Weekend in Paradise....

So I blogged earlier that I was in Kenting for the weekend. Kenting is the very very southern tip of Taiwan where the Pacific Ocean and the China Sea meet. It’s also the most tropical part of Taiwan. We stayed at this BEAUTIFUL resort and spent the weekend with a bunch of Taiwanese guys that took us all over, lead our scuba dives, and treated us to lots and lots of food. The weekend was amazing. One of the best in my life. I wish all of you could have been there to experience it with me. This is our first sight of coast in Taiwan. At about 7:00 am Thursday morning Kevin (a guy Jim met last year while scuba diving) and Davit (one of Kevin’s scuba students) came to pick us up. They drove all the way from Kaosiung (an hour away) to get us! We packed up and headed to Kenting. On the way we met Kyle who had all of our scuba gear…..well his name isn’t really Kyle….but he didn’t have an English name. Most people in Taiwan have a Taiwanese name and an English name. But this kid didn’t have one and we had a hard time remembering his Chinese name. They gave us the responsibility of naming him! Ha ha So we randomly decided to call him Kyle….and it stuck with him. His English name is now Kyle and he will go by that for the rest of his life. He just added me on facebook and he even changed it on there! It cracks me up. It was also funny because most names in Taiwan mean something and people receive certain names for certain reasons. So Davit asked us why we named him Kyle….but we have no reason, it was just completely random….so they were really confused and didn’t understand. Ha ha Kevin is on the left, Kyle in the middle, and Davit on the right. Anyways, the drive to Kenting was about 2.5-3 hours and it was so pretty. There were palm trees EVERYWHERE and part of the drive was along the coast. I loved it. When we finally arrived in Kenting we went straight to the resort we stayed at. It was so beautiful. It was a small resort and we were the only ones there at the time so we had the WHOLE place to ourselves. The beach was right across the street and it was gorgeous. It had white sand and crystal clear waters. There was hardly ever anyone there so we basically had it to ourselves too! Here are some pictures.
We then got ready for my first scuba dive in the ocean!! We drove to this rocky beach and suited up. Everyone’s wet suit fit but mine……..so everyone laughed at me. After we suited up, we walked down in. We only went down about 40 ft but it was still a blast. I’m glad we didn’t go further cuz I was a little bit anxious and it was everyone’s first time. I loved every minute of it though. Once I got the hang of it I could just relax and explore around. There were TONS of tropical fish and a lot of fun things to see! We went through lots of crevices and caves. It was amazing. I love being down in the water. It’s so relaxing and almost like you’re in a totally different world. I definitely recommend it to anyone who has never done it. After diving Sophia, Jim, Kyle, Kevin, Davit and I went to the spa while all of the other girls got ready for dinner. It was so nice. The sun was setting and it was perfect weather. We just sat in the hot tub sippin on drinks and talking. That’s definitely the life.

We all went out for dinner at Smokey Joe’s. It’s a tex mex restaurant that is supposedly in the U.S. EVERYONE was sick of Taiwanese food and wanted some familiar food. It was pretty good, but I prefer asian food. Everyone thinks that I’m crazy that I don’t miss American food! Ha ha

After dinner all of the girls were tired and wanted to go home and sleep but some of us wanted to go out on the town! So Davit and Kyle offered to take us out. Sophia, Hayley, Jim and I went out to a night market with them and out on the main street. It was so much fun to experience the young culture of Taiwan. Kenting is the place in Taiwan where all of the young people go for fun. The town was crazy with TONS of people and loud music everywhere. I absolutely looooved it. Kyle and Davit acted as our interpreters and we just walked around enjoying it. It was a blast.
It was also interesting because I was wondering if the same culture of hospitality and generosity applied to the younger generation. It DEFINITELY does. Kyle and Davit were soooo sweet. They always opened our doors for us, they bought us drinks (don’t worry…non-alcoholic), if a random guy started talking to us they were kind of protective, they were always very respectful, and helped us out with EVERYTHING. They never let us struggle with scuba gear, if they saw we were having trouble they would come right over and just do the entire thing. At one point on the trip, we had just finished a shore dive and Sophia and Hayley really had to go to the bathroom. They couldn’t hold it any longer. We were riding with Kyle and at first he couldn’t understand what they were trying to tell him. Davit came over and told him and he literally ran to his car, had us all jump in and took off. I’ve never driven so fast in my life! He zoomed back to our resort. It was such a simple thing, just having to go to the restroom, but he didn’t want them to be uncomfortable so he did everything he could so they didn’t have to be. You could tell that it isn’t just because we were Americans, it is just natural for them. Very impressive. I’ve been impressed with the overall morality of the people here. And it’s impressive because the morality isn’t due to their religion (well some of it is) but it’s mostly just a part of their culture. I love it.

The next morning we had another two dives scheduled but Sophia, Rainy, and I decided to stay and enjoy the beach (because we had ANOTHER two dives scheduled for later on in the day). At 9 in the morning it was already in the 80’s so we walked over and to lay out on the beach and explore. It was so funny because the Taiwanese people here aren’t so outright about staring at you and being amazed by you.

They’re a little bit more secretive (and when I say secretive I mean TRYING to be secretive but being completely obvious). We started walking along the beach and there was a group of about 5 or 6 boys walking behind us and there were constant little clicks from cameras. Ha ha It was so weird! And they followed us for a while. And the entire time while laying out on the beach you could hear little clicks going off and see flashes going off. It was soooo funny!

We then went snorkeling! It was soooo much fun! It’s amazing what you can see just by swimming like 15-20 feet off shore. We saw TONS of tropical fish and all kinds of beautiful coral. Afterwards, we laid out some more and ate kiwis on the beach. Seriously life was perfect there. Beautiful beach, hot weather, crystal clear warm water, delicious fruit and drinks, and perfectly blue skies.

We then met up with everyone for our first boat dive! We actually did two boat dives and saw lots of cool stuff. Lots more tropical fish, coral, puffer fish, sea snakes, crabs, sea cucumbers, eels, octopus, shrimp…and lots more. Here are some pictures. These are only from one of the dives. I’ll post more of the cooler stuff later. On our first dive I was just swimming around when all of a sudden one of the instructors grabbed me, motioned for me to stay still, and started yanking on my back. I had no idea what was going on. I looked at Sophia and she was waving her hands all around and pointing. I was so confused. Then all of a sudden everyone linked arms and surrounded me. Then there was more yanking on my back. Then one moment later everyone broke away and just swam away. Ha ha I was SO clueless! I just forgot about it and finished the rest of the dive. When I got out of the water everyone was freaking out and asking me if I was scared….I had no idea what happened. I guess that my oxygen tank completely fallen off and detached from my vest and started floating away. One of the instructors caught it at the last moment right before it broke off and pulled me down and they had to completely reassemble it while we were down there (hence all of the yanking on my back). It was so funny that everyone was freaking out but I seriously had NO idea that it had happened. Also, on the same dive Jim got stung by a jelly fish! His wet suit had ridden up his leg so it was exposed!

That night the resort owner took us out on the town. His name is Vincent and he’s adorable. He and his wife run the resort and a little diving company and they are very wealthy. He owns one of only 8 land rover type cars in all of Taiwan! He took us out to this super nice restaurant for dinner. They brought tons of dishes out on a spinny thing so you just spinned it around to dish out whatever you wanted. It was a lot of fun. Lots of his friends came too so we had a great time meeting everyone and trying to “converse” with them. Ha ha Then we went to the night market again and I got TONS of good souvenirs. Vincent is the man next to Jim. The guy on the far left is the restaurant owner.

Saturday morning Sophia, Hayley, Christina and I went on another dive. This time a bunch of Taiwanese guys came with us and it was a blast. They were all so adorable. They did everything for us. They set everything up for us and literally walked us arm in arm through the water and out. This dive was probably my most favorite dive. We just swam around and explored this huge coral reef. There was so much to discover! We even got to feed the fishes. When you release little ramen noodles the fish swarm all around you. It’s such a cool experience!

After the dive we went back to the resort for lunch then Sophia and I went to the beach one last time while everyone else was showering and getting ready. I was sooooo sad to leave. The weekend was so much fun and it was absolutely gorgeous. The weather is better in Kenting too. Not so hot. But we were planning on going to Monkey Mountain (this is one of the big things I’ve been waiting for on this trip!)

Right before we began the drive back to Kaosiung, Kevin wanted to stop at his favorite place in Kenting for drinks. It’s a tea place (Tea is huge in Taiwan, they never serve water, just tea). We kept telling Kevin that we don’t drink tea because of our religion. But he didn’t understand that it was our religion, he thought we were just being modest and refusing it because we didn’t want him to pay……so he went ahead and bought 10 big cups of Boba Milk Tea and spent around $30 on it. So we just went ahead and drank it…….part of the cultural experience right?

We had about an hour drive to Kaosiung and Sophia, Rainy, Kris, and I rode with David. We learned a lot from him. He’s actually from Indonesia but he has been in Taiwan for the past 4 years for college. He is graduating in August with a business degree. He plans to go back to Indonesia and help out with his family business. His family cleans bird nests for the famous “Bird Nest Soup” that is popular here in Asia.

He knows four languages! And he’s really good with English. He is actually Chinese (his father and mother are Chinese) so he knows Mandarin, he grew up in Indonesia so he knows Indonesian, his parents taught him Chinese and Maylaysian! On the ride, he kept telling us that he lives on Monkey Mountain. We were so confused because we thought monkey mountain was some big mountain that we had to hike up to and that we would run into a couple of monkeys...if even that. Definitely not the case.

We arrived at Davit’s university (University of Sun Yat-sen). It was a beautiful university set on top of a hill right on the coast. It was absolutely gorgeous. I would have loved to go to school there….except all of the work is in Mandarin. Ha ha This is the view from his apt. But we parked and got out and they said we were at Monkey Mountain! We were so confused. We called one of David’s friends and they just said “Now we wait”. So we sat for a bit then all of a sudden further up a walkway a couple of monkeys ran by! We ran up to get closer. The students probably thought we were freaks because we were all grinning and running up the walkway running after monkeys (the students hate them because they steal their stuff!) Then monkeys just started showing up all over! They were climbing all over the walkways, up in the trees, and on the parked mopeds! It was so cool! We got pretty close to them too. We couldn’t touch them though because I guess they’re very aggressive. In the morning they steal students food and they attack people someties! Supposedly we were very lucky. They say that you hardly ever see them but by some chance we ran into a ton of them. It was a way fun experience! After Monkey Mountain Kevin took us to his wife’s work and they treated us all to free dessert. Then afterwards we went to one of his friend’s restaurants and the owner provided all of our dinner for free (keep in mind that there are ten of us!). I really wish you guys could see how generous these people are. It never ceases to amaze me. After one individual spending hundreds of dollars on you, you'd think that they'd stop...but they don't. They just keep giving and giving. On the way home we had a dance party with Davit in his car haha He might meet us up in Taipei right before we leave for America and take us out on the town because he wants to go dancing with us! ha ha I looooove the people here!