Chinese New Year, or, That one really cold and rainy week sandwiched between two beautiful ones.

Chinese New Year in Taiwan is a time for work-weary Taiwanese to get back to their roots, visit family, and relax around a big table piled high with home cooked food. However, for us white folks it was a hard earned chance to get out and see some more of the island.

My trip began with a frantic taxi ride from Sansia to the nearest Subway station. I had arranged for a cab to meet me outside my school so as not to waste any time. When I boarded the subway I sent a text to Mark and Maddie letting them know I was going to arrive in Banciao in a few minutes.

We all arrived at our stated destination and the collective energy of the moment sent a buzz down my spine. Here we all were, about ready to head out on a beautiful week long trip to the south of the island so we could take in the sights, soak up some rays and drink a few beers while discovering some cultural nuances. There was just one hitch. Where's Caleb?

Caleb had ordered all of our bus tickets ahead of time to save us from having to find tickets the day of. What he did not mention was exactly how to get to the bus station, or where to find him. Also, Caleb is a firm believer in the idea that cell phones are for sissies and has opted not to buy one for Taiwan. This made things kind of difficult.

The only upshot of being completely lost and confused was the fact that I used my limited Chinese to successfully ask a police officer where the bus station was, only to have him reply that we were very close. This was all in Chinese, and after we found the bus station, and subsequently Caleb, I reflected on the fact that I'd just had my first successful conversation in Chinese. Limited as it was.

We settled into our luxurious seats with individual televisions and prepared ourselves for the 5-6 hour bus ride. Caleb, Mark and I had all experienced this same trip before on our vacation to Kenting so we knew the routine. These buses are amazing though, this is not some run-of-the-mill beater like a Greyhound bus back home; there are no dodgy looking homeless people scratching open sores and swearing under their breath in the corner. These are penthouse suites on wheels and it was not long before everyone was snoozing comfortably.

6 hours and a second bus ride later, we found ourselves in Chingyi, the city that our friend James calls home. We propositioned a completely untrustworthy looking taxi driver who used his own personal car, instead of a yellow taxi, to shuttle us to James' apartment. When we arrived, he characteristically ripped us off of about 500NT which we did not realize until he'd sped off. Happy New Year to you too, asshole.

We unloaded our gear at James' apartment and talked for a while before picking beds and rolling out our sleeping bags. Unfortunately I had to sleep next to Mark every night we stayed at James' apartment, as well as once in Kaohsiung. Mark is the type of person who would complain that a rainforest is too wet, a beer is too fizzy and a fork is too pokey. When he was born, he came out of the womb as docile as a lamb and took one look at the place and said "eh, I've seen better hospitals than this place, do you even have a legitimate degree?" The doctors were baffled, and tried desperately to shove him back in, but his mother would have none of it. Fortunately for him he has a British accent, so all of his negativity sounds comical and endearing to us Americans, which is the only reason we keep him around.

The next morning we woke up to a hazy sky with zero blue patches. We were less than thrilled, but we were not about to let an overcast day ruin our trip. We boarded a train to Tainan and took a long walking tour of the city where we were treated to some historically profound spots. Tainan is Taiwan's oldest city and was the capital at one point, it is for this reason that many people come here to steep in the cultural brew. Some highlights were a Confuncian temple with a centuries old banyan tree in the courtyard, a temple dedicated to five concubines and two eunuchs, and a city-block sized market catering to orchid enthusiasts.

After a long day of walking the city, we eventually found ourselves at the Tainan Peace Park where we relaxed in the defining feature of the area: a large covered area in middle of the lake that looked like it had been there for hundreds of years. It conjured images of samurai clashing swords in the mist while pan flutes chimed on in the background.

We caught the train back to Chingyi and fell asleep quickly and soundly, having exhausted ourselves thoroughly. This is excluding Mark, who apparently could not catch a wink of shuteye and listened to all of us sleep-talk instead. The highlight of which was Caleb's half Chinese, half English: "Due, due. How, how. Goooood Jooooob." (Correct, correct. Good, good. Good Job.) He explained in the morning that one of his students had drawn a very nice picture and he was giving her a sticker.

