I left my bike at the subway station, even though it is only a five minute walk from my dorm, because I had to go pick up my books from school after the hike, and I knew that if I had to walk back to my dorm to get my bike after the hike, there was no way I was going to leave again to actually go get my bikes. It's all about tricking yourself.
Once Bo and I got to the subway, it was time to take off. Once again, taking the subway to the right stop was the easy part. Quick 20 minute subway ride, and then we arrived at our destination. We had to catch a bus to get to the next part of our trip, and as soon as we walked out of the subway station, we realized that we had just missed the bus we were supposed to be taking. But they come every 10 minutes, so the next hardest part was finding the place where the bus stopped. That was slightly difficult, but manageable. Once on the bus, we had to go up the hills, all the way to the end of the road. Again. I am sensing a pattern.
Once we finally got off that bus, we had to go find the next bus that we had to take. Fortunately, there was only one bus stop. But when we got in line, and asked the people in front of us if this was the right bus, they said it wasn't. So we kept asking. And then the people in front of us realized that THEY were in the wrong line. Woops. But we were in the right place. Or so we thought.
Finally, after about 15 minutes of standing in line, a tiny little shuttle bus showed up. We were at the back of a rather long line, so my heart dropped a little bit. But as people started piling into the van I thought, maybe we will make it. But alas, it was not meant to be. The man managing traffic stopped the line at the man right before e, and then said, "the next bus will be here in 30 minutes!" before walking away. Let me tell you, Bo and I were thrilled.
Thankfully, the next bus came 10 minutes later, and we got crammed into the back. I sat down, and quite quickly realized that it was a bad idea, because all of a sudden, I had a faceful of Chinese ass. Awesome. According to Bo, it wasn't a long bus ride, maybe 20 minutes.
Until we got to a bus stop before ours, and everyone got off. We thought, yes, we have hit the jackpot. Then the bus driver yelled at us to get off, and we realized that we had taken the wrong bus. So we were stuck there for another 10 minutes, until the right bus came along and picked us up. This time, we got seats, and the trip only took a couple of minutes. And then we were there, two and a half hours later. This is what the view looked like when we finally got to the trail head:
The trail was off to the left of the huge sulphur pit right in the middle. It was pretty to look at, until I got to the middle of the sulphur cloud. Almost took me right back to Hoffman. The path was beautiful, with so much vegetation everywhere. But I am embarrassed to say, I am terribly out of shape. It was rather embarrassing. Bo is in great shape, and was leaping up the mountain like a mountain goat. And I was huffing and puffing in the back, trying desperately to get up the rather steep mountain. I'm afraid all you could hear was my breathing. Oops.
After taking a couple of stops to rest and catch my breath (the sulphur was making my stomach super upset) we reached the top of the mountain, 1200m. And found that it was over populated with screaming elementary school children, all of whom stared at us and whispered "Americans". Which was only half right, because Bo is from Sweden. I think we were both a little overwhelmed by the amount of people on the mountain, because we both ran to the back, where there weren't nearly as many. That was when we realized how many bugs and butterflies there were. They were everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I have never seen so many. It was incredible. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a view, because it was super overcast, but it was still awesome to have climbed up to the top.
Because of the massive amount of people on top of that peak, we decided to climb over to one that wasn't too far away, but was also not as high. When I looked up and saw how steep the climb was, my heart sank a little bit, but we trudged along. There was no one on that peak, and we could see more because it wasn't quite as high up. We could see parts of Taipei, and the river, and all of the surrounding mountains. It was pretty spectacular. I didn't take pictures because the clouds would have distorted the pictures.
We ran into either an Irishman or a Scotsman, who clearly thought we were insane for only being in Tiapei in the summer. It is pretty hot, I can definitely understand why he thought so. He seemed a little superior for the fact that he had been there for 15 years, but what are you going to do?
Then it was time to walk back down the hill. For some reason, who knows why, walking downhill is always a lot harder than walking up hill. And my knee was hurting walking downhill, but there is no amount of money in the world that could have made me admit it just then. On the way back down, I practiced opening up a little more, and told Bo about Hoffman, and told him that I wouldn't have come on the walk before I had gone to Hoffman. I was using my skills!
The ride back was a lot less painful, and a whole lot faster. This time, we took one bus all the way back down to the subway. At this point, both of were sweaty, exhausted, and hungry after hiking up sulphur soaked hills. It was time for lunch. We made a beeline for our favorite hole in the wall restaurant around the corner from our dorm room. And ordered a rather large amount of food. And then practically inhaled it. It was fantastic.
By the time that we finished, we had to run over to the school to pick up our books. I was so sweaty and gross and tired that I didn't want to do anything anymore, or even talk to anyone. I'm afraid I got rather short with anyone that was keeping me from going back to my dorm room and showering. My book hadn't arrived yet, so I took off, and biked as fast as possible to get home.
Around 5, I biked back over to school to pick up my books. I know over half of the words in the book, so I am going to try get moved up. Ambitious? Quite possibly, but I am going to do it anyway.
Later that night, I had told a friend I would go with him to this place called Snake Alley, but as soon as I actually did some research on the place, I decided against it. There are no pictures allowed in Snake Alley, and it is a place where they skin snakes alive in front of you, and then drain the fluids out for you so you can drink it. Really not sure that is my kind of place. So I decided to just go out to dinner with some of my friends.
We went to a Sichuan place, that was actually pretty good. There was a kid next to us that was probably 5 years old, and he already had a comb over. Like he was going bald. He was the oldest looking child that I have ever seen in my life. But it was a fantastic night. We ate dinner, had a shit ton of awesome food, and then went out exploring. A friend of a friend showed us where I could get some pictures for my gym ID, and where the good fruit places were. We also stopped in for some shaved ice, canned milk and fruit. It sounds weird, but oh my god, it was heavenly. Just the thing to have on a hot night.
At that point, I was so exhausted that I had to call it a night. I swear, I am never this social. It is amazing. Hoffman changed something.
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