudden he hears some strange sounds he described as panting, moaning and weezing. He looks and sees a Taiwanese student with a starined look on his face, and i am guessing i don't need to tell you what he was doing as i was looking at dave... and yes... i wrote the word HE. Dave gave chase but the sneaky bugger got away. Today in the afternoon Eveline was taking a shower, she heard someone enter the bathroom facilities. Thinking it was another of the girls, she didn't think twice. She didn't hear anything to indicate that the person was doing anything you would be doing in the bathroom facilities and thus looked up only to find a camera mobile phone filming her. She was so shocked that she didn't know what to do. She screamed and the person ran away. Unfortunatly the guy got away unseen as no-one was around. Seriously though... who does that... seriously!!! The people here are really starting to creep me out!!!