We had made a decision, the day before, that we would head to the beach (Tainan) if the weather was nice or head to the mountains (Ali-shan) if it was overcast again. We awoke to a warm, sunny morning and prepared at once to get out and experience this gift from the sky.

We made it back down to Tainan and caught a free (In other words, incredibly crowded) bus to An-Ping which is right on the coast. Here we toured a Dutch fort built in 1624 which was originally named "Fort Zeelandia." At the time of it's construction, it was on the edge of the water, but today it is not even possible to see the ocean from the highest vantage point in An-Ping. Caleb explained to us that this was because of "silting" and that we should all fear this inevitable fate.

After kicking around the fort for a while, we decided to head down to the massive, throbbing market outside it's gates. There were stalls of every conceivable type of candy and fried snack imaginable and we ate our way through the maze. Reaching the end, we caught a taxi to the beach and marveled at the Straight of Taiwan, a new body of water for me.

As it got dark and our legs had begun to grow sore from our limbo game, Mollee, a friend of Mark's, decided to call her Dad to pick us up. She assured us that we could spend the night at her Grandmother's house because no one was there. We gathered our junk and went to the edge of the road to wait for her Dad to pick us up, unsure of what Mollee's Grandmother's house was going to look like or whether or not this plan had been discussed with her parents.

Her dad drove up in a super compact Suzuki which could comfortably fit four people of average build. There were seven of us, not including her Dad. We packed ourselves in and garnered a lot of stares when we began piling out at the restaurant that her father drove us to. For once, the staring was legitimate.

We had a gigantic meal, as we had not ate anything but snacks all day, and when we went to pay for it her father picked up the bill. These Taiwanese... I tell ya'.

Our spirits were high after our big dinner and we were excited to get to Grandma's house.

Nothing could have prepared us for the opulence we were about to be welcomed into. Imagine five stories of marble floors, hard wood banisters that shone like polished silver, an elevator that we didn't even bother to mess with, a classy-modern kitchen, gigantic bedrooms with the first king-sized beds that I've seen in Taiwan and a shower that shot water at you from at least five different angles at once. We spent our first half an hour in the place with our mouths wide open.

Then we got some beer and booze at the local 7-11 and had ourselves a little party.

In the morning we cleaned up thoroughly and Mollee's Dad again picked us up and took us back to the beach. It was a beautiful day and we spent hours just laying about, swimming in the ocean, taking photos, hunting sea shells, playing with a Frisbee and reading in the sunshine. It was just what we were after since the beginning of our trip and we took full advantage of the leisurely pace we'd set for ourselves. The train back to Chingyi was never so lively.

The next morning we packed everything we'd brought with us and set off for Ali-Shan, shan meaning mountain in Mandarin. Finding all the buses were full, we grudgingly set off to find a taxi to the top. A man that we dubbed "shifty-lips" due to the fact that he looked even more suspect than our previous driver and that he had no chin to speak of, just a large lower lip that curved back gently into his neck, procured for us the finest taxi that we had seen thus far. We were all surprised that Shifty-lips had come through and couldn't believe our good luck.

What we didn't know was that our driver was a maniacal ex race-car driver who specialized in climbing mountains. We were treated to a somewhat terrifying trip up the side of the mountain on tiny two lane roads which our driver sped up with careless abandon. "Oh look, a blind curve with a brain scrambling drop on the side of it, we should probably pass this car in front of us despite the double yellow lines and potential of oncoming traffic around the nearly 180 degree turn." Many times we would come around a corner and find that a recent landslide had torn through the roadway and left a small sliver of boulder-strewn asphalt for us to navigate. Also, some of the most dangerous corners had no guard rail to speak of.

When we weren't shitting ourselves with fear, we snapped photos of the mountains peaking out through the clouds and tea farms on the edge of cliffs. It was truly breathtaking watching the sea of clouds whirl around below us as the tree covered cliffs began to appear out of the mist. We arrived at our hotel and took a moment to kiss the ground before heading inside to find our accommodations.

We were shown to a small, but well appointed room with three beds for the six of us. We wearily set down our packs and set out to explore. Caleb and I went off into the wilderness to get some hiking under our belts while the rest of the group checked out the shops.

