I’ve officially been kicked out of my state of denial, my
replacement is here in Taiwan. My
students have started finding out about my upcoming departure date (I haven’t
had the heard to personally tell most of them).
It has been very strange for me to see their reactions, a lot of the
kids are genuinely sad. I know, people
who haven’t been in a similar situation will say “of course they are sad, you
have been their teacher for two years!” but buxiban students are used to seeing
teachers leave. It is normal to change
teachers fairly regularly, in fact, one of the older classes counted having 10
teachers in their last 4 years, can you imagine that?
I am not the only teacher leaving the company, this is a
major over-turn season for my franchise, with about half of the staff members
from the 6 schools leaving in the span of a month. On Friday, most of us went to Taichung to a
“goodbye” dinner for the 2nd-longest-term employee. Usually getting
to Taichung is an easy process, but all the chips were stacked against me that
night. My co-worker and I left the
school late (which is an unfortunate, but common occurrence for us) and began
to scoot back to Changhua, when, I got a flat tire. We pushed the scooter back to the school to
call a repair shop, but they were all closed, so we called for a taxi to take
us to the train station, but the temperamental driver drove off before we could
get in. We called for another taxi, and
it took over 20 minutes to arrive, causing us to miss the last train to
Taichung, and forcing us to spend way too much on a taxi ride into the
city. Still, the night was worth
it. We started at a BBQ and seafood
restaurant, and ended up in a karaoke gay bar until the sun came up.
The nice thing about staying out so late, is that it made my
next day’s travel times work better. Still
making the most of my last few weeks, I decided to revisit the city I had
previously declared “my least favorite city in Taiwan”. As you may recall, I went to Kenting for Tomb
Sweeping weekend well over a year ago, and despite the great company, I
considered the trip to be terrible. It
was raining, I didn’t have any money, I had lost my graduation ring, and I just
couldn’t bring myself to be in a good mood.
Still, I told myself it was unfair to let those memories taint what is
supposed to be one of the nicest vacation spots in Taiwan.
My co-worker and I boarded the train and spent the next few
hours trying to make up for lost sleep (which didn’t work very well). We arrived in Kaosiung in the late morning,
and caught a bus to Kenting around noon (where I got the news of one of my best
friend’s engagements!). In total, the
travel time to Kenting took around 7 hours (with wait times). I still don’t know if I would say the travel
time is worth the destination. Perhaps
if you have a car, or perhaps if you live in the south, but for someone coming
from Changhua the travel is too much of a hassle (especially during a normal
weekend). Immediately upon arrival we
rented a scooter so we could avoid taxi fees.
Tourist city that it is, the streets have plenty of rental stalls (not
even shops, just vendors on the market streets with a handful of scooters), and
licenses are completely unnecessary for obtaining a scooter. After a quick lunch, we went off in search of
a hotel/hostel/ anything with a bed, which proved to be more difficult that I
expected, but not impossible. We skipped
from one place to the next, quickly asking for a room, being rejected, asking
for directions to the next hotel, until we ended up a practically deserted
“resort” in the nearby city. Bags
ditched, we got back on the scooter and started our sightseeing at “sail
rock”. Sail rock is meant to look like
the sail of a ship coming out of the water, or the head of Richard Nixon, but I
just thought it looked like a large rock in the water. Still, I skipped across the jagged beach
until I was as close to the rock as possible without going in the water, before
leaving the beach.
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| This is "sail rock", or as I like to call it, the rock that looks like a rock... |
The goal of the
evening was to make it to Eluanbi lighthouse just before sunset, and we managed
to be in the area, and see the top of the light house by that time, but could
not figure out how to access it. Still,
the nearby signpost alerted us to “southernmost point of Taiwan”, so we followed
the trails down to the water’s edge. The
point is marked by a strange, sail-like marker and does not provide the
stunning views that other parts of Kenting are known for, but there is still
something rewarding about knowing you have traveled “to the end of the
country”.
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| The southern-most point of Taiwan. |
It isn’t a trip to Kenting
without spending some time of the beach, so we went to South Bay only to
discover that all the beach-goers had packed up and left. Sure it was after sunset, but with the swarms
of people we had previously seen occupying the area, I was surprised that no
one was around to wade or lounge in the sand.
I found the beach very relaxing (though I had no urge to swim), and I
was surprised to find that I could walk quite into the shallow waters without
finding a drop-off in the water. As the
day drew to a close we wandered back to the busy streets of the city, which
turn into a night market by the early afternoon, to find dinner before getting
a much deserved night’s sleep.
The next day I was excited to discover how close we were to
the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium, which has been on my “To
Do” list, so I dragged my friend along (though I didn’t manage to drag him past
the café at the museum’s entrance) and saw some animals. The museum was much more of an aquarium than
a museum, which kept me more entertained.
The bulk of the exhibits were divided into three main sections: Coral
Reefs, Waters of Taiwan, and Waters of the World. The design of each section was very creative,
for example, the coral reefs section demonstrated how sunken ships become
inhabited by sea-life and why certain animals are more drawn to different areas
of the boat. As you walk through the
underwater tunnels, you see the sunken ship in the distance, and when you leave
the tunnels you are surprised to find you are “in the ship” with the floors
textured and the lighting limited to further portray that. The section ended with a large tank for two
Beluga whales to play around in. The
Waters of Taiwan section was designed in a very typical aquarium style
(reminding my of the aquariums at my local zoo in Minnesota), and nicely
represented the country’s aquatic life.
It included a hands-on tank where people could feel some of the
anemones, snails, and starfish that can be found around the shores, and several
large fish tanks where I caught a feeding show.
A short distance away from the main building is the Waters of the World
exhibit, which I imagine is most visitors favorite part. The layout centered around a large kelp
forest and took guests “through polar waters” to see penguins, puffins, and
seals. It also featured a virtual “deep
water” display that walked people through the depths of the ocean using
projections that I imagine could terrify small children. Though I was intending on racing through the
museum, it still took me two hours to complete everything (without reading all
of the signs), so it easily could have been a day trip.
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| Who doesn't love penguins? |
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| Jellyfish! |
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| Look at that playful Beluga Whale! |
Slightly more successful than the previous day, we got back
to the Eluanbi lighthouse in the early afternoon and actually found the
entrance this time. Essentially ordered
to build the lighthouse because of the number of sunken ships off the southern
tip of the island, Eluanbi was built in the late 1800s. It is one of the few armed lighthouses in
existence, equipped with a trench and lookouts to defend against local
aboriginals. Now the lighthouse is known
as the “Light of East Asia”. The area
surrounding the lighthouse was absolutely gorgeous, which perfect palm trees
and an ocean view in most directions, but the lighthouse itself is a little
underwhelming. With time limited, we had
to pick whether to walk the beach trails from the lighthouse or go to the
National Forest Recreation Area, we chose the later and found ourselves on a
twisting mountain round. We reached the
park and paid our entrance fee (which was the theme of the weekend, everything
in Kenting cost money) to enter one of the top botanical gardens in the
world. The forest is believed to have
formerly been underwater, and even now it is only about 150 above sea-level. The whole area is layered with rare, tropical
plants, and a few unexpected animals (monkey, lizards, and a lot of
crabs). The trails took about two hours
for us to complete our full circuit. Spotted
along the path were quite a few naturally formed tourist attractions. I was most interested in the
stalagmite/stalagtite caves and the banyan trees.
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| Making friends in the "Fairy Cave", stalagtites everywhere! |
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