Life is a Highway . . . I Wanna Ride It . . .

. . . on a SCOOTER!!! Okay, so my getaways to Kenting and Taroko Gorge were phenomenal. Seriously, I had absolutely NO idea Taiwan was hiding such gorgeous scenery. Hawaii-Schmawaii . . . Who needs Hawaii when you can have Kenting?! (Actually, I cannot fairly compare Kenting to Hawaii because I have never been to Hawaii. Let's try again.) Florida-Schmlorida . . . Who needs Florida when you can have Kenting! Ah, who am I kidding . . . it was the scootering that made me smile the most!

Oh, what fun! So, let's go back a bit. The last most of you heard was that I was heading off to Taichung for some professional development days. From there, I would be heading to Kaoishung followed by Kenting and then Taroko Gorge and finally back to Taipei. To add drama to the events, there was a mighty big typhoon heading toward Taiwan . . . That's where I left it . . . Well, I survived the typhoon, although it really was a pretty serious one. I heard that Taipei had not been hit by a typhoon that large for about 40 years. Things were pretty stormy up north. I, however, was not up north. I was down south.

It defintiely was VERY windy and rainy in Taichung. Half of the last PD day was cancelled so that Taipei teachers could head home. Instead of taking a bus, they all took the High Speed Rail. Rebecca, Amanda, and I hitched a ride with the Kaoishung teachers on their bus. We stayed in the Knutson's gorgeous apartment (Thanks, Kris and Marion!) and ate their chicken nuggets and ice cream bars while watching movies on HBO (TV is a treat! I don't have cable at my house--just a DVD player).

Sunday morning, Amanda called a cab, and we drove into town to the bus station. We caught a bus to Kenting and spent the next couple of hours enjoying the scenery. The rain ended, and although still windy, it was definitely getting brighter. We had a hotel booked (Thanks, Sandra!), but we had no idea of its name or address, so we had NO IDEA where to get off the bus. Sandra sent a text message with all the information, so we traipsed through some local businesses to see if anyone could tell us where we needed to go. Finally, someone at the hostel offered to drive us to the hotel for 200NT because it would be a 4km walk and we had luggage. Since there were no taxis in Kenting, we thankfully took him up on his offer.

Our hotel was on the outskirts of Kenting town. It was directly across from this big rock in the ocean that is sometimes called "Nixon Rock" because it's supposed to look like Richard Nixon (I can't see it . . .). I guess a fun pastime is to jump off of his chin. Anyway, our hotel room faced the ocean and we had a balcony! It was absolutely lovely:) The town was pretty much dead because of the typhoon, so we had almost everything to ourselves.

It soon became apparent that we would need some sort of transportation if we actually wanted to see anything in Kenting, so we decided to rent scooters. Now, I'm not sure if you've ever rented some type of sporting equipment in the states. If you have, think through the process. You usually have to provide a credit card, your driver's license, insurance card, etc. and sign a liability waiver, etc. Essentially, you spend about a half hour and a lot of money just getting all the paperwork together. Okay, so here's how it worked in Kenting. We asked the lady in the hotel lobby (using Chinglish-combo of Chinese and English:) where we could rent a scooter. She sent us down the street with a man from the hotel. He pounded on the door of another hotel, and we were met by another man. Man #2 led us into a garage-type area with a few scooters and pounded/shouted at another door. A few minutes later, a very tired-looking Man #3 sat down at a desk, lit up a cigarette, and said a bunch of things in Chinese. He wrote a few things down and had Amanda sign her name. We handed over our money (about $13 each for a days rental), got on the scooters, and rode off toward the gas station. That was it. . . Seriously!!!!

Oh, it was so fun! We rode all over the penninsula. We took EVERY little road that we saw! On the first day, we made it to the Southern Most Point of Taiwan and to this really interesting coral coastline. Supposedly, some of the formations looked like animals, but I didn't see it! We even did a little off-roading:) At the end of the day, we stopped for dinner and decided that we must rent the scooters for one more day, so we had the lady at the hotel call, and we got a discount for the next day's rental . . . it was awesome:) The next day, we rode some more and found our way to the nuclear power plant and the harbor. Honestly, we just saw so many things, they're all starting to blend together! One of the more amusing sights was watching a Ghepherd (you know, a shepherd for goats:) herding her goats through a Taiwanese cemetery from the back of her scooter. How cool is that! After a sunset walk on the beach and another dinner in town, we sadly returned our scooters and headed to bed. On day 3, we hung out at the beach (it was downright HOT when the sun finally came out!), and I had a great time beachcombing (I found some awesome little coral pieces and interesting shells!). I also spent some quality time with two little hermit crabs that I found wandering the beach! They were soooooo cute . . . much cuter than the dead spiny puffer fish we found washed up earlier.

Anyway, Kenting was absolutely lovely. We still have much to see! We didn't even go into the actual National Park (it was closed due to the typhoon), so I will definitely need to return:) There is a missionary retreat center not far from Kenting that would be fun to visit. The accommodations are pretty inexpensive, but it is rather far from the actual town . . . perhaps just another opportunity for some scootering!