The mountain was home to some of the oldest trees in Taiwan. There were placards at the base of many of the large trees which gave an estimated age of between 1,000 and 2,500 years old. We marveled at their girth and eventually found a small stream bed that took us deep into the forest. I was surprised to find that it looked and felt much like the mountains back home. The trees were a species of cypress found only in Taiwan, but they had the same characteristics of the trees in Washington.

We found some remarkable areas for photographs and scrambled around the slippery rocks with determined smiles on our faces.

Upon meeting up with the group, it was decided that a big dinner was in order. We found a relatively cheap place to eat and had a meal that would have fed twice as many people very easily.

The reason people come to Ali-Shan is for the famous sunrise. It is one of the highest peaks on the island and when you reach the top, you can see for many miles. It is considered foolish, borderline unthinkable, to go to the top and not stay for a sunrise. The hotel provided a shuttle from our place of lodging to the top for 300NT but it was only about an hour and a half walk, so Caleb and I decided to save ourselves the money and burn off our meals.

We woke up at 3AM and tried not to disturb the others who had decided to take the shuttle which would pick them up at 5:30. Hiking at these altitudes leaves you winded a lot sooner than what I'm used to. We were huffing and puffing our way up the mountain in a steady drizzle and increasingly worrying winds.

We got to the top a lot faster than we'd thought, and realized quite suddenly that being on top of Ali-Shan during a rain storm was no picnic. It was pouring down rain at this point and the wind gusts were getting nasty. We scrambled for shelter in the form of a men's-room where we shivered in our wet clothes and discussed music interests.

As the pre-dawn light began to creep over the top of the trees we rushed outside expectantly, hoping to catch a glimpse of the sunrise that we had paid so dearly for. It was still very foggy, with visibility at about fifty yards, and we crossed a barrier of yellow caution tape to stand at the look-out and wait for the sun to come up.

The reason this area was cordoned off was because of a landslide the year prior that came up to the edge of where we were now standing and took up an area of roughly five football fields. We didn't know this, and we waited expectantly, thinking that our friends would be along any minute.

One person did come, a guy about our age from Michigan who had been to Ali-Shan once before and was eager to see the sunrise again. He was a student at a University in Taipei and had a strong understanding of Mandarin. We waited for about twenty minutes and finally, our efforts were paying off.

Our vantage point gave us a panoramic view of an immense valley. Across from us stood the highest peak in all of southern Asia, Yu-Shan. The sun was beginning to force it's beams through the haze over the top of Yu-Shan and the whole mountain began to glow with a pink-orange light. We stood transfixed as the beauty of this moment that we'd waited so long for came into full effect.

It was at this point that we were kicked out.

No less than five minutes after the sun had began to peak out over the mountain, a security team came up to force us to leave the only place where the sunrise was suitably viewable. Our friend from Michigan pleaded in Mandarin and things got heated for a little while. They eventually agreed to let us stand for another ten minutes to watch the sunrise, but after that we had to get moving.

Our ten minutes came and went, and we were forced back down the mountain grumbling at our luck.

When we got home, we jumped back in bed and set an alarm for 11:30 to sleep off our frustration. We awoke to a room filled with our friends who had an equally unsuccessful sunrise viewing, but their trip was saved by a visit from some wild monkeys who inhabited the mountain.

We rolled out of bed to meet our 12pm check-out time and set off to find some food and hot drinks. Jess, Maddie, Mark and James had met a man named Peter who treated them to tea the day before while they checked out the shops, and they suggested we go back to hang out with him again.

Peter is an Ali-Shan native who has been living on the mountain his entire life and has been in the tea business for over thirty years. He began in his twenties as a worker on a local tea farm and eventually bought his own farm a few years later. It was this farm that the tea we drank came from.

We sat like children before a master as he explained to us the proper way to enjoy a cup of tea. Repeatedly filling our shot-glass sized cups with delicious green tea. He explained the technique in farming, the mysteries behind the perfect temperature and times to steep the leaves and left us with a far greater appreciation of those little leaves than we could ever have thought possible.

We made it back to James' apartment at about midnight and decided to enjoy ourselves at the local bar. We were treated to a free round by some locals and played endless drinking games into the wee hours of the morning. Our night ended with a philosophical discussion of a topic that I cannot recall that was hotly debated on all sides.

