I had such wonderful plans today

I was going to get up. I set my alarm for 12, I was going to get up, mess around a bit, and then go running. No plan with the running, just run. Probably north, towards Marietta square. I seem to remember sidewalks going that way. So I set my alarm and was ready to go. But my bowels had ideas of their own.

I haven't put food into my system since about 11 last night. I haven't put water into my system since 7 am. When my alarm went off at 12, I went to the bathroom, stayed in the bathroom, and then decided that my bowels didn't really want me moving too much, so I went and laid back down. I've been laying here since, with periodic trips Back to the bathroom. It's after 4 now. I've been in bed 14 hours and still, I'm scared to eat, I'm scared to drink. And I feel cold. It's not cold here, but I feel cold.

I hate being sick.

So, here. Have a happy write up of the rest of our Taiwan Adventour.

Monday August 4th.

Relocated to Taichung. Had ISSUES finding the hotel, thanks to the Great Idea that Lonely Planet seems to have by giving us maps in our guide book in English (or Pinying), but not in the native writing system. But we got there, and it reeked of the 70s, but they were very friendly and took care of us, and had a laundry service, which was a godsend.

After settling in for a bit, we got ourselves up and buses back to the station, so that we could bus to the 1st Big Buddha. This one was all gold (although he needed a bit of work) and was the biggest laughing-style buddha in Taiwan. He was 22 meters high and completely tucked in around this neighborhood. Just right there amidst other random buildings. Other people have made comments that this takes away from the Buddha pilgrimage experience. I disagree. To me, that seemed like Taiwan written all over it. I mean, the temples themselves here are just tucked into the middle of the strip mall style sidewalks. Shoes, Clothing, Bags, Temple, Tea Shop, Stamp Shop--that's the norm. So having a giant Buddha tucked between old apartment buildings, normal.

We walked most of the way back to the hotel, caught a cab, rested, and then went out to dinner at this awesome noddle house, but still couldn't really read the menu, so we had noodles with beef again. But Oh! the beef was divine.

Tuesday August 5th.

We decided to forgo the bus that morning and took a taxi to the train station (by about this time in the trip actually remembering what "train station" was in horribly wrong Chinese), got a train to Chung Hua (about 15 minutes), and then a bus to the big buddha there. This one had a whole park around it, lovely place for walking, biking, doing taichi (we saw people doing it), fountains, and then on the top(ish) of the mountain, was the Buddha. He was pretty cool. And we could go inside and see all of the different stages of Buddha's life, in kinda creepy statues. That was pretty neat.

Then it was back down the mountain, back to the train station-ish, a brief stop in McDonald's for lunch, then across the street to catch a bus to take us to Lukang, where we couldn't find a single taxi until we were almost to the temple. The map we had was WRONG (like the roads didn't actually DO that dood), it started to pour down rain, and it was just not really cool until we found the temple, built in the 1600s which almost made it worth the trip. Although I think I disagree that it's "totally worth the side trip." Things like, "there are no taxis in this town" would have been good to know ahead of time. Stupid book.

But the day was saved when Chris was reading the signs and found a bus that would take us directly back to Taichung for about the same price as the buses and train back to Taichung through Chung Hua. Go Chris. And we found more bubble tea, which always makes it better.

For dinner we tried to go to the Japanese restaurant, but failed as the menu started around $30 (USD) so we went across the street to a place that a lot of locals seemed to like, nearly cried over the incomprehensible menu for about 15 minutes, then went up to the counter, and (thank god) found a woman who spoke english who could understand that all we wanted was something with rice, and veg, no meat. They asked if we were vegetarian, and I said no, but I didn't have the mental capacity to explain that we were just sick of only ordering beef. What they came out with was wonderful and perfect, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't actually on the menu. It was awesome.

Wednesday August 6th

Taxi to station, train to Taipei. We had the trains down. We knew the procedure and had it all fixed.

