These last two days have been JAMPACKED! I think I've taken like a thousand pictures! My cheeks hurt this morning from smiling so much the night before, we have been having the most wonderful time! So now that I have some downtime I'm gonna share it with all of you!
Here we go!
Yesterday one of the students, Joanna, took us to hot springs in her home town, Beito. The town is SO beautiful, we spent a lot of time wandering around and checking out all of the parks before we got up to the hot springs. It was a small public hot spring in the middle of the city! I would have taken pictures, but we were not allowed. There were 5 pools, all different temperatures. 4 went from warm- SUPER FREAKING HOT! and the 5 one is ICE cold. You are supposed to hop from the least hot to the cold, then wamer, back to cold, warmer, back to cold, and the hottest to improve your circulation. Most people sit for quite a while in each pool, but we were so excited (and ADD) that we probably spent the least amount of time in each one. People loved to stare at us because we were the only white people and the only people wearing bikinis! At least we looked good, thanks to 8 minute Abs and Buns!! That's the workout Kayla, Carly and I have been doing via Youtube in our rooms!
Some silly statues in Beito, we took lots of pictures imitating their faces too!
After the hot springs Joannas dad was kind enough to pick us all up in his van and drive us up Yangmingshan mountain to have a traditional taiwanese meal that he treat us to. There were 8 of us total, and we got 10 dishes. We at whole fish, white asparagus, honeydew, fried shrimp and pineapple, chicken, green veggies, HUGE mushroom, ginger soup with sweet potato which was REALLY good, meat soup, rice, rolls, and one last dish I don't recall! It truly was a FEAST and it was super kind of him to pay for it all! It was also POURING down rain, so we were very grateful to be inside. It was WONDERFUL to ride in a car as well, because we have not ridden in a car since we came back from the airport a month ago!!
Our dinner! The plates just kept coming!! Those little yellow things with white stuff on top are the shrimp and pineapple, they were SO GOOD!
Our hosts, Joanna and "Baba", that's dad in Chinese and it's what we all just ended up calling him!
After lunch we went back down the mountain to Starbucks where we waited until her dad came back again and drove us to Zen 35, a restuarant on Yangmingshan that overlooks ALL of Taipei. It was SO beatiful!! We had all planned on meeting our entire group there and having dinner but most of us were SO full from lunch that we either didn't have anything, or we just got drinks. I got a cosmopolitan that was very good! My first mixed drink that was all my own, pretty fun! The restaurant was so cozy, it was mostly all glass windows, so we could see the rain, but we were nice and dry cuddling on comfy couches. We gave each other massages, took fun pictures, had drinks, and taught the Taiwanese students many things about American culture. Just being there to see the view was enough though, it was INCREDIBLE, we took a lot of pictures!
Carly and I under my umbrella, look at that view!!
Joanna and Christy teaching each other new games
Abby, Jean, and Joanna with their drinks!
Then today Kayla and I woke up early so that we could leave at 9 to go to the zoo! More people were supposed to come, but they were all too tired so from OSU it was just Kayla and I, but we met Clark (the PR rep for the school who helps us all with a lot and loves hanging out with the students, he's so nice!), as well as Vianna and her sister Sandra (Vianna is in my small group for one of our classes!). The zoo is HUMONGOUS... we spent 4 hours there, and there are still at least 20 animals we didn't see. My legs were SO tired, it was such a work out, but everything was amazing, and beautiful!
Sandra, Vianna, and I right after getting in the zoo!!
Baby Monkey! There were so many of these monkeys, it was like one huge monkey family on this island, but he was the cutest!
A GIANT Beetle in the Insectarium!
GORGEOUS butterflies... I could've stayed in there all day and taken pictures of them. As it is I took a TON in like 10 minutes!
The zoo map! It's so BIG! We went to the bright orange area on the right, the brown, red, and light blue at the top, but that's all we could do in 4 HOURS! But that means I'll just have to make ANOTHER trip! :)
After the zoo Clark took us to a restaurant we had heard about from previous OSU students here called the Modern Toilet. Yup, toilet. All of the seats are toilets, the tables are either sinks or bathtubs, and you use toilet paper for napkins! It was SO fun, and we ate SO much, check it out!
My dinner!! Thai coconut curry with chicken, it was so delicious!
So delicious, I cleaned up my toilet!
Our HUGE desserts!! We didn't know that they would be THIS BIG!! They came in little eastern style toilets!
Clark and his finished dessert... it took us like 45 minutes to work through them, and still none of us finished!
All in all, I am thoroughly EXHAUSTED from the last two days, but they were some of the most AMAZING days that I have had here so far, so many wonderful memories! We leave tomorrow morning at 7:30am for a week long tour of the island... it's going to be so awesome, but I won't be able to contact anyone during that time so I will take lots of pictures to share when I get back!!
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