Green Island

This past weekend we left our professors behind and just us kids ventured out on an adventure to Green Island. Overall, the trip was amazing! We didn't go to our elementary school on Friday so that we could get early train tickets. After 4 hrs on the train, we took taxis to our hotel in Tai-tung and chowed down on some McDonalds. The next morning we woke up (had McDonalds for breakfast of course) and taxi drivers came to pick us up to take us to the Ferry.

The ferry ride over to the island was almost an hour long. I saw dolphins out in the ocean, it was very beautiful. I was fine until the last 20 minutes or so. One of the girls in our group began throwing up and for some reason when I see/hear/smell someone else getting sick my body tells me I should do it too. I was able to hold in there for the last 20 minutes of the boat trip, but I felt terrible.

When we got to the island, it was all worth it. It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! The island was formed by volcanos so there are tall mountains & black beaches. The contrast of the tall, tropical mountains and the crashing Pacific Ocean was breath-taking. This was honestly the most beautiful place I have ever been in my life, and I've seen a lot of wonderful places. We couldn't have asked for a better day. Kyle had a moped he drove around and us girls had a golf-cart to tour the island. On Saturday we went to the hot springs. It is one of only three natural hot salt water springs in the world. It was wonderful!!! It is the "off-season" on the island (since it is there winter) and nearly everyone had left to go to the mainland to vote in elections, so we had the whole place practically to ourselves. Kyle and Sam went snorkeling, they said all the beautiful fishes were amazing. It's crazy to think there is so much going on out there in the ocean that we can't even see. We had tickets to a restaurant on the island called....(you guessed it) "Fisherman" I was really proud of us. We began to order. We ordered 4 things of fried rice, 2 things of fried noodles, 3 orders of kung pas chicken, and 2 orders of boiled shrimp. We did NOT realize that one order of something is the equivalent of 3 helpings. Needless to say we had WAY too much food, but we did a good job eating most of it. The Chinese people at the next table were staring at us when we first got our food, but we impressed them with our chopsticking eating skills.

We were the only ones staying in our hotel. It was actually called a Boutique....which I'm guessing is like a little Inn. The owner, Jack, was there and we "partied" with him Saturday night since there wasn't much else to do on the island. It was kind of weird how there were no other people staying there. All the other rooms were empty, yet 6 of us were in one little room with 3 double beds. Later that night Kyle took me on a moped ride around the whole island (it only took about 40 minutes to get all the way around on the moped).

When we woke up Sunday morning the wind was outrageous. We could hear it howling loudly from outside our window. When we went outside it nearly blew us over. We decided we wanted to take a tour all the way around the island in our golf cart before our ferry left at 2:30. The 5 of us girls climbed into the golf cart, we made it all the way around to a big hill which we had to go up. We began to go up the hill and then we heard a loud pop. The next thing we knew the golf cart was smoking and we couldn't go anymore. We began to push it up the hill. Then we had to turn it around and go back down the hill, because it was obvious we weren't going to make it. We pushed it to the bottom of the hill and then began to walk home. We had to walk for almost an hour. We didn't tell Jack that it "broke" because of the hill....we just said it broke down at the bottom of the hill. We didn't want to get in trouble for trying to take it up the hill!

The wind continued the whole morning and then a TERRIBLE rainstorm began. I honestly thought the ferry would not run, based on the MAMMOTH waves. When I asked Jack he said the ferry always runs unless there is a typhoon. I'm not exactly sure what the EXACT definition of a typhoon is, but I'm pretty sure we were experiencing one. A van came to take us to the ferry, when we went to get on the line was huge. We had to stand in a TERRIBLE downpour for at least 15 minutes. I can honestly say I don't think I've EVER been that wet in my life. The ferry was packed with people heading back to mainland Taiwan. I would say probably around 80 or 90 people. The waves were huge and I was really thinking I would never make it home alive. The waves would take the boat up so high and then it would come crashing down. The water would completely come up and cover the boat. I was more scared about us sinking than anything. Of course with outrageous waves like this people began to get sick. Out of the 80 or so passengers I would say at least 50 people were throwing up. I'm not talking quietly vomiting, like screaming in pain. It was so disgusting. The woman behind me was the worst and I could smell it. The real kicker was when I looked over and the man right next to me was throwing up in his bag. I know this might be a little graphic, but imagine how terrible this was! It was so hard for me not to get sick on that boat ride. It was honestly one of the longest 55 minutes in my life. I turned up my music so loud. Erin was covering her ears and humming. Tierney was saying the "Our Father" over and over. BUT, I was very proud of us 6, we were in the very small minority of people who did NOT throw up. As we went to exit the boat nearly everyone was carrying a little clear bag of vomit, like a souvenior.

We made it back to Tainan. I never thought I would be so excited to see my rock hard mattress and our little church. Sunday was quite an adventure, but overall the trip was amazing. This weekend trip definitely made the overall Taiwan trip much better!