A Little Island Get-Away

For the first time since the start of this writing project, I have just not found the motivation to write about this past week.  I sat down to my computer as usual on Sunday night, keyboard on my lap, millions of thoughts running through my mind, and nothing came to the screen.  There is nothing particularly taxing about this blog, it takes me a few hours to condense each week into a few paragraphs, and the more weeks that pass, the easier it is to weed out the unimportant events.  The things I write are more for me than for anyone else, though I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me smile to see the 'view count' increase each week, or to receive messages (or occasionally meet) the people who have stumbled upon my stories, so if I enjoy the writing, and I enjoy its results, why have I lost my motivation to continue?  I had a great week, and I have a lot to say about it, but sleep and other projects have been winning the battle for my time, well that ends now.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Taiwanese holidays, this past week was the anniversary of the 2/28 incident (also referred to as the '2/28 massacre' and simply '228').  On this day, in 1947, a political uprising against the Taiwanese government led to the deaths of over 10,000 people.  The incident is said to have begun with the confiscation of contraband cigarettes off of a female vendor who begged not to have her supplies taken away.  The exchange between the woman and police drew a large crowd, and when an officer hit the woman over the head with his gun, the pent-up anger of the crowd erupted.  People surrounded the officers, and eventually a gun was fired into the crowd, killing one its members.  The incident was a trigger for a period of martial law in the country which lasted for almost 40 years but eventually led to the "Taiwan Independence Movement".  Today it is a declared holiday, and is commemorated with peace parks and monuments in several cities around Taiwan.
The history is grim, but for most residents, particularly the younger generations who I interact with on a regular basis, the holiday is not covered in a dark shroud.  Most students enjoy the break from their studies, while most foreign employees take advantage of the extra day of travel or leisure it provides them.  I, for example, used my long weekend to travel south with several of my friends, so we could visit the large city of Kaohsiung and the small island of Xiao Liu Qiu.  We set out on Friday morning on one of the busier train rides I have had to endure, and with no seats for a two-hour train ride, the time could have dragged on.  Fortunately, few Taiwanese people seem to fight to sit in the door-wells, so we made ourselves at home (though we had to stand at each of the stops along the way to allow people to enter or exit).  My coffee must have perked me up because I found the ride quite pleasant, and before long we were sweating in our sub-tropical destination.  We began in the art district of pier two, hoping to get some food and see some of the interesting works of art housed there (though we did pass through without thorough exploration of each of the pieces). From what we were able to see, there were various forms of art including a large number sculptures made from recycled shipping containers.  This is an area I feel I would like to explore more if given a future chance, there is a lot to see and it provides a great location for an scenic walk.  We made our way to the hostel, deciding to bypass the subway (because it would have only been needed for one stop), but managed to get lost along the way (which wouldn't have been the case if it weren't for the ambitious yet unhelpful police officers who pointed us in the wrong direction).  Once settled the group parted ways, with the majority off to explore the British Consulate and Sizhiwan beach, and the others (myself included) off to take a 25 minute boat cruise along the Love River.  The cruise was relaxing, and the weather was perfect, but it felt like no sooner had we left the dock and we were already turning around.  The route followed takes riders to the right for about 7 minutes, then past the starting point and to the left for about 10 minutes, before turning around and returning to the dock, meaning that the majority of your view is of the same patch of skyline.  We reconvened for a western dinner and a night market dessert before getting an early night's sleep.

These "construction workers" have been decorated with many different paint motifs throughout pier two.

We "struggled to catch our train" as we made our way from pier two to our hostel.

Remember how much I hate mornings, and try not to be surprised when I say, we were all up and ready to go at 6:30 the following morning.  Knowing we were in for almost two hours of travel before reaching Xiao Liu Qiu, we wanted to be mobile as early as possible.  We caught a bus near the train station which took us to Donggang, where we boarded our ferry to the island.  Once on shore we rented bicycles, which might not have been the smartest choice.  Unaware that the majority of the island is an uphill climb (with a few quick spurts of downhill coasting), we made our way around the perimeter slower than anticipated, and due to an unfortunate chain malfunction, I scraped up my elbow and knee early on.  None of that stopped us from enjoying a relaxing day of swimming (surrounded by sea urchins), spelunking (through the shortest, yet most tourist-packed cave I have ever experienced), and general sight seeing.  Most of the group had pre-decided not to spend the night on the island, due to its size no more than a day-trip is really required to explore it, so we took one of the last ferries of the evening, and watched the sun set over the island as we departed.  That evening, back in Kaohsiung we painted the town red with one of my favorite night club specials in Taiwan - all you can drink (which, for women only cost an entry fee of $100NT (about $3.00US).  The music was surprisingly familiar to me, which likely means that music back in the states has likely not changed much in two years.

One of Xiao Liu Qiu's best-known attractions is Vase Rock.

Started a little later than our previous morning, we got ourselves up and checked out of our hostel so we could do some Kaohsiung-based sightseeing.  The first stop of the day was the monastery on Fo Guang Shan which is one of the largest buddhist organizations.  The grounds are filled with hundreds of buddha statues, including a stating buddha which measures 120 ft, and a sitting buddha which measures 108 meters tall.  Both buddhas are painted in gold and are an impressive sight to see.  Before we knew it the day was more than half over, and by the time we made it back into the main city, the sun had set.  Fortunately sunlight isn't required to ride the tallest ferris wheel in Kaohsiung, so we went to Dream Mall to take in the scenic views before embarking on our train ride home.

The monastery's golden standing buddha statue.

The buddha memorial center's golden sitting buddha statue.

There we have it, another great week.  There were some rough patches (mainly that patch of road that 'ate my arm'), and I've made more than my fair share of jokes about how I need to stop planning group vacations so I can stop getting injured, but I would gladly do it all again.