THE TIME IS UPON US.

In about 12 hours, I'll be leaving for the airport to fly to San Francisco, and then from there to Incheon Airport.  I've been pushed for time the past week since I've been trying to finish reading my books before I left.  I managed to get through four novels, so that was a success.  Unfortunately, there's still a shit ton left for me to do.  There was also a little scare today about my flight getting canceled due to a mechanical issue on the plane.  That's been resolved though by getting on an earlier flight.  Now I'm leaving LAX at 7:00 in the morning.  It's not that very far from right now, but I'm going to have a long night ahead of me.

Longshan Temple

A statue in Taroko Gorge

Scooters in Taiwan

Scooters are everywhere in Taiwan.  It's pretty ridiculous.  You see everyone riding them, women, the elderly, even entire families of four crammed onto one scooter.  While in Hualien, Evan and I tried to rent one so we could take it up to Taroko Gorge.  This might not have been the smartest idea, since neither of us has ever driven one, but it's not like it's rocket science.  Anyway, the manager of the hostel was a nice dude and took us to the only place that rents scooters to foreigners without international driver's licenses in Hualien.  When we got there, the lady was willing to rent them to us, but she wanted to test if we could ride them first.  Evan, still hungover from the night before, pointed to me and said that I'd take the test.  Of course, I calmly strapped on a helmet and acted like it ain't no thang, while the guy from the hostel was telling me how to brake (which I already knew).  So I hop on the scooter and the rental lady says something to me in Chinese.  I just nodded and said, "Around the block?"  Then I start to pull out of the garage and she just starts yelling in Chinese.  I stop and all she said was, "No."  It was a pretty sad experience because I didn't even get onto the street.  The day turned out alright though.  We ended up renting regular bicycles instead.

Hualien

Hualien is a city on the east coast of Taiwan.  It depends on which train you take, but it's about two to four hours from Taipei.  Initially, Evan and I only planned on staying two days, but we liked the city so much and we were just lazy to go somewhere else, we ended up staying four days.  During the four days, we did quite a bit of random stuff.  The first day we ended up renting bikes and just exploring the city.

Here are the two bikes we rented poorly locked to a bench in the middle of nowhere.  Since it is on the coast, Hualien has access to beaches, although none of them extraordinary.  We even managed to find the ocean while riding our bikes around Hualien.

This is the view from Jici Beach, which is a 90 minute bus ride away from the city of Hualien.  It's alright.  The travel book said that it was one of the few swimmable beaches in Taiwan.  However, it is in the middle of nowhere and doesn't have a place to eat.  You could take surf lessons though.

This is an entrance to Taroko Gorge.  There's a free shuttle to different destinations within the gorge that's offered by the city, but we hired a cab to take us and drive us to all the spots.  It was a great choice since we saw a whole lot in a shorter amount of time and it cost about $12 USD.

In general, Hualien is nice small city.  Even though I'm not particularly fond of nature things, the natural attractions surrounding the city were impressive.

The Taipei Zoo

First of all, I'm going to have to say that I love zoos.  I really do.  Going to the Taipei Zoo might be the most memorable part of the trip.  There's nothing in the world that makes me feel like a human being than seeing animals in captivity.  Nothing.  The fact that the Taipei Zoo is the largest in Asia also helps.

These are the signs for the zoo right off the conveniently located Taipei Zoo subway stop.

The zoo has animals from all over the world, including this zebra.  A nice surprise was seeing American animals, like the brown bear and the otter.

One of the coolest exhibits in the zoo was the butterfly exhibit.  The entire thing was a greenhouse that you could walk through and butterflies were everywhere you looked.

However, the coolest thing to see in the zoo was the pandas.  I've never seen any before.  In person, they sort of look artificial, like they were animatronic.  However, they were fucking badasses.  For one thing, all they did was sit and eat shit.  After that, they took a nap while hundreds of people were watching them.

The zoo's so big and it was a pretty hot day when we went, so we didn't make it around to seeing every animal, but I would definitely recommend the zoo to anyone visiting Taiwan.

The Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial

The first thing we did in when we got to Taipei was go to this memorial.  Sadly, I don't really know anything about Chiang Kai-Shek but this is his memorial.

You might not be able to tell from the picture, but it's four stories up from the base to the entrance.  It was a bitch to walk up in the heat and it was sad when we found out there was an elevator that we could have taken.

This is the statue that sits inside the structure.  I think it's weird that he's smiling.

I'm leaving Taiwan tomorrow.

It's currently my last night in Taiwan.  I've really enjoyed my time here but I'm excited to be getting back home.  There's currently a lot of shit that I need to take care of, like summer camp and FINDING A FUCKING JOB(!).  For now though, I'll just enjoy my last night.

Taiwan's cool.

I'm updating from my hostel in Taipei right now.  I've done tons of shit in the two days that I've been here.  I've even seen some fucking pandas.  Tomorrow I'm leaving Taipei for a few days in another city.  I'm not actually sure which one, but Evan knows, so it's alright.  Not sure if the next hostel will have a computer that I can use, but I'll try to update when I can.

I'm leaving for Taiwan.

It's a little past 1AM and I've just finished packing.  I'm going to grab what sleep I can before I have to wake up in five hours to leave for the airport.  I just looked over a bunch of shit about Taiwan and I'm pretty excited.  I don't really have an exact idea what I'll be doing there, but it'll be alright.  I'm not bringing my laptop and I probably won't have much time in front of a computer, but I'll see what I can do.  If anything, see you next week.