Rolling out of bed before 1pm the next morning was a difficult task. We made up our minds to head to Guanziling for a day of relaxation in the town's famous hot springs.

We soaked for hours in the mineral rich pools alongside many Taiwanese families who were brave enough to dip their naked babies in the steaming water. The boiling waters could not have been more welcome to us after our stay on Ali-Shan and we stayed in until our hands and feet were well beyond wrinkled with excess water retention.

After our extended bath, it was time to find some local fare. The area is known for a special chicken dish which they serve to you whole, as in an entire chicken with it's head and feet still attached. We sat down hungrily and ordered two chickens, one for Caleb and I, and one for Mark and James. The server looked a little distraught and asked if we were sure we wanted two whole chickens. We explained that we were very hungry and that at least two would be needed.

After they chased some chickens down out back, truly, they began preparing our feast. When it arrived, we weren't sure how to go about piecing it out. The bird came with two work gloves and two plastic gloves with which you were supposed to tear it apart with your hands. We didn't know what to make of it and after a few moments our server grabbed the gloves and dug in for us. She ripped the head off in one fell swoop, reached around to the back and yanked off the claw-tipped feet and began tearing apart the middle with a motion that Caleb later likened to someone rubbing shampoo into their scalp.

That first taste. It's hard to describe. I can only think to explain it like a flavor grenade going off in your mouth. Hands down the best chicken I have ever had near my face, I do not think that I'll ever be able to taste better as long as I live. I don't know what they do to those birds, but I imagine that when they hatch, a worker is there to place a syringe in the newborn chicks mouth filled with seasoned oil which it happily sucks down. As it grows older and fatter on a diet of the finest quality grain gathered from across the globe, the owners continue to massage the animal to make it's meat as tender as possible. These are no work chickens either, they are treated to all the amenities that the chicken-handler has at it's disposal: chicken sized lounge-chair, afternoon walks in the park, after dinner bath in fine oils from Italy and beyond. These guys never lifted a wing in their lives. It is after this life of pleasantry that they are boiled and turned slowly on a spit over a sizzling fire before being brought out upon our plates.

We ordered 3.

James called his friend Marian to pick us up and bring us back to Chingyi after our unbelievably satisfying meal. When we got back to town, Marian's father invited us over for tea and we gladly accepted. It was my first invitation into a Taiwanese home, barring our visit to the unoccupied mansion, and we were all excited to meet Marian's family. Marian's mother brought us plates piled high with freshly cut fruit and candies. Though we'd just gorged ourselves, we dug in so as not to seem impolite.

We eventually got back to James' apartment at around 1AM and discussed plans of going to Kaohsiung the following morning.

Kaohsiung is Taiwan's second largest city and is the largest port on the island. Nearly all of Taiwan's trade with China goes into or out of this city. We stayed with some friends of Jess who happened to be in town on our last day of the trip. They had just come home from a week in Thailand and were happy to open their doors to five strangers and an old friend.

They had told us about a bar called The Brickyard where free drinks were served from 9pm-11pm with a 250NT cover charge. We were sold and after another big dinner, we headed down to the bar for many rounds of vodka cranberries and whiskey cokes.

The dance floor was empty when we got there, but we changed that. We flooded the place with our spastic dance moves that increased in extravagance as the clocked ticked down to 11pm. It was at this time that Caleb, while performing what must have been one of the most powerful moves in his arsenal, wrenched his knee badly effectively ending his night. We got back to the apartment around 4:30 in the morning and I was forced to share the couch with Mark, again, and we slumbered uneasily until late into the afternoon.

By now it was Saturday morning, our week had come and gone and we were visibly sated. We gathered our belongings once more and said goodbye to our cheerful new friends and boarded a seven hour bus ride back to Taipei.

All in all, a trip to remember. Though I've never had a Chinese New Year before, I think that this would have been a standout no matter how many I had experienced before. It wasn't because we did anything completely out of the ordinary, but rather the fact that our time together was at times relaxing, enlightening and all together life changing. Our bond as friends became stronger and our memories will last us a lifetime.


(On a side note: I actually love hanging out with Mark. After reading my post I realized that I did not say anything nice about him, which is because of the nature of our friendship, which is based on a mutual understanding that the worse we talk about each other, the more highly we think of each other.)