We got out, went back to the cheap hotel we got the first night in Taipei (they were actually There this time), got our same room where the a/c seemed to have broken in the last week, but whatever. We had icecream and pita from this wonderful pita place in the train station, and all was right with the world.

Thursday, August 7th

Every day we woke up in Taipei we had pitas for breakfast. I'm not gonna keep saying it.

We took the subway and a bus up to see the National Palace museum, and thank God that we missed the English tour. When they say that they have a TON of artifacts stolen from China, and that what they're displaying is only a small portion of the real collection, I live in FEAR of the storage costs. We ran into the English tour. Around about 2pm, the English tour started at 10am. I feel so sorry for those people. By the third floor, Curi and I were just glancing at things and only really looking at the stuff that caught our eyes, there was just that much of it.

Dinner that night was some lovely pastries from a Japanese bakery, which we had to get totally lost in the underbelly of the Taipei Main Station to find, but we did.

Friday, August 8th

This day we looked at each other and said no. We were suppose to go out to the tea gardens and drink tea in this awesome senery and lovely atmosphere, and just no. We couldn't do it. We found a movie theature (which was a bit of an adventour in and of itself, but really just asking about 6 people where the dang thing was) and watched Brendon Fraiser in the Mummy 3. Which was an awesome Mummy movie, you just have to have your expectations in the right place. They actually said it themselves in the very beginning, they'd contracted for 3, so this was it. Don't expect much. And with expectations low, it was pretty good.

This was also the day that I bought my jade buddha bead. it's got a small hole in the top of it, so it can be set in a necklace pretty easily. I would have been kicking myself if I hadn't bought one, so I'm glad.

Saturday, August 9th.

Breakfast again, then bus to the airport. The flight was pretty nice, we got into Tokyo on time, even after being delayed a bit, and found long term storage for our heavy heavy bags, which was just AWESOME. Much less encombered we FINALLY met up with Marnie, got dinner, and crashed.

Sunday - Wednesday, August 10th through 13th.

I don't really remember these days very well. I know we went to Harujuku to a specialty lunch shop (which was AWESOME), and I bought a new bag (which I love), I know we went to Shinjuku to be blessed by Marnie's favorite monk (that felt awesome, TONS of good juju), we went to Asakusa and got my DS, games, and some cds, we had to go back to Asakusa because of issues, but that was okay. And other than that, I can't really remember right now what we did. I *think* that was it, but if the other two remember something I didn't, let me know.

I know we cut off our phones like around 5 on Tuesday, and we hadn't heard from Jyn by that time, so I assumed that she was stuck studying, we didn't get a chance to meet up with her, which kinda sucked. Didn't get a chance to meet up with Tiffany either.

Then, on Wednesday, we got up early, got ourselves to Tokyo to go back to Narita, to collect both of our bags, check in, get really upset at the lady at the counter because the system had our seats wrong, but we ended up together, with barely enough down time to go to the gate, and buy supplies for the flight before boarding. Then the 12 hour flight. Fun times. We watched Iron Man, read a bunch, I watched Spiderwyck, played video games, had one of the rudest stewardesses ever, and stayed up the entire time.

We deplaned, had fun with the Atlanta security of stupidity, were met by our loving families (with signs and balloons :D ), found ALL of our luggage 8D, and were taken home to showers before going out to see Dark Knight (NOBODY SPOILED ME!!! WOOOOOO!!!! I MADE IT!!!!!), which was . . . I need to see it again when I haven't been up for 26 hours to decide. By the end of it I was awake for 29 hours straight, and then crashed. I think that was my record. Ever.

So, there you go. I'll get pictures up. Sometime. I'd prefer not to do uploading on wireless, and that's all I got on the laptop right now.

Cheers.

Oh, but have some stats.

Since leaving the United States, I was gone for one year, two weeks, and six days. During that time I read, in completion, 112 books, 9 of which were in the last two and a half weeks since I'd left Miyako. Go me. I hit over one hundred.