too freaking long.

Alright... this is going to be long and awkward because it's Rachel and we have not blogged in a long time. Also a pause because we're currently planning nights of drinking with the students. Tomorrow night is the preferred choice as of yet... this should be interesting. We're going to try some Taiwanese drink. It's apparently very spicy.

We left early Sunday morning for Hualien for our weekend excursion. The train ride took about 3 hours, which with the waking up at 7 definitely meant a long nap. The contortionist in me shown through as I apparently curled up next to Katherine. Once we arrived in Hualien we took our own massive bus to Taroko National Park. We were supposed to be able to tour the gorge but the cruel cruel rain meant falling rocks and danger, ergo no hiking. Which sucked because the gorge was BEAUTIFUL and the trails literally zig-zagged up the sides. We got to do a little hiking... which mainly just meant the tour guide lead us up some slippery steps through what looked and sounded like a rain forest. People took pictures of some gigantor spiders. I kept a safe distance because spiders are the devil. All of them. We also saw the largest snail known to man. About half the size of my fist, cruising along the sidewalk.

We then headed to our hotel (Na Lu Wan Hotel). Some people got super comfy small beds (Katherine) while others got king sized, rock-hard beds (Rachel).. either way with the waking up early and walking around all day definitely made for a good nights sleep (especially since we had to wake up the next morning at 6 am.. that will come later). There was also a single solitary condom in the drawer of the vanity. Once we got to the hotel we had dinner at the hotel's restaurant. All of the chairs were made of wood and steel with cool designs. This dinner was probably the best. Katherine and I discovered we like ostrich, and the kung pow chicken was a nice familiar meal. And mango juice. Yum. The desert also included something that tasted like an apple, watermelon and a tea-jello with sprinkles. Also yum.

After dinner we were rushed to the Aboriginal performance in the Armei cultural valley. Which was basically boys in skirts dancing around and girls in traditional dress dancing around. One of the boys B-lined for Hannah when they invited the audience and stared at her and her butt the whole time. Not knowing that Hannah is currently engaged and getting married in about a month. And she was taller than him. A few of us danced and got pictures with them. Had a chance to buy some handmade aboriginal jewelry/other fun stuff afterward. Yay presents!

We had free time once we got back to the hotel and since they had free bikes, a few of us set out to tour Hualien. Probably not the best idea at night considering traffic laws (besides red lights) don't exist and they care very little for pedestrians/bike riders. I definitely got cut off by a van who thought it was okay to pass between Katie and me when we were like 100 feet apart. I almost died. We stopped at one of the 5,000 7 eleven's in Taiwan (that's the actual number) and got a few snacks before heading back to the hotel to sleep because our next day started at 6 am for "white water rafting". Complete with wake-up call from the front desk.

(Dr. Huang just yelled at Pat for drinking the wrong beer. Apparently it was Chinese beer and "people in Taiwan hate China" -- direct quote)

Breakfast was a Taiwanese version of continental breakfast which various Chinese dishes as well as cereal and toast with strawberry jelly. Having carbs in my life was divine. Checked out quickly for the bus ride to the Rafting place. The rain really put a damper on the whole thing. As did the fact that 90% of the 24K route was calm water. And the other 10% could hardly be called rapids. The scenery was beautiful though. We exited right before the river flowed into the Pacific Ocean and ate at the little cafe there. They had some really precious stray dogs there, one of which was the cutest puppy I've seen in a long time. I really wanted to take him home. He would even sit when you told him to. There was also an enclosed space where 7 teensy puppies and their mother were kept. We gave them our leftovers and the puppies were so starved they ate the vegetables, rice and tofu :(. It was heartbreaking.

A long and winding drive through the mountains to some small village where we bought a few little trinkets. A lady at one of the shops gave me a good luck bracelet for buying something. We then drove a little more to Li-Chuan Fishery, which is famous for their golden clams. We walked around and learned a little bit about the Fishery before having dinner there which was another one of the dinners with a plethora of different dishes on a lazy susan. I've never had clams and thought they were pretty good... although I couldn't stop thinking of that scene in Alice in Wonderland with the walrus and the carpenter where they lured the small clams to eat. Then headed back to the train station for another long train ride back to Taipei. Which we said we'd spend studying for the midterm we had today.. but really just included chatting with a bit of studying origin points. Back to NTSU and immediately to bed because we were all so exhausted.

This morning we had our manual therapy class which consisted a lot of learning about qi and detecting qi. Which is difficult but funny because apparently Katherine has a lot of qi and Jena has very "cold" qi... the professor literally ran away from her. The lecture was also frustrating because our professor would speak in Chinese but would not wait for the translator to finish translating before talking again. He also would talk to us in Chinese like we could understand what he was saying. Which is not even slightly the case. We took the midterm after class which I thought was pretty decent. The extra credit was what is "your welcome" in Chinese.. which (thank you Joyce!) is boo-ka-chi.

Alright I'm getting tired so the rest of this and going to be summed up pretty quickly. Clincal I had Wu Shu. Which is so tight. Videos were taken and will probably be posted. I don't see how they don't tear all their ligaments when they do their spin-jumps. Dinner was all duck, not too bad. We had tortilla's to put them up. Katherine will probably post pictures of all the food.

We also had a surprise lecture about how to use Kinesio tape.. which was actually pretty cool. Kinesio tape here is so much cheaper here than in the U.S. They even gave us each some to take home. I'm currently covered in pink and black kinesio tape. It's pretty cool how it works.

Hot springs tomorrow. The rules are either you have unlimited time in a pubic spring that is split up by gender and you have to be naked, or you can choose 1 buddy and have 50 minutes in a private room. Both choices have their own awkward aspects but I think we're going with taking a few shots beforehand and doing the public one. Who knows how this will turn out... but it will certainly make for a good story.

Ah well.. frisbee tomorrow morning and I have to wake up at 6. ugh. But it will